The ban on e-cigarette flavors that many states in the United States are considering has recently shown signs of reversal.
The consideration behind the e-cigarette flavor ban is to protect minors from being attracted. At present, only a handful of states have successively passed bills related to flavor bans and introduced enforcement measures. For example, the Governor of New York State announced in 2020 that from July 1, 2020, retailers in the state will ban the sale of e-cigarettes in flavors such as fruits and candies, and only sell tobacco and menthol flavors.
US Rhode Island State Assemblyman Julie Casimiro was also a proponent of the flavor ban at first. But after visiting regular e-cigarette stores on the spot and getting an in-depth understanding of adults’ use of flavored e-cigarettes, Julie changed her attitude towards e-cigarettes.
Not only did she publicly retract her previous remarks, she also published an article advocating a “reasonable e-cigarette policy” in a US newspaper. After that, she proposed a new e-cigarette bill and actively promoted the holding of related hearings.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is also an opponent of this ban. In an open letter, Ron mentioned that banning flavored e-cigarettes may lead to more people returning to traditional cigarettes. Julie once published an article in the US “Providence Daily” calling for the rational use of e-cigarettes. In the article, Zhu Li emphasized that the majority of consumers who use flavored e-cigarette products are adults. “These adults are not choosing flavored e-cigarettes because they like desserts, but are using these products to quit smoking.”
The latest research from the University of Melbourne shows that smokers who choose flavored e-cigarettes have an OR value (odds ratio) of 1.61 for smoking cessation, while the OR value of menthol used is 0.87, which is nearly twice as high. Another study from Yale University also found that using flavored e-cigarettes is 2.3 times more likely to quit smoking than using tobacco flavors.
The reason why the U.S. government ordered the ban on flavored e-cigarettes is because they are worried that such portable and rich-flavored e-cigarette products will attract more American teenagers to try.
In a bill, Julie once proposed that e-cigarette advertisements cannot contain leading words such as “candy”, cannot display certain images that deliberately attract minors, and cannot mention “known to attract minors” and elements of popular culture.
