Column: Veto flawed bill, prohibit sale of all flavored tobacco products

After decades of progress in reducing tobacco use, overall youth tobacco use has increased in recent years, fueled largely by the abundance of flavored tobacco products. Fruit, mint, menthol and other candy flavors are a marketing weapon used by Big Tobacco — and often paired with flashy marketing campaigns — to target and lure youth into a lifetime of addiction.

Flavored tobacco use by middle school and high school students and young adults is high nationwide. More than 80% of youth who use tobacco start with a flavored product. Furthermore, most youth say flavors are the main reason why they use tobacco products and why they wrongly perceive them as less harmful.

Make no mistake, flavors hook kids. And years of internal tobacco industry documents confirm the intended use of flavors to target young people. In fact, most adults who use tobacco products started as youth.

To protect our keiki and reduce tobacco use, Hawaii must end the sale of all flavored tobacco products including menthol cigarettes with no exemptions.

Gov. David Ige is currently considering what bills he will veto. As organizations dedicated to saving lives and improving public health in Hawaii, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network and the American Heart Association strongly oppose House Bill 1570, which will leave thousands of flavored tobacco products available in the state.

Ending the sale of all flavored tobacco products is needed because research shows that if some flavored products are allowed to remain, youth will simply switch to other available flavored tobacco products — and the tobacco industry will continue targeting them. The use of any flavored tobacco product among youth is concerning because it exposes them to a lifetime of addiction, disease and premature death.

For decades, tobacco companies have targeted communities of color, LGBTQ individuals and people with limited incomes, resulting in large inequities in tobacco use among these populations. Ending the sale of all flavored tobacco products including menthol cigarettes in Hawaii is also an important social justice and health equity issue.

Long before cigarette companies added fruit and other candy flavors to cigarettes, they were using menthol to mask the harshness of their products to addict new young customers. To add insult to injury, tobacco companies have aggressively targeted certain communities with their menthol products, leading to an unequal burden of death and disease. Within communities of color, menthol products are given more shelf space in retail stores and many of these groups see lower prices and more advertisements for these products. It’s no wonder, then, that 78% of Native Hawaiians and 39% of Asians who smoke use menthol cigarettes.

Additionally, the Food and Drug Administration and its tobacco products advisory committee concluded that menthol also poses additional risks compared to cigarettes without menthol. Menthol has been shown to increase smoking initiation, decrease successful quitting and lead to greater addiction, all independent of nicotine’s already damaging effects.

Tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable death, and each year, 1,400 Hawaii adults die from smoking. Unless current smoking rates decrease, 21,000 Hawaii youth under age 18 will eventually die prematurely from tobacco-related illness.

We can reverse these trends and help protect Hawaii’s keiki and our communities. We urge Gov. Ige to veto House Bill 1570, and we also urge Hawaii legislators to end the sale of all flavored tobacco products next session. It is time to stop Big Tobacco from causing more death and destruction in our beautiful state.

Cynthia Au is the Hawaii government relations director for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network; Don Weisman is the Hawaii government relations/communications director for the American Heart Association.