Tobacco sales phaseout withers in California without support from anti-tobacco advocates

Bo Smith, a spokesperson for the American Lung Association, which has a “strategic imperative” to “create a tobacco-free future,” said in an email that the organization has “nothing to add to the story at this time.”

Representatives for the American Heart Association — which has adopted a tobacco endgame strategy and received a $5.6 million grant from the California Tobacco Control Program in 2020 to help position the state to end tobacco use statewide by 2035 — did not respond to interview requests and written questions.

At the Assembly Health Committee hearing on Tuesday, Connolly accepted amendments from the committee that changed the focus of his bill. It will now authorize the California Department of Public Health and the state attorney general’s office to enforce the flavored tobacco ban, in addition to local agencies.

Assemblymember Jim Wood, the Healdsburg Democrat who leads the health committee, declined an interview request. In its analysis, the committee suggested that phasing out tobacco sales in California was less urgent because adult and youth smoking rates are only slightly higher than half the national average.

“The Legislature may want to consider whether it would be more effective to focus on enforcing the flavored tobacco ban rather than engaging on a new front,” the committee wrote, “and attempting to prevent a product that is legal in 49 other states, as well as on sovereign Tribal lands, from entering the state.”

Connolly, who was elected to the Assembly in November and previously worked on tobacco control as a Marin County supervisor, told CalMatters that he plans to revive the sales phaseout proposal next year. He said he would continue to seek the support of anti-tobacco organizations that did not come on board with this version.

“I don’t want to speak for them, but I think certainly there are shared goals around the ultimate objective,” he said. “So what I would anticipate is continuing to work with those groups, and all stakeholders, around a larger set of solutions as originally embodied in AB 935.”

Why anti-tobacco groups were reluctant

Supporters of the measure said they heard a range of objections as they tried to bring advocates into the fold, including both that the bill was too aggressive and that it did not go far enough.

Some groups worry that unintended consequences, such as pushing more tobacco sales into the black market, could set back the overall movement to end smoking. Others believe it would divert finite resources into a politically challenging fight at the Capitol and distract from a nascent local campaign to persuade cities to completely outlaw tobacco sales, which has already found success in Beverly Hills and Manhattan Beach. Some see it as unjust to create a separate group of adults who cannot buy tobacco products while most still can.

John Maa, a Marin County physician and anti-tobacco activist who testified in favor of AB 935 at Tuesday’s hearing, said the most convincing argument he heard was that the bill would give the tobacco industry a pass for decades as sales are slowly phased out and that the endgame should come sooner.

“There’s not going to be one single legislative solution to the enormous problem that the tobacco industry has created over 500 years,” Maa said. “I believe it will require a multi-pronged strategy.”

Then there’s the fiscal reality that taxes on tobacco sales fund programs in California — including health care for low-income residents, disease research, early childhood education and tobacco use prevention — some of which are led by the same groups that are pushing to reduce smoking.

Following a campaign by hospitals, doctors, unions and anti-tobacco groups, California voters passed a massive tobacco tax increase in 2016 that initially promised to raise more than $1 billion annually for the state budget. It provided $30 million for local tobacco control programs and $19 million for competitive grants last year, according to the Department of Public Health.

Bostic, of Action on Smoking and Health, said he viewed it as a victory that the debate over tobacco had reached a point where a statewide phaseout of sales could even be proposed in California. He said he was not surprised that mainstream anti-tobacco organizations did not jump on board with the idea, in part because of fear over how their movement might be perceived, but he pointed to a nationwide Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey conducted in 2021 that found that more than 57% of American adults support banning the sale of tobacco products

“We’ve got to get public health to catch up with the public, and then we’ve got to get decision-makers to catch up with both,” Bostic said.