Category: Flavors

Mixed Results from San Francisco Flavor Ban

Photo: Can Balcioglu
Sales of flavored tobacco products decreased significantly in the wake of San Francisco’s ban, but teenagers were also more likely to take up smoking relative to their peers in other cities, according to two separate studies.
In the summer of 2018, San Francisco residents voted overwhelmingly to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products, including nicotine vaping products and menthol cigarettes. By January 2019, when the prohibition took effect, almost every retailer in the city was immediately compliant.
A study from researchers at RTI International, Stanford University School of Medicine and the California Tobacco Control Program, published in Tobacco Control, measured changes in tobacco sales before and after San Francisco’s law prohibiting flavored tobacco products. The study found that sales of all flavored tobacco products—including menthol cigarettes and flavored e-cigarettes—were virtually eliminated in the city after implementation of the policy, with no evidence of widespread substitution of non-flavored products.
Sales of all flavored tobacco products decreased by 96 percent in San Francisco after implementation of the city law in early 2019. Total tobacco sales also significantly decreased over the same period, suggesting consumers did not broadly switch to unflavored tobacco products.
“A reduction in total tobacco sales in SF suggests there was not a one-to-one substitution of tobacco/unflavored products for flavored products,” the authors wrote.
However, a recent study published in JAMA Pediatrics, found that teenagers in the San Francisco’s high schools were more likely to take up smoking than teenagers in other U.S. school districts after the city’s flavor ban took effect. (San Francisco later became the first U.S. city to ban sale of all e-cigarettes, but the effects of that were not the subject of the study.)
Prior to the flavor ban, smoking rates in San Francisco paralleled many cities across the country, showing fewer teens using combustible cigarettes over time. After the city enacted its policy, the odds of smoking among its high school students, relative to trends in comparison school districts, more than doubled.
The findings come as other cities are acting against flavored tobacco products. On June 16, the Los Angeles City Council voted to end the sale of flavored tobacco products in the city. The measure covers flavored e-cigarettes, menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars but exempts certain hookah products.
In California alone more than 100 cities and counties that have cracked down on flavored tobacco products. In 2020 the state acted to end the sale of flavored tobacco products, but the law is on hold because of an effort to overturn it through a November 2022 referendum.
June 18, 2021
Loopholes Bury Connecticut Flavored E-Liquid Ban
A measure that would have banned flavored e-cigarettes in Connecticut died in the state Senate late Tuesday after its main advocate said the ban was “riddled with major loopholes,” leaving tens of thousands of children and teens unprotected.
Credit: Christopher Boswell
“The Connecticut Legislature is making it quite clear that it will sell out Connecticut’s kids to do the bidding of Juul and Altria instead,” Matthew Myers, president of the Washington-based Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said in a written statement earlier Tuesday, according to The Telegraph.
Earlier this year, the legislature’s Public Health Committee passed a bill that would have banned all flavored tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes, but that bill was diluted. Then over the last few days, it was gutted further. In the General Assembly’s special session this week, the measure was added to the 857-page budget “implementer” that lawmakers adopt at the end of each spring session.
Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, co-chair of the public health committee, said earlier Tuesday he and fellow Democratic co-chair Sen. Mary Abrams were not consulted about the changes, and that he was first alerted to them by “one of the interested parties.”
June 17, 2021
Washington D.C. Flavor Ban Passes First Reading
Flavor ban bills have been a hot topic. The day before the Los Angeles City Council voted to draft a flavor ban bill, the District of Columbia Council voted to ban the sale of flavored vaping and tobacco products including menthol cigarettes.
Credit: JHVE Photo
The Council voted 9-3-1 during the Tuesday, June 15, legislative session. L.A. voted Wednesday. Bars and restaurants that offer hookah will be exempt from the ban in both cities. The bill still has to go through second reading and get the Mayor’s signature, and it is moving forward with many pieces of discussion left with the Council, according to localdvm.com.
The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), representing more than 200 African-American owned community newspapers from around the United States, have joined together with a group of Black and Hispanic law enforcement executives to oppose the Washington, DC City Council proposed ban on menthol cigarettes, calling the law racially discriminatory.
