Tag: colorado

  • Colorado Flavor Ban Bill Dies

    Colorado Flavor Ban Bill Dies

    Tobacco Reporter Archives

    It happened again. For the second time in the last three sessions, a bill to regulate flavored nicotine products has died in Colorado’s General Assembly.

    The proposal would have allowed a board of county commissioners to ban flavored tobacco and nicotine products. The House Business Affairs & Labor Committee defeated it on a 6-5 vote, according to Colorado Public Radio.

    Several lawmakers on the committee voting against the bill cited concerns about its impacts on local businesses, echoing testimony from several vape shop owners who said it would have hurt sales if a county banned flavored vaping and other tobacco products.

    “We have a long history of choosing to listen to the tobacco lobby,” said bill sponsor Rep. Elizabeth Velasco, as she appealed to her colleagues before the vote. “I hope that today we can really think about the children and make sure that we do the right thing to make sure that our children don’t have access to these products that have been targeted for them.”

    The measure had already passed a Senate committee and the full Senate. As has been seen in prior years, the bill drew intense lobbying, with 141 lobbyists from both sides signing up to voice support, opposition, or neutrality, according to the state’s lobbyist disclosure website.

    Tobacco companies like PMI, RJ Reynolds America, and Altria, represented by the lobbying company Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, and industry groups, including the Vapor Technology Association, hired lobbyists in opposition to the legislation.

    All the traditional anti-nicotine groups such as Bloomberg, Tobacco-Free Kids Action Fund and Kaiser Permanente also hired lobbyists in support.

    In 2022, a bill to ban flavored tobacco statewide failed after Gov. Jared Polis said the issue should be handled at the local level.

  • Colorado May Allow County Flavor Bans

    Colorado May Allow County Flavor Bans

    Credit: Nathan

    A Senate bill in Colorado would grant counties the power to regulate or ban the sale and distribution of flavored vaping, cigarettes and other nicotine products.

    Senate Bill 24-022 defines flavored nicotine and tobacco products as anything with a scent or flavor other than tobacco, including products that induce a cooling or numbing sensation. 

    Citing the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Rep. Kyle Brown, a sponsor of the legislation, said nearly 9 out of 10 adults who smoke every day first tried smoking “before they turned age 18.”

    He said tobacco products are linked to negative health effects, including cancer, and that e-cigarettes and other vape products are “highly addictive and can harm adolescent brain development.”

    similar bill was introduced during the 2022 legislative session but died in the Senate. At the time, Gov. Jared Polis said he opposed the bill because he thought the matter should be handled at a local level.

  • ‘Altria Pushed Cigarette Floor Price’

    ‘Altria Pushed Cigarette Floor Price’

    Colorado passed its recently enacted minimum cigarette price at the request of Altria Group, according to e-mails obtained by The Colorado Sun.  

    The cigarette giant reportedly asked Colorado Governor Jared Polis’ office to meet several conditions in exchange for agreeing not to fight legislation that put a question on the November ballot asking voters to raise tobacco and nicotine taxes in Colorado.

    One of those conditions was adding a clause to the measure that requires a pack of cigarettes to be sold for at least $7 starting this year. The move is seen as benefiting Altria, which competes primarily in the premium cigarette segment.

    “It’s like forcing our Honda to sell for the same amount as Mercedes,” Craig Hughes, a high-powered Democratic political consultant, wrote about the minimum-price clause in a June 3 email to Cary Kennedy, a senior adviser to Polis, according to The Colorado Sun.

    The U.S. discount cigarette manufacturers Liggett Group, Vector Tobacco and Xcaliber International filed legal complaints, alleging that the minimum price was anti-competitive and anti-consumer.

    Liggett Vector’s lawyers are arguing in state court that Proposition EE violates Colorado’s single-subject rule in the state constitution, which requires legislation to address only one topic at a time. In federal court, the company is arguing that the ballot initiative violates interstate commerce laws.

    The lawsuits remain pending, though a federal judge last week rejected Liggett Vector’s request for a preliminary injunction that would have temporarily invalidated the minimum-price provision.

    In a written statement to The Colorado Sun, Governor Polis’ office described the proposition that includes the minimum price requirement as a “win-win” for the state of Colorado. “We are able to fund free universal preschool for every child while protecting children and other vulnerable populations from cheap, harmful and addictive nicotine products.”

    Polis and the health groups failed to pass a similar tobacco and nicotine tax increase bill in 2019 in large part because big tobacco interests successfully lobbied against the measure.

    In 2016, Altria spent more than $16 million to block a tobacco tax increase that was on the ballot in Colorado.