In Colorado we have a history of not telling adults what to do in nearly every policy space. We may not agree with someone else’s choices, but restricting legal access to services and products simply never works. At best, making something illegal just makes it slightly harder and more expensive to obtain, and also undercuts well-regulated and transparent processes by increasing and encouraging illicit trade.

A good example in Colorado is stealing defeat from the jaws of victory by sabotaging tobacco usage declines. As policymakers and advocacy groups continue to push for bans on flavored tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, they risk undoing progress toward a better future. Leading researchers, including those from Yale, have shown unintended consequences of flavor bans include increased use of more harmful products, decreased cigarette quitting and increased criminal activity in jurisdictions with flavor bans. Flavor-ban efforts are misguided and would only serve to damage public health efforts and reverse the trend toward use of less harmful alternatives.

In any age-restricted category, companies continue to create products that serve legal markets. In October, a study from Yale School of Public Health found banning flavored tobacco products creates increased sales for cigarettes. It showed for every 0.7 milliliters of e-cigarette e-liquid that goes unsold due to flavor restrictions, 15 additional combustible cigarettes are sold. To compare apples to apples, if a vape user has a 7-milliliter tank and refills it twice per day, the user would consume .21 milligrams of nicotine. The typical combustible cigarette contains 11.9 to 14.5 milligrams of nicotine. Vaping is even curbing nicotine use, not just combustible cigarette use.

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Even more, as a result of cooperation between public health, enforcement regulators and industry leaders, teen smoking and vaping continue to plummet. The annual National Youth Tobacco Survey announced in early November smoking is down 90% during the past decade among teens, and vaping has dropped 61% in the past four years. This doesn’t mean it’s an end to the work, just that we need to be more targeted than attractive political slogans.  

This data mirrors the larger downward trend of total nicotine use, and our local government partners should not risk undoing these clear results with flavor bans. Recent data from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows most adults 18-to-24-years old who use e-cigarettes do not smoke cigarettes. In this group of adults, 9% use nicotine compared to 3% who prefer cigarettes, while for older generations, it’s roughly the inverse: 10% smoke cigarettes to 3% use e-cigarettes.

Though not without risk, policymakers and advocacy groups should consider the power of non-combustible nicotine products to prevent adults from smoking tobacco and to help them quit. In other data further demonstrating the effectiveness of nicotine products as a preferred alternative to smoking, flavors are a critical factor. This is evident in a 2021 publication by the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, which found bans on flavors will cause roughly one out of three adult e-cigarette users to go back to smoking cigarettes.

Earlier this year, Dr. Brian King, Director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products said, “We know that e-cigarettes — as a general class — have markedly less risk than a combustible cigarette product.” The FDA has recognized tobacco and nicotine products fall on a “continuum of risk,” with combustible cigarettes being the most harmful. Flavors represent an important component in getting adult smokers to switch to products that move them further down that continuum of risk, and that is a positive public health result we can all embrace.

Supporters of flavor bans should also consider if regulated legal flavored products are removed from store shelves, black-market vendors will fill the high demand for them. This happened in Massachusetts after the state passed a flavor ban in 2019. In February 2023, the state’s Multi-Agency Illegal Tobacco Task Force reported frequent seizures of flavored e-cigarettes purchased from unlicensed distributors within and outside of the state. Similar bans on flavors in tobacco products there also resulted in local surges of illegal-market activity providing customers with their preferred cigarettes and cigars.  

Data and science are still valid even when they don’t support a particular agenda, including data that shows the risks of banning flavors in nicotine products. To ban them risks undoing the trend of moving away from smoking that brought about today’s 50-year low overall, as well as undermining downward trends in youth use. As policymakers continue to prioritize gains in public health, careful review of scientific knowledge will lead them to develop effective policy that avoids regressive measures like flavor bans.

Grier Bailey is the executive director of the Colorado Wyoming Petroleum Marketers Association, which has represented 2,200 locally-owned, and family-run petroleum marketing companies since 1934.