“Banning menthol is not going to make the demand for menthol products go away. We know this because illegal drugs are used by people in every community in every state across this country,” said Anthony Miranda, national chairperson, National Latino Officers Association, in an email. “When there is a high demand, an illegal market will fill the void, if a legal, regulated market does not. Bans and prohibitions don’t work. They actually create crime.”
Originally, the bill focused on e-cigarettes and vapes, and was created in an effort to keep teenagers and kids from becoming addicted to smoking. Councilmembers who proposed the bill said that is still the focus. Business owners who sell the flavored products are concerned over the impact the ban will have on their businesses.
The District’s Chief Financial Officer estimates the ban will cost the city $13.9 million over the next four years, but McCauley thinks it will be much more than that. McCauley noted the high tax already in place on menthol cigarettes has led to a drop in revenue, as neighboring states Maryland and Virginia have much cheaper prices. He also noted that many people buy and sell cigarettes on the street, which is unregulated.
Council Chair Phil Mendelson was one of the no votes for the bill. He said, “This is not the right approach, for us to be prohibiting, creating other problems, collateral problems by taking this approach, and I think there are other approaches that can promote public health.”
June 17, 2021
Los Angeles Could Soon Ban Flavors, Exempt Hookah
Vapers in Los Angeles, California may no longer purchase flavored vaping products. The L.A. city council unanimously voted to ask city attorneys Wednesday to start drafting a bill banning businesses from selling many flavored vaping and tobacco products. The council has said the move was meant to stop teens from getting hooked on nicotine.
Credit: Tierney
A coalition of youth and public health advocates backing the ban argued that flavored products have lured more teens to use tobacco, including by vaping with electronic cigarettes. The council decided against considering an exemption for menthol.
No one from the vaping industry argued against the proposed bill. Hookah lounges, however, may have been spared after arguing the law could destroy a cherished tradition among Armenians, Arabs and other communities in which hookah has been a centerpiece of gatherings and celebrations.
The last time the issue was heard at City Hall over a year ago, council members suggested allowing some sales of flavored tobacco for consumption on site at lounges, but hookah sellers said the plan was too restrictive and would not allow lounges to be passed down to future generations, according to the L.A. Times. Nor would it allow people to buy hookah tobacco to smoke at home.
June 16, 2021
Study Suggests Flavor Bans Boosted Teen Smoking
In 2018, San Francisco voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure banning the sale of flavored vaping products. Public health advocates celebrated the law that supporters say was justified because flavors attract youth to vaping. A new study suggests that law may have backfired and driven more kids to try combustible cigarettes.
Credit: YSPH
According to a new study from the Yale School of Public Health (YSPH), researchers say that after the ban’s implementation, high school students’ odds of smoking conventional cigarettes doubled in San Francisco’s school district relative to trends in districts without the ban, even when adjusting for individual demographics and other tobacco policies, according to press release.
The study, published in JAMA Pediatrics on May 24, is believed to be the first to assess how complete flavor bans affect youth smoking habits. “These findings suggest a need for caution,” said Abigail Friedman, the study’s author and an assistant professor of health policy at YSPH. “While neither smoking cigarettes nor vaping nicotine are safe per se, the bulk of current evidence indicates substantially greater harms from smoking, which is responsible for nearly one in five adult deaths annually. Even if it is well-intentioned, a law that increases youth smoking could pose a threat to public health.”
Friedman used data on high school students under 18 years of age from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System’s 2011-2019 school district surveys. Prior to the ban’s implementation, past-30-day smoking rates in San Francisco and the comparison school districts were similar and declining. Yet once the flavor ban was fully implemented in 2019, San Francisco’s smoking rates diverged from trends observed elsewhere, increasing as the comparison districts’ rates continued to fall.
To explain these results, Friedman noted that electronic nicotine-delivery systems (ENDS) have been the most popular tobacco product among U.S. youth since at least 2014, with flavored options largely preferred. “Think about youth preferences: some kids who vape choose e-cigarettes over combustible tobacco products because of the flavors,” she said. “For these individuals as well as would-be vapers with similar preferences, banning flavors may remove their primary motivation for choosing vaping over smoking, pushing some of them back toward conventional cigarettes.”
