When Massachusetts banned flavored tobacco sales in 2019, retailers and economists raised the alarm that such a ban would not only push small tobacco retailers to the brink of closure, but also fuel the illicit market and would not achieve the significant public health benefit the ban advocates promised.
Nearly three years after lawmakers enacted the ban in 2020, government and industry data prove the experts were right. The cigarette smuggling market is booming, businesses are suffering, the state has lost tax revenue, and people are still smoking.
Government studies show that the smoking rate among adults in Massachusetts had dropped only a mere 4.5% one year after the ban took effect, even though the rest of the country saw the smoking rate drop by 7.1%.
Despite these facts about the Massachusetts flavored tobacco ban, some Maine lawmakers appear ready to take the Pine Tree State down its own expensive and ineffective path to prohibition with LD 1215, An Act to End the Sale of Flavored Tobacco Products.
Advocates of local and state flavored tobacco bans often tell policymakers that to prevent youth from using adult-oriented products like tobacco or alcohol, they must restrict access to these products. As the owner of 19 smoke shops in Maine, I agree. It is why we have invested heavily in ID scanning technology and employee training to ensure we comply with age-verification laws aimed at preventing sales to anyone under 21 years old.
My customers are not middle- or high-school students. If an employee fails to check an ID, I terminate their employment immediately. We have zero tolerance for selling to minors.
As an employee-owned business, we consider ourselves partners on the front lines in keeping cigarettes out of the hands of young people. I feel encouraged by the 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which shows Maine youth cigarette smoking has decreased by nearly 96% since the late 1990s, with only 0.6% of the state’s youth saying they are current smokers.
During a recent public hearing before the public health committee and at a press conference hosted by advocates of the ban, we heard young people share their concerns about classmates vaping in bathrooms.
I want our legislators and media to investigate where these young people are sourcing these products. According to students’ reporting in the 2021 Maine Integrated Youth Health Survey, 94% of Maine high school students who indicated vaping in the 30 days before they took the survey did not get their e-cigarettes from convenience stores and smoke shops. Most reported getting them from a variety of other sources like older friends, family members, online, or they borrowed from each other.
If public health advocates want to curtail youth access to vapes, they must modernize their approach to the problem. A simple search on social media platforms turns up plenty of illicit sources of unregulated or already illegal products in the wild candy-flavors that generate headlines.
But, here is the thing: In January 2020, the FDA released guidance for Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems products and banned all flavors besides tobacco and menthol in cartridge-based vapes. However, the regulations failed to prohibit synthetic nicotine disposable e-cigarettes in youth-attractive flavors, now the most popular nicotine vapes with young people.
The intended goal was to combat youth vaping while maintaining e-cigarettes as an essential tobacco harm reduction tool for adults using combustible tobacco. Instead, it further opened the door to illegal manufacturing and sales of foreign-made disposable vapes that come in flavors highlighted by proponents of local and state flavored tobacco bans. Neglecting to share this information about the unregulated and illicit online market is confusing legislators and fails our kids.
As a business owner in the tobacco retail industry for more than 20 years, I am fully aware of the changing marketplace regarding tobacco supply and demand. Demand for cigarettes is down.
In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported that smoking is once again at an all-time low, with 11% of adults surveyed saying they were current smokers in 2022, down from 12.5% in 2020 and 2021. Meanwhile, adults’ use of less harmful e-cigarettes is up to 6% as traditional smokers switch away from traditional combustible cigarettes.
While we make no claims that any tobacco product is safe, I see that flavors can play a big part in my customers’ shift to e-cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products, often deemed less harmful. Efforts to shut down regulated businesses like mine that do not sell to minors yet responsibly meet adults’ demand for these products is a misguided policy.
I have seen the impact of local flavored tobacco bans when Portland, Brunswick, and Bangor passed them. My sales dropped 20% at stores in these towns but increased by 30-40% in neighboring towns where the products are still sold. The same will happen in Maine, like in Massachusetts, if a statewide ban passes. Sales will shift across the state’s borders.
Rather than punish hard-working businesses that responsibly sell tobacco, lawmakers should focus on enforcing current laws and continue to work with responsible tobacco retailers who understand the issues and obey the law.
Christine Peters is a small business owner employing Mainers for more than 24 years at Maine Smoke Shops.
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