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The purchase ban includes flavored cigarettes, chewing tobacco and e-cigarette liquid. It does not include hukkah, pipe tobacco and cigars.

The Denver City Council voted on Monday to ban many flavored tobacco products, including menthol, on store shelves due to concerns about long-term health effects.

With an 8 to 3 vote, the committee decided to ban the sale of flavored cigarettes, chewing tobacco, and e-cigarette liquids. People in the city can still use these flavored tobacco products, but don't buy them.

The change will take effect on July 1, 2023.

This is an important milestone in the two running struggles-one is to prevent young people from being exposed to e-cigarette products, and the other is about the use of mint flavoring. Supporters of the ban believe that tobacco companies have long used menthol’s predatory marketing to attract people of color, low-income earners, and young people—especially those identified as LBGTQ+. The company denies this.

"This proposal tonight is really about public health," said City Councillor Jamie Torres, who represented District 3 and voted for the proposal. "Our children are not owners. They are not business owners, but they also tell us that we need to make them less accessible."

Robin Kniech, a board member, also voted in favor.

"This is not a ban," she said. "If you smoke tobacco through cigarettes, cigarettes are still available. If you use tobacco through e-cigarette products, the product is still available. This is about restricting specific types of products."

City Council Chairman Staci Gilmore believes that Denver has already regulated alcohol and marijuana. "We want to protect the safety of children, but we also want to allow adults to become adults," said Gilmore, who represents District 11, and voted against the measure.

Last month, Congressman Kevin Flynn said the bill affects adults who want to use these products.

But Denver’s famous former primary care doctor Dr. Terry Richardson described voting as important.

According to Richardson, she has seen her patients develop long-term health problems such as lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD and heart disease after smoking at a young age. She said many of them started with menthol.

"As early as the 90s, I began to give speeches on the key marketing of menthol in the black community," said Richardson, the founder of the Colorado Black Health Cooperative, a non-profit organization. "I will investigate my smoking patients. Most of them have indeed smoked menthol. They also talked about how difficult it is to quit smoking."

Dr. Robin Deterding, medical director of the Respiratory Research Institute at Colorado Children's Hospital and director of the Pediatric Pulmonary Department, said that young people who started smoking e-cigarettes told similar stories about the taste of tobacco.

"We deal with children with asthma and severe lung problems. They come to us, and they often report smoking or e-cigarette smoking," Deterdin said. "These flavors attract children. We know that children start smoking from a young age, which will cause them to take drugs for life."

Doctors say that many teenagers believe that when they smoke e-cigarettes, they inhale harmless water vapor. But it may actually contain high levels of nicotine and particles related to lung disease and cancer. The doctor said that e-cigarettes have a negative impact on young people in at least three places: lungs, heart and brain.

The new regulations do not include hookahs, premium cigars or pipe tobacco. This has caused some criticism.

The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network encouraged Mayor Michael Hancock to sign the Denver ban. But it also prompted Colorado's elected officials to stop selling all flavored tobacco products, including waterpipes, cigars, and bulk tobacco, "to reduce the suffering and deaths caused by tobacco use and cancer in our communities," the organization's Colorado government relations director RJ Ours Say. .

The language of the decree provides clues to the large number of flavors that the company adds to its products. Flavored tobacco products are defined as tobacco products with the taste or smell of "fruit, menthol, mint, wintergreen, chocolate, cocoa, vanilla, honey or any candy, dessert, alcoholic beverage, vanilla or spice".

Denver is the seventh and largest local government in Colorado to pass a spice ban. It joined the villages of Aspen, Boulder, Carbondale, Edgewater, Glenwood Springs and Snowmass.

According to data from the Tobacco Free Kids Campaign, Denver is also one of the country's at least 335 local governments that approve spice bans, as well as other major cities such as Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and New York City. Among them, in addition to other flavored tobacco products, there are 145 cities that restrict the sale of menthol cigarettes.

According to the organization, five states including Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and California have also restricted the sale of flavored tobacco products, flavored e-cigarettes or menthol cigarettes.

Denver's 5th District Councillor Amanda Sawyer sponsored the bill. She believes that this will restrict youth smoking and e-cigarette use, as well as children's use of these products. She said it will also motivate adults to quit smoking.

"By stopping the sale of flavored tobacco products in Denver, we will make it more difficult for these products to fall into the hands of children who are lured by the tobacco industry," she said. "The vast majority of Denver citizens support this policy."

Before the pandemic, youth e-cigarette smoking was one of the most disturbing and high-profile public health problems in the United States.

A series of lung diseases related to e-cigarettes resulted in more than 2,700 hospitalizations and 64 deaths. Health officials blamed vitamin E acetate (some THC-containing e-cigarette additives) on the main offender in many cases. Another study found a link between e-cigarettes and increased chances of asthma and chronic lung disease.

A 2018 study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control found that high school students in Colorado used e-cigarettes more than teenagers in 37 other states, ranking first among the states surveyed. One quarter of the students said that they are currently using electronic steam products-twice the national average. Nearly 6% said they use them frequently.

In the 2020 results of the same biennial study, Colorado no longer tops the list. However, the number of young people in Colorado who believe e-cigarettes are at risk has soared to seven in ten. Among the students who have used e-cigarette products in the past 30 days, more than 50% said they had tried to quit smoking in the past year.

Monica Vondruska, who co-owns the Cignot vape store on W. 38th Ave., opposed the spice ban. She said the products sold in this store are not aimed at children, but at adults who want to quit smoking.

"I will assume that I will go bankrupt," she said. She believes that the ban may force the closure of about 20 stores selling flavored products.

Vondroska said: "After my business has to close, I will try to withdraw the lease and try not to bankrupt myself." He pointed out that the cannabis dispensary under the two doors sells blueberry lemonade THC, and the liquor store in the block sells seasoning. Tasting alcohol soda.

She believes that minors will consume these items and believes that the committee has established double standards. "It's really important to choose winners and losers, because teenagers use alcohol at roughly the same rate as steam, but they didn't shut them down," she said.

The owner of the vape said that young people in Denver can still buy flavored products outside the city or online. Altria, the maker of Marlboro cigarettes, warned that the ban on flavors could lead to the opening of illegal markets.

Greer Bailey, executive director of the Colorado-Wyoming Petroleum Marketing Association, which represents convenience stores, said: “The only real winners of the ban policy approved by most committees today are businesses around the Denver community.” “Rather than being our basic workers in Denver. Standing up with business owners, most people in the city council stood up for companies located elsewhere. The ban did not work, it did not work in the 1930s, it did not work compared to marajuna, and it also played a role in this policy space. Doesn't work."

"These kids are very resourceful," said Philip Guerin, who owns Myxed Up Creations on Colfax Street. "There is something called the Internet. This is where these kids get these things."

He cited a study on the ban on flavored tobacco in San Francisco and questioned whether the move would have the desired effect. In 2018, voters there passed an overwhelming majority of votes to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products-including menthol cigarettes and flavored e-cigarette liquids.

Studies have found that this measure may have the opposite effect. After the ban took effect, high school students in the city’s school district were twice as likely to smoke traditional cigarettes as compared to school districts without traditional cigarettes.

"Let us learn from the mistakes of California. Let us learn from the mistakes of San Francisco. Let us do our own thing here," Guerin said.

Those who support change question this research.

"Most people who use these products use other products. Therefore, it can be expected that if they can't get one product, they will get another product," said Philip Gardner of the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council Said the doctor. He asked whether this change actually led to an increase in smoking, "why the tobacco industry spends tens of millions of dollars across the United States to prevent these laws from going into effect."

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