The San Francisco study does have limitations. Because there has been only a short time since the ban was implemented, the trend may differ in coming years. San Francisco is also just one of several localities and states that have implemented restrictions on flavored tobacco sales, with extensive differences between these laws. Thus, effects may differ in other places, Friedman wrote.
Still, as similar restrictions continue to appear across the country, the findings suggest that policymakers should be careful not to indirectly push minors toward cigarettes in their quest to reduce vaping, she said.
May 26, 2021
Demand for Menthol Liquid up After Menthol Cigarette Ban

Photo: Max
A year to the day since menthol cigarettes were banned in the U.K. more than two thirds of vapor retailers are reporting a rise in sales of menthol flavored e-liquids according to a study by the U.K. Vaping Industry Association (UKVIA).
The ban last year, which also prevented menthol filters, papers and skinny cigarettes from being produced or sold in the U.K., followed a four-year phasing-out period which saw smaller packs of rolling tobacco and 10 packs of cigarette banned in 2017.
The study revealed that more than 70 percent of owners of bricks and mortar stores and online retail operations said they had seen an uptake in demand for menthol vape products.
And, while fruit e-liquids remained the customer favorite, menthol was the second most popular flavor according to the survey.
“What we have witnessed in the U.K. is that menthol as an ingredient in vape e-liquids has continued to increase following the combustible menthol ban and is now one of the most important components of all e-liquids,” said Tim Phillips, independent analyst at ECigIntelligence.

Menthol as an ingredient in vape e-liquids has continued to increase following the combustible menthol ban and is now one of the most important components of all e-liquids.
Tim Phillips, analyst, ECigIntelligence
UKVIA Director-General John Dunne said the survey results were a clear indication of the importance e-cigarettes have in helping smokers to quit their habits in favor of vaping which Public Health England acknowledges is far less harmful than combustible tobacco.
“Our survey of retailers clearly shows that, as menthol cigarettes were removed from sale, vape stores witnessed an increase in sales of the same flavor in e-liquid form,” he said.
“It is not unreasonable to surmise that the majority of menthol e-liquid sales above retailers’ baseline pre-ban were to those who would have previously smoked cigarettes.”
May 25, 2021
Philippines Set to Change, Lessen Vapor Regulations
The Philippines House of Representatives passed today on second reading a bill that would lower the minimum age to buy and use e-cigarettes and other vapor products from 21 to 18 years old. This is after the country’s Congress previously passed Republic Act No. 11467, which imposed taxes on vapes and e-cigarettes and set the age to purchase at 21. Less than two years ago, the country banned vaping entirely.
Credit: Carsten Reisinger
The previously passed law also banned the sale of vapes and e-cigarettes to nonsmokers and prohibited flavorings, according to philstar.com. The new proposal, which is just a step away from clearing the House, largely loosens the restrictions put in place by the current law. While all but tobacco flavorings are currently banned, the new bill allows for “plain fruit flavors, nuts, coffee, tea, vanilla, caramel, tobacco, menthol and mint.”
The latest bill would also take away from the Philippine Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate e-cigarettes and vapor products and transfers it to the Department of Trade and Industry, as proponents argued that these are not health products. The bill also allows the sale of vapes and e-cigarettes online, provided that the website will restrict access to those below 18 years old and will display signages required by the proposal.
The latest bill also includes language to allow the advertisement of vapes and e-cigarettes in retail establishments, through direct marketing and on the internet, although it qualified that these ads must not be targeted to minors, must not undermine quit-smoking messages and should not encourage non-smokers to use them.
The new measure also prohibits the sale of vapes and e-cigarettes within 100 meters from a school, playground or other facility frequented by minors and bans the use of vapor products and e-cigarettes in all enclosed public places except in designated vaping areas.
May 19, 2021
California AG Pens Brief in Support of Flavored Vapor Ban
The Attorney General for California, Rob Bonta, on Friday filed a brief in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in support of Los Angeles County’s ordinance banning the sale of flavored vaping and other products.
Credit: Elsa Olofsson
In the brief, Bonta argues that the federal Tobacco Control Act preserves state and local authority to implement sales restrictions on flavored tobacco products — as several courts have already recognized in similar cases brought by tobacco manufacturers and retailers against other state and local ordinances, according to NBC Los Angeles.
