Bill Would Make Massachusetts First In US To Ban Flavored Tobacco Products
The Legislature is also considering an excise tax on e-cigarettes
Invoking comparisons to the “Joe Camel” campaign that critics accused R.J. Reynolds of using to entice young smokers in the past, supporters of the bill claim the flavored pods have been aggressively marketed to minors by the industry, helping to fuel a surge of adolescent vaping that the higher legal age for tobacco purchases has so far done little to abate.
“We know that for every adult that picks up an e-cigarette device, six youths are getting their hands on it,” said Rep. Danielle Gregoire, a Marlborough Democrat.
Gregoire and Democratic Sen. John Keenan, of Quincy, are the lead sponsors of the legislation that, if passed, would make Massachusetts the first state to outlaw sales of flavored tobacco products. Hawaii considered a similar ban but abandoned it.
Teen vaping is booming, according to several surveys including one released last December by the National Institutes of Health. That survey showed twice as many high school students used e-cigarettes in 2018 compared to the prior year, and that more than 1 in 10 eighth graders had also acknowledged vaping nicotine in the past 12 months.
Opponents of the ban include the New England Convenience Store & Energy Marketers Association, which contends that retailers are being made scapegoats for the youth vaping epidemic even while most stores in the region have strong records of enforcing customer age restrictions.
E-cigarettes typically heat a flavored nicotine solution into an inhalable aerosol and are generally viewed as less harmful than regular cigarettes. Yet health experts say nicotine still poses a significant risk for developing brains, and reliable scientific research on the long-term effects of vaping on children is sparse.
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