As time ran out on the 2022 Connecticut General Assembly session, SB 367, the flavor ban bill that had passed two joint House and Senate committees, died without a final vote in neither body. The legislature ended on May 4.
It was the fourth time since 2020 that Connecticut vaping advocates have helped fight a flavor ban. The flavor ban was included in both the 2020 and 2021 state budgets, and a separate bill was also introduced last year.
“We are incredibly frustrated that the Legislature can’t order its priorities in a way that protects children, as every Connecticut neighbor has already done,” Tobacco Free Kids’ Kevin O’Flaherty. he told the CT Mirror. The four states closest to Connecticut (Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, and New Jersey) have flavored vaping bans.
Tobacco-free kids’ lobbyists aren’t used to losing, and they don’t like it. O’Flaherty accused Connecticut politicians of “[continuing] to support the industry and the industry’s profits instead of protecting children.” But another problem for anti-vaping activists was a lack of unity. Some of the anti-vaping special interest groups show lukewarmness on a bill that excluded menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars.
Testimony at a joint Public Health Committee hearing in March by prominent academics, including Yale health economist Abigail Friedman (see video above), raised doubts for some lawmakers. The author or co-author of several scientific studies showing that vaping restrictions increase smoking, Friedman was a credible and powerful witness.
After that hearing, some state lawmakers seemed to agree with the issues raised in the testimony of Friedman and others. A modified version of the bill that would have allowed the sale of flavored products in adult-only stores was considered too much of a compromise for some of the anti-government groups to accept.
In Colorado, the flavor ban bill HB 1064 passed the state House and passed the first Senate committee hearing, but failed to pass the Senate Appropriations Committee, which rejected it on Tuesday by a vote of 5-2.
The result was a massive victory for vaping advocates, who beat out more than 25 lobbying groups and lobbying firms working on behalf of Tobacco-Free Kids. According to the Colorado Sun, the Bloomberg-backed anti-vaping behemoth spent more than $180,000 through March promoting the ban that helped the author. (Big tobacco companies also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying against the bill.)
“Colorado rejecting the flavor ban is a signal for other jurisdictions to refocus public health efforts on what works: vaping,” American Vapor Manufacturers (AVM) President Amanda Wheeler said in a press release. “Nicotine vapor is the most effective method of quitting smoking ever devised. Lawmakers can learn from Colorado. Flavor bans won’t work, but promoting vaping products helps adults quit and prevents adults from relapse into deadly cigarettes.”
Both CASAA and AVM held calls to action in Colorado, giving thousands of vapers and vape industry advocates a chance to register their opposition to the bill to kill vape shops. Also, as in Connecticut, prestigious steam-supporting academics signed up to testify in a House hearing packed with speakers both for and against.
Lawmakers heard strong evidence that flavor bans don’t work from University of Ottawa adjunct law professor David Sweanor, Drug Policy Alliance founder Ethan Nadelmann and Dr. Michael Cummings of the Medical University of South Carolina, among others others
In the end, anti-vaping interests were unable to muster enough support to pass the final committee and bring the bill to the full Senate floor before the state legislative session ended. But no one should doubt that they will return with a similar bill in the next session.