“Again, and again, Big Tobacco has tried to steamroll state and local governments’ efforts to safeguard the health of their youngest residents in order to protect their bottom line,” Bonta said in a statement. “We have a responsibility to protect Californians from the harms of tobacco use, and a legal right to implement regulations that do so.
“Every year, hundreds of thousands of Americans will die from a tobacco-related disease, and many more will smoke a cigarette for the first time, starting down the deadly path toward addiction,” he said. “We fully support the county of Los Angeles and their defense of this important ordinance.”
Combustible tobacco use is the number one preventable killer in the United States, resulting in more deaths than the number of people who die from alcohol, AIDS, car accidents, illegal drugs, murder, and suicides — combined. No one has ever been reported to have died from using legal nicotine vapor products.
States and their localities have served as “laboratories” for the development of new tobacco policy for decades, Bonta’s office said. Recognizing that flavored tobacco products drive tobacco use initiation — especially among young people — states and localities around the country have implemented prohibitions on the retail sale of flavored tobacco products. In California alone, at least 71 cities and counties have prohibited the sale of all flavored tobacco products to consumers.
May 15, 2021
Connecticut Seeking Flavored Vaping Ban, No Tobacco Bans
The state of Connecticut was facing a potential loss of nearly $200 million over the next two years if the state banned all flavored tobacco products. The state’s General Assembly’s tax-writing committee on Monday decided to drastically amended legislation to prohibit the sale of only flavored vaping materials and electronic cigarettes, excluding combustible products from the flavor ban.
Under the bill that passed with mainly Democratic support, Connecticut would join New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island in banning flavored vapes, starting Jan. 1, 2022, according to the CTPost. California also adopted a ban, which is temporarily on hold.
The legislative Public Health Committee had previously recommended that all flavored tobacco products be prohibited, in attempt to discourage young smokers.
But the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee’s co-chairmen, Rep. Sean Scanlon of Guilford and Sen. John Fonfara of Hartford, amended the bill, kicking off a 40-minute debate in which more-conservative Republicans charged that the state is attempting to interfere with personal freedom. Liberal Democrats argued that it was a way to discourage young people, even those under-21 who are prohibited under current law from purchasing tobacco products.
“We have been working over the weekend to try to get the place we’re at today on this bill,” Scanlon said, stressing that the compromise legislation would revert to what the governor proposed in his budget.
May 4, 2021
FDA ‘Intends’ to Ban Menthol Cigarettes, Excludes E-Liquids

Photo: esser
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has stated its intent to ban menthol as a characterizing flavor in cigarettes and all characterizing flavors (including menthol) in cigars. In a statement released today, the agency said it is working toward issuing proposed product standards within the next year. The plan does not include noncombustible products, such as e-cigarettes.
“This decision is based on clear science and evidence establishing the addictiveness and harm of these products and builds on important previous actions that banned other flavored cigarettes in 2009,” the FDA wrote in its press release.
“Banning menthol—the last allowable flavor—in cigarettes and banning all flavors in cigars will help save lives, particularly among those disproportionately affected by these deadly products,” said acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock.
“With these actions, the FDA will help significantly reduce youth initiation, increase the chances of smoking cessation among current smokers and address health disparities experienced by communities of color, low-income populations and LGBTQ+ individuals, all of whom are far more likely to use these tobacco products.”
According to the FDA, there is strong evidence that a menthol ban will help people quit. “Studies show that menthol increases the appeal of tobacco and facilitates progression to regular smoking, particularly among youth and young adults,” the agency stated. “Menthol masks unpleasant flavors and harshness of tobacco products, making them easier to start using. Tobacco products with menthol can also be more addictive and harder to quit by enhancing the effects of nicotine.”
One study cited by the FDA suggests that banning menthol cigarettes in the U.S. would lead an additional 923,000 smokers to quit, including 230,000 Black Americans in the first 13 to 17 months after a ban goes into effect. An earlier study projected that about 633,000 deaths would be averted, including about 237,000 deaths of Black Americans.

These flavor standards would reduce cigarette and cigar initiation and use, reduce health disparities and promote health equity by addressing a significant and disparate source of harm.
