Opinion: Big Tobacco Is Back. California Can’t Afford to Blink

I’ve spent my career protecting kids from Big Tobacco. But you don’t need to be an expert to understand that candy-flavored tobacco products were created to hook kids on nicotine.

Tobacco companies know it. We know it. Even at age 9, my daughter knew it when we knocked on doors together urging San Franciscans to become the first city in the nation to ban flavored tobacco products. A statewide ban followed, when voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 31 in 2022.

Yet despite broad public support, I worry we are beginning to drift away from the urgency that made these landmark policies possible in the first place.

As a new generation of leaders takes the reins in Sacramento, it is important to clearly acknowledge what decades of research continues to show: there is no safe tobacco or nicotine product.

Unfortunately, this isn’t stopping Big Tobacco. The industry is on a hot streak of weakening federal tobacco regulations, making it essential for California’s leaders to defend our flavor ban and keep our kids safe.

Earlier this summer, the FDA announced it would allow Phillip Morris to market Zyn pouches in cinnamon, mint, citrus and seven other candy flavors as “lower risk” than cigarettes following lobbying from the Trump Administration and tobacco companies.

In May, the FDA for the first time authorized the sale of fruit-flavored vape products, including mango and blueberry, and announced a policy allowing some e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches to be sold without the risk of enforcement. These products are illegal and have not been fully reviewed.

As a research scientist, it’s shocking to witness this. The FDA is ignoring its own consensus about the dangers of tobacco products in kid-friendly flavors and packaging. Media reports reveal this sea-change shift in policy came directly from the White House over objections of the FDA Commissioner, who subsequently resigned.

My research on the tobacco industry shows its promotion of e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches is part of a bigger plan to gain legitimacy as nicotine pharmaceutical companies. Put another way, the tobacco industry is now pushing new products by saying they help people quit, deploying a very old and familiar playbook.

They claim these new products are for adult smokers then market them in ways that attract young people. They claim they want to reduce harm, and unfortunately policymakers appear willing to accept these claims at face value.

Let’s be clear: These new products are big business. By promoting these products, tobacco companies stand to profit from new users. They are not transforming; they are growing a new market.

Yet, they expose users to massive doses of nicotine. Some popular vapes can contain as much nicotine as 20 packs of cigarettes or more. Consumers are paying to be guinea pigs — using new products with potential long-term health risks researchers are only beginning to understand.

When the tobacco industry sees an opening, they take it. They exploit moments when regulators and policymakers begin accepting industry narratives that prioritize profits over health.

This is why California’s leaders must not believe industry hype. An industry built on addiction isn’t concerned about our health. It needs new customers to survive, and it sees our kids as the key to its future.

California has already demonstrated what effective tobacco policy looks like. In its first 18 months, the state’s flavor ban reduced e-cigarette sales by more than a third. This has helped protect an entire generation from nicotine addiction.

The solution is to stay the course and protect California’s kids by defending the policies that are working. Lawmakers must see through the industry’s smoke and mirrors. Parents and physicians are relying on them to remain vigilant and resist the tobacco industry’s latest attempt to market addiction as progress.

Dr. Pamela Ling is a general internal medicine and primary care doctor at UCSF Health and director of the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control and Research.

This article first appeared on California Health Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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Previously Published on calhealthreport.org with Creative Commons License

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