California grew to become the biggest U.S. state to ban flavored tobacco merchandise on Tuesday, the Related Press studies, with voters upholding a legislation that restricts the sale of merchandise together with menthol cigarettes and fruit-flavored vaping liquids.
As of Wednesday morning, 41% of Californians’ ballots had been counted. Inside that group, nearly two-thirds voted in favor of the ban, in response to the Related Press, which was sufficient to declare a win. The coverage doesn’t apply to hookah, premium cigars, or loose-leaf tobacco.
It was a protracted and costly street to succeed in that end result. California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a invoice banning the sale of flavored tobacco in 2020, however it was met with robust pushback from the tobacco trade. Greater than 620,000 verified voters signed on to a Huge Tobacco-backed initiative to reverse the legislation, touchdown the problem on ballots this yr as Proposition 31. Voters might both decide to uphold or repeal the legislation.
Massachusetts grew to become the primary U.S. state to ban flavored-tobacco gross sales in 2019, and a number of other different states—together with New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island—have positioned comparable restrictions on some flavored merchandise. Traditionally, California has favored tobacco regulation. In 2019, San Francisco grew to become the primary U.S. metropolis to ban vaping merchandise, and the cities of Beverly Hills and Manhattan Seaside have since outlawed nearly all tobacco gross sales—flavored or unflavored.
Nonetheless, Proposition 31 turned the nation’s most populous state right into a battleground. Tobacco firms together with Philip Morris USA and R.J. Reynolds reportedly spent greater than $20 million on their marketing campaign to reverse the ban—a determine dwarfed by the funding supplied by billionaire anti-tobacco advocate Michael Bloomberg in help of the legislation. In keeping with Politico, Bloomberg personally contributed many of the $71 million spent in help of the ban.
Bloomberg and different anti-tobacco advocates have fought for years to restrict the provision of flavored tobacco. They notched an enormous win earlier this yr, when the U.S. Meals and Drug Administration introduced its intent to ban the sale of menthol cigarettes, citing their function in hooking new people who smoke and conserving present customers addicted. However opponents argue that menthol bans solely push customers to non-flavored tobacco merchandise and will add to discriminatory policing points, since menthol cigarettes are disproportionately utilized by Black Individuals.
There’s additionally loads of debate over the function of flavors in e-cigarettes. Taste-ban proponents level to knowledge that present underage vapers overwhelmingly select flavored merchandise as an alternative of people who style like tobacco. They argue that prohibiting flavored vaping liquids might dissuade younger folks from selecting up the behavior and probably changing into hooked on nicotine. In the meantime, some researchers and vaping advocates word that adults who use e-cigarettes to transition away from lethal flamable cigarettes additionally like flavored merchandise and may not make the change if palatable flavors weren’t accessible.
Extra Election Protection From TIME