Proposition 31 on the Nov. 8 ballot would uphold contested legislation — Senate Bill 793 — which would ban the sale of flavored tobacco products statewide except for hookah tobacco, loose leaf tobacco and premium cigars. The legislation was signed into law in 2020 but stayed pending this veto referendum. Here, two essays explore two sides of the issue.
Hudson is president of the California Taxpayer Protection Committee in Rocklin and lives in Placer County. Genest is former director of the California Department of Finance and lives in San Diego County. Canete is president of the California Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Sacramento and lives in Sacramento County.
The politicians who wrote Proposition 31 say it will reduce underage tobacco use — but it’s already illegal to sell any tobacco product to anyone under the age of 21 in California, with big penalties for breaking the law.
Proposition 31 is adult prohibition. Proposition 31 would enact a sweeping new ban on menthol cigarettes, flavored smokeless tobacco and other flavored non-tobacco nicotine products for adults over the age of 21. Prohibition has never worked. It didn’t work with alcohol or marijuana, and it won’t work now.
And Proposition 31’s prohibition would impact minority neighborhoods more than any other neighborhoods, criminalizing the sale of menthol cigarettes, which, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are primarily the choice of adult tobacco consumers in these communities, especially in Black communities.
Proposition 31 would also increase crime. More than 43 percent of all cigarettes in California were sold in the underground market as recently as 2019, smuggled in from other states or countries like China and Mexico. Proposition 31 would drive even more sales underground from licensed neighborhood retailers to gangs and organized crime. What’s worse, Proposition 31 would not add a single penny to law enforcement to fight the violent crime that will follow.
Proposition 31 would cost taxpayers. A legislative analysis found that Proposition 31 will lead to “significant revenue losses” that will exceed $1 billion in the next four years. That means less money for health care, education, programs for seniors and law enforcement.
Proposition 31 bans Food and Drug Administration-authorized reduced-harm products and could increase cigarette use among young people.
The FDA now has regulatory authority over tobacco and vapor products and already has banned many flavored tobacco products, but Proposition 31 would go too far — banning the sale of flavored, reduced-risk, smoke-free products authorized by the FDA “appropriate for the protection of public health” for adults 21 and over.
When adult consumers are denied access to potentially less harmful products authorized by the FDA, they continue with traditional cigarettes that produce secondhand smoke. San Francisco’s flavor ban is a perfect example of the impact on youth as well: A Yale University study found there was a significant increase in cigarette smoking among high school students — the exact opposite result of what the politicians promised.
Public education is better than Proposition 31.
California led the nation in raising the age to purchase tobacco to 21, has among the toughest anti-tobacco laws in the country and spends over $140 million a year to help people quit tobacco and stop kids from starting.
The results are clear: Youth vaping is down 59 percent in the last three years, and youth smoking is at an all-time low of just 1.9 percent, according to the CDC and the FDA.
California should not abandon what is clearly working and replace it with a failed policy of the past — prohibition — that would increase crime, cost taxpayers and backfire on the communities we are trying to protect.
Please join us and vote “no” on Proposition 31.
