Advocates say aggressive marketing toward youth highlights need for a flavored tobacco ban in Maine (2024)

Matteo Hardy has seen widespread vaping at Cony High School, and also the new, clever ways in which tobacco companies are luring teens into trying the products.

There’s a hand-held video game that doubles as a vaping device, and a vaping pen decorated with artwork in the same style as the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” book series. There’s even children’s clothing designed to conceal vaping devices from teachers and staff.

“It’s just crazy what we see now,” said Hardy, 16, a junior at Cony High School in Augusta and an advocate for banning flavored tobacco. “There’s so many different ways kids can get tobacco into their bodies that no one knows about. We know the tobacco companies target to youth. What we’ve seen is an increase in targeting, going after younger and younger kids.”

Some Maine lawmakers and an advocacy group that Hardy belongs to – Flavors Hook Kids Maine – have lobbied for a flavored tobacco ban that would prevent tobacco products from being sold with added flavors such as mint, fruit, candy and menthol.

Hardy said he has not tried vaping, but among his high school peers who have, all of them were attracted to it by the flavors.

Still, despite Democratic majorities in the state House and Senate, and the support of the Mills administration, the bill has failed to get across the finish line.

A measure passed in the Senate by two votes in 2023, with all Republicans and four Democrats voting “no” and 18 Democrats voting in favor, but it was never brought up for a vote in the House. Instead, the bill was carried over to the 2024 session, when it also failed to garner a House floor vote. Democratic leaders told the Press Herald earlier this year that there were concerns that the measure would divide the Democratic caucus.

With inaction at the State House, several cities and towns in Maine have approved bans of their own, including Portland, South Portland, Bar Harbor, Bangor, Brunswick, Freeport and Hallowell.

Despite the failed efforts for a statewide ban, there may be yet another attempt in 2025 to prohibit flavored tobacco in all tobacco products in Maine. Flavored tobacco is currently banned or restricted in seven other states, including Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, California, Utah, Maryland and Rhode Island, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

“We definitely still see the need to end the sale of flavored tobacco products,” said Matt Wellington, associate director of the Maine Public Health Association, a nonprofit advocacy group. “Legislators should consider banning flavored tobacco as one of the key evidence-based strategies to reduce youth tobacco use.”

Whether another attempt at a ban will come up is undetermined, Wellington said.

Groups have lobbied against the ban, including the New England Convenience Store and Energy Marketers Association, which argues that without a nationwide ban, all a Maine ban would do would be to encourage people to cross into New Hampshire to purchase the products.

When the ban went into effect in Massachusetts, it “created a massive black market” and also caused people to simply buy them in New Hampshire, said Peter Brennan, executive director of the advocacy group.

“We think this is bad public policy that would rob the state of sales tax money,” said Brennan, pointing out that the sales tax money goes toward smoking cessation and prevention programs. “It’s best to have a regulated marketplace, keep them at our retailers, so we can card the buyers.”

Dan Cashman, spokesman for Flavors Hook Kids Maine, argued that flavors are a lure for teens, and so are new marketing techniques. Adding them together is a dangerous combination to get “replacement smokers.”

“What has changed in the past two years is how much more aggressive they’ve become in marketing to younger audiences,” Cashman said.

There is some encouraging data on youth vaping. The percentage of high school students who reported vaping in the previous 30 days declined from a high of 29% in 2019 to 16% in 2023, according to the Maine Integrated Youth Health Survey. About 30% of Maine high school students have tried vaping, according to the survey. The use of combustible cigarettes remains low in Maine, at 5.5%.

Flavors are banned nationally in combustible cigarettes, with the exception of menthol, but vaping is more often how kids are introduced to tobacco.

Hardy, the Augusta teenager, said the danger of getting young people hooked is real.

“There’s a perception that regular tobacco is gross and a lot of people don’t want it,” he said. “But they try the flavors, and the first two times may be a choice, but after that the addiction takes over.”