Californians voted overwhelmingly to uphold a ban on flavored tobacco merchandise — together with e-cigarettes. Anti-smoking advocates hope extra states and federal regulators will comply with.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Californians this week voted to uphold the state’s ban on all flavored tobacco merchandise. NPR’s Yuki Noguchi stories, anti-smoking advocates hope extra states and federal regulators will comply with.
YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: The state’s taste ban consists of e-cigarettes, which have skyrocketed in reputation amongst youngsters. For a number of years round 2010, younger individuals had largely stopped smoking. Tobacco use fell quickly from over a 3rd of teenagers to about 5%. Then the arrival and advertising of vaping reversed that. Matt Myers says tobacco flavors like strawberry cheesecake and cotton sweet launched a brand new era to nicotine.
MATT MYERS: Flavors hook children. Eighty-five p.c of youngsters who use e-cigarettes use flavored e-cigarettes.
NOGUCHI: Myers is president of the Marketing campaign for Tobacco-Free Children. He says California’s ban will hamper the tobacco business’s means to market to younger individuals and the Black group, which he says have been disproportionately focused by the advertising of flavored merchandise.
MYERS: The overwhelming measurement of the California vote, I believe, will ship a message to different states and hopefully to the Meals and Drug Administration.
NOGUCHI: Massachusetts and Washington, D.C., have already adopted measures like California’s. The FDA is present process intensive evaluate of all e-cigarette merchandise and is requiring approval for them to stay available on the market. Final month, the company rejected its first menthol e-cigarette product. Actually, regulators all world wide are turning towards flavored tobacco. The European Union, the U.Okay. and Canada have eliminated menthol from their markets. Robert Jackler is a professor at Stanford and skilled on tobacco advertising. He says flavors entice youngsters to tobacco by decreasing its harsh style, which makes it simpler to grow to be hooked on nicotine.
ROBERT JACKLER: Though there are some adults who may like cotton candy-flavored e-cigarettes – that is true – there is a main differential enchantment to younger individuals for candy and fruity flavors.
NOGUCHI: Jackler hopes regulators may even scale back the focus of nicotine in e-cigarettes and tax them closely to make them unaffordable for youths. California’s legislation, which additionally impacts menthol cigarettes, will take impact shortly after the vote is licensed.
Yuki Noguchi, NPR Information.
Copyright © 2022 NPR. All rights reserved. Go to our web site phrases of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for additional info.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This textual content might not be in its closing kind and could also be up to date or revised sooner or later. Accuracy and availability could range. The authoritative report of NPR’s programming is the audio report.