Photograph: Jeff Chiu/APPhotograph: Jeff Chiu/APThe supreme court has upheld California’s ban on flavored tobacco products, thwarting an effort by tobacco companies to stop it from being enforced.
The ban was first passed by the state legislature two years ago but it never took effect after tobacco companies gathered enough signatures to put it on the ballot. But nearly two-thirds of voters approved of banning the sale of everything from cotton-candy vaping juice to menthol cigarettes.Read more
Menthol cigarettes make up about a third of the market in California, the companies said in urging the supreme court to keep them from losing so much business in the nation’s largest state. California responded that federal law comfortably allows state and local governments to decide which tobacco products are to be sold in their jurisdictions. And the state noted that the companies only went to the supreme court after spending “tens of millions of dollars” in a losing cause at the polls.