For decades, tobacco companies have been using flavors as a tactic to hook people on their products. First, they targeted communities like Blacks, Filipinos, and Native Hawaiians, as well as young people, by making menthol cigarettes. Now they are trying to attract a new generation with e-cigarette flavors such as “Fruit Punch,” “Rainbow Candy,” and “POG.”

These flavored tobacco products undermine public health’s successful efforts to reduce youth tobacco use; 81 percent of kids who have used tobacco started with a flavored product, and over half of youth smokers use menthol cigarettes.

Tobacco companies actively seek ways to stop strong public health policies. In Hawaiʻi, the counties were once able to regulate the sale of tobacco products. They used this ability to create meaningful policies that protected people’s health, such as raising the age of tobacco sales to 21, creating smoke-free indoor air laws, and prohibiting smoking and vaping in a car when a minor is present. Following all four counties passing smoke-free cars with keiki inside, the tobacco industry worked relentlessly to limit the counties’ ability to regulate tobacco, fearing it would impact their profits.

In 2018, the state took away the counties’ ability to regulate tobacco sales. This strategy of removing a lower jurisdiction’s power and moving it to a higher institution is called preemption. Today, we are working with counties to return the power back to the counties so they may take action to protect their community.

A coalition of more than 200 organizations, community leaders, and advocates are working on these issues. We know what works to reduce youth tobacco use – we did it before with cigarettes. The recent passage of regulations on e-cigarettes, including restricting online sales, taxation, and permitting, is a step in the right direction. If we can end the sale of all flavors in all tobacco products and invest in effective tobacco prevention, education, and cessation programs, we can bring Hawaiʻi’s adult and youth tobacco use to record lows, saving thousands of lives every year by breaking the cycle of addiction.