How does the San Francisco Flavor Ban Encourage Young People to Take Up Smoking More?
An unprecedented majority of voters outlawed the sale of flavored nicotine vaping devices (as well as flavored tobacco products like vapes and menthol cigarettes) in San Francisco in the summer of 2018.
When the ban was enacted in January 2019, nearly all of the city's retailers complied immediately.
Companies that sell vaping devices spend enormous amounts of money on one side of the argument. At the same time, billionaire Michael Bloomberg, a longstanding supporter of anti-smoking causes who has recently altered his abstinence-only stance toward vaping, contributed millions of his funds to the opposition.
The American Cancer Society and other well-known nonprofit organizations, like the Bloomberg-funded Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK), applauded the outcome.
The American Heart Association believed that the San Francisco vote was beginning to eliminate "the sale of candy-flavored cigarettes before addiction claims a wave of young people," according to Dr. Melissa Welch, a representative for the organization who lobbied voters to pass the ban.
However, a recent study by the Yale School of Public Health (YSPH) suggests that this rule may have had the opposite impact.
