Supreme Court will not block California flavored tobacco ban

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court docket on Monday refused a ask for from tobacco companies to end California from implementing a ban on flavored tobacco products that was overwhelmingly approved by voters in November.

R.J. Reynolds and other tobacco providers sought the superior court’s intervention to continue to keep the ban from using outcome by Dec. 21.

There was no supplemental remark from the justices and no famous dissents.

The ban was 1st handed by the condition legislature two decades back but it in no way took result just after tobacco providers collected enough signatures to set it on the ballot. But virtually two-thirds of voters accepted of banning the sale of every little thing from cotton-candy vaping juice to menthol cigarettes.

Supporters of the ban say the regulation was essential to set a prevent to a staggering increase in teen smoking.

R.J. Reynolds submitted a federal lawsuit filed the working day following the Nov. 8 vote, but decreased courts refused to keep the regulation on keep when the accommodate proceeds.

Menthol cigarettes make up about a 3rd of the marketplace in California, the corporations mentioned in urging the Supreme Courtroom to hold them from shedding so substantially business enterprise in the nation’s greatest condition.

They argued that the authority to ban flavored solutions rests with the federal Meals and Drug Administration.

California responded that federal legislation comfortably permits point out and local governments to make your mind up which tobacco goods are to be bought in their jurisdictions. And the point out noted that the corporations only went to the Supreme Courtroom just after paying “tens of tens of millions of dollars” in a losing induce at the polls.

California will be the next point out in the nation, after Massachusetts, to enact a ban prohibiting the sale of all flavored tobacco items. A number of California towns, together with Los Angeles and San Diego, have currently enacted their own bans, and several states have outlawed flavored vaping solutions. So considerably no lawful issues to all those bans have prevailed, but the providers have an enchantment pending at the large court in their fight with Los Angeles.

It is presently illegal for suppliers to offer tobacco to anyone less than 21. But advocates of the ban reported flavored cigarettes and vaping cartridges have been nonetheless way too simple for teens to acquire. The ban doesn’t make it a crime to possess these merchandise but suppliers who promote them could be fined up to $250.

In addition to menthol and other flavored cigarettes, the ban also prohibits the sale of flavored tobacco for vape pens, tank-based mostly units and chewing tobacco, with exceptions built for hookahs, some cigars and loose-leaf tobacco.