Mitch Zeller, Director, CTP
“For far too long, certain populations, including African Americans, have been targeted and disproportionately impacted by tobacco use. Despite the tremendous progress we’ve made in getting people to stop smoking over the past 55 years, that progress hasn’t been experienced by everyone equally,” said Mitch Zeller, director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products.
“These flavor standards would reduce cigarette and cigar initiation and use, reduce health disparities and promote health equity by addressing a significant and disparate source of harm. Taken together, these policies will help save lives and improve the public health of our country as we confront the leading cause of preventable disease and death.”
The FDA stressed that, if implemented, enforcement of any ban on menthol cigarettes and all flavored cigars will address only manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, importers and retailers. “The FDA cannot and will not enforce against individual consumer possession or use of menthol cigarettes or any tobacco product,” the agency stated.
Racial justice groups have expressed concern that by outlawing menthols, the FDA would set the stage for more negative interactions between law enforcement and people of color, who smoke a disproportionate share of menthol cigarettes.
Earlier this week, the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), representing more than 200 African American-owned community newspapers from around the United States, and leading Black and Hispanic law enforcement executives, too, sent a letter urging the FDA to keep menthol cigarettes legal.
In acting on menthol, the FDA granted a citizen’s petition requesting that the agency pursue rulemaking to prohibit menthol in cigarettes, affirming its commitment to proposing such a product standard.
The 2009 Tobacco Control Act (TCA) did not include menthol in its ban on characterizing flavors in cigarettes, leaving menthol cigarettes as the only flavored combusted cigarettes still marketed in the U.S. The law instructed the FDA to further consider the issue of menthol in cigarettes.
Since then, the FDA sought input from an independent advisory committee as required by the TCA, and further demonstrated its interest by issuing an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, undertaking an independent evaluation and supporting broader research efforts—all to better understand the differences between menthol and nonmenthol cigarettes and the impact of menthol on population health.
In the U.S., it is estimated that there are nearly 18.6 million current smokers of menthol cigarettes. But use of menthol cigarettes among smokers is not uniform: Out of all Black smokers, nearly 85 percent smoke menthol cigarettes compared to 30 percent of white smokers who smoke menthols. In addition, among youth, from 2011 to 2018, declines in menthol cigarette use were observed among non-Hispanic white youth but not among non-Hispanic Black or Hispanic youth.
After the 2009 statutory ban on flavors in cigarettes other than menthol, use of flavored cigars increased dramatically, suggesting that the public health goals of the flavored cigarette ban may have been undermined by continued availability of these flavored cigars, according to the FDA.
Flavored mass-produced cigars and cigarillos can closely resemble cigarettes, pose many of the same public health problems and are disproportionately popular among youth and other populations. In 2020, non-Hispanic Black high school students reported past 30-day cigar smoking at levels twice as high as their white counterparts.
Nearly 74 percent of youth aged 12 to 17 who use cigars say they smoke cigars because they come in flavors they enjoy, according to the FDA. Among youth who have ever tried a cigar, 68 percent of cigarillo users and 56 percent of filtered cigar users report that their first cigar was a flavored product. Moreover, in 2020, more young people tried a cigar every day than the number of young people who tried a cigarette.
Pamela Kaufman
Pamela Kaufman and Sanath Sudarsan of Morgan Stanley said that while the absence of a proposed rule in today’s statement was “somewhat better than the market had feared,” the FDA’s plan is likely to remain an overhang for the sector. They also noted the agency did not indicate plans to ban menthol in noncombustible products such as e-cigarettes, heat-not-burn products and nicotine pouches, which could help incentivize smokers to move away from cigarettes and toward reduced-risk alternatives.
Menthol regulation will have to follow the FDA’s multi-step/multi-year rulemaking process. The next step is a preliminary rule that would be subject to a comment and review period, typically lasting 90 days. The FDA would then review stakeholder responses and publish a final rule, which would require review from the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of Management and Budget. Once a rule is finalized, the industry would have additional time to implement the change.
Kaufman and Sudarsan expect the tobacco industry to challenge a final rule, questioning its scientific basis and stressing the risk of creating an illicit market for menthol cigarettes.

April 29, 2021