California Asked to Repeal Flavor Ban

Three e-cigarette advocacy groups are asking California State General Assembly to repeal the state’s ban on flavored vaping products. The group’s leaders say an estimated 900,000 former smokers in California could be forced to switch back to smoking if the bill (CA SB793) is not overturned by referendum or repealed.

“Unless California lawmakers want to force hundreds of thousands of vapers back to smoking, they need to reconsider this flavor ban,” said Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association (AVA). “While voting for bans may make legislators feel righteous, the reality is that prohibition is failed public policy and never works for adult consumer products.”

The World Vapers’ Alliance, Consumer Choice Center (CCC) and the AVA, which combined represent hundreds of thousands of consumers, sent a letter to members of the California State Assembly members urging them to repeal the flavored tobacco ban bill in California to avoid pushing vapers back to combustible cigarettes.

“Instead of improving public health by reducing the number of smokers, this law will have the opposite effect: more people smoking again,” said Yaël Ossowski, deputy director at the CCC. “Moreover, these measures will push people into the illegal market and will also have a disproportionate impact on people of color, who overwhelmingly prefer flavored products and would suffer the most from criminalization and over-policing in our local communities.”