The Denver City Council is poised to revisit one of its most high-profile debates of recent years, with a new proposal to ban the sale of flavored tobacco.
A group of city council members held a one-hour virtual community conversation Wednesday evening to discuss the impacts of flavored tobacco on Denver kids and a proposal to end its sale in Denver.
Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez, Shontel M. Lewis and the office of Darrell Watson hosted the event. A briefing on the issue is on the agenda for the council’s budget and policy committee meeting on Monday.
The proposal will call for an end to the sale of all flavored tobacco products in the city “to protect our kids and advance health equity,” as one slide presented stated.
It would prohibit the sale of all flavored tobacco products in Denver, including fruit and candy flavored e-cigarettes, menthol cigarettes, flavored hookah tobacco and flavored chew and pouches. If passed by the council, the measure would go into effect on April 1, 2026, to allow retail shops to come into compliance, Gonzales-Gutierrez said.
Another community conversation is planned for Thursday from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center at 3880 Newport St. in Denver.
Flavored tobacco is marketed toward and appeals to kids, said Gonzales-Gutierrez, who holds an at-large seat. “We are seeing how this is negatively impacting kids in our communities,” she said. “For me, this is a no brainer.”
“The tobacco industry knows that those are starter products that kids like and that they get them hooked on tobacco at a very young age, creating lasting addictions and lifetimes of health issues,” said Lewis, who noted she’s an ex-smoker.
“I actually became addicted to smoking because of the flavors. The product that I was ingesting was mint. And I love the scent of mint,” said Lewis, who represents District 8. “So I have real-life experience when it comes to this.”
“I'm very much in favor of ending the sales of flavored tobacco. I think it disproportionately impacts African-Americans,” Councilmember Watson, who represents District 9, told CPR News in a recent interview.
A panel of experts made the case that nicotine is a highly addictive drug, one to which adolescents and the teen brain are especially vulnerable.
They said menthol cigarettes, which taste like mint, and other flavored tobacco are key to youth initiation.
“They come in flavors from banana split and root beer float to menthol flavored cigarettes,” said Jodi Radke, who directs advocacy for the Rocky Mountains/Great Plains for the non-profit Campaign for Tobacco Free kids. “And banana flavored cigars.”
She noted about 9 percent of Colorado high school students and about 7 percent of Denver high schoolers are current e-cigarette users, with flavors driving consumption.
Radke cited data showing