In the summer of 2018, San Francisco residents voted overwhelmingly to ban the sale of flavored nicotine vaping products (as well as flavored tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes).
By January 2019, when the prohibition took effect, almost every retailer in the city was immediately compliant. It had been an expensive fight, with companies that sell vaping products spending tens of millions of dollars on one side and billionaire Michael Bloomberg, a longtime anti-smoking funder who has since turned his abstinence-only approach to vaping, bankrolling the opposition with millions of his own.
At the time, prominent public health organizations, like the American Cancer Society, and other influential nonprofit groups, such as the Bloomberg-funded Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK), lauded the result. Dr. Melissa Welch, a spokesperson for the American Heart Association, which urged voters to approve the ban, told The New York Times that “she hoped the San Francisco vote would be a first step toward ending ‘the sale of candy-flavored tobacco before nicotine claims a new generation of young people.”
The flavor ban, though, does not seem to have achieved that wish. In fact, it may have led to an even more troubling situation.
Alex Norcia – FilterMag – 2021-06-07.
Want More Investigative Content?
