Key Messages: Banning Tobacco Flavors

General Messaging:

• Pediatricians have long been sounding the alarm on how the tobacco industry has used flavors to hook children and teens to their dangerous, addictive products.
• Availability of flavors is among the most prominently cited reasons for youth e-cigarette use, with popular options including menthol, fruit, candy, and dessert flavors designed to appeal to youth.
• These flavors can help to mask the harshness of tobacco products as they wreak havoc on a child’s health.
• I’ve seen it all too often in my practice: what starts off as a seemingly harmless or intermittent behavior can quickly develop into a habit or become an addiction.
• Youth who are Black are especially targeted by the tobacco industry’s flavor marketing: among those 12- to 17-year-olds who had ever used a tobacco product, nearly 72% smoked menthol cigarettes.
• In 2020, the Trump Administration banned the sale of certain pod-based systems like Juul, but left open a loophole to allow the sale of masking flavors via e-cigarettes.
• In 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) prohibited menthol cigarettes and all flavored cigars – a commendable step in this fight.
• The FDA must now take urgent, comprehensive action to remove all flavored tobacco products from the market. My patients, and all our children, depend on it.

For the California Flavored Tobacco Sales Ban Referendum:

• In 2020, California passed sweeping legislation to ban the sale of candy- and menthol-flavored tobacco products – but tobacco companies intervened to delay this law and instead forced it into a statewide referendum.
• This November, Californians will decide whether we want to protect our kids from the manipulative practices of the tobacco industry.
• As a pediatrician, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of voting YES on Proposition 31 to protect young Californians from a lifetime of addiction and preventable death.
• Our kids deserve better than to fall prey to the tobacco industry. We must take these predatory products off the shelves.
• I have seen too many patients develop a nicotine addiction simply because they were enticed by fruity flavors that masked the harshness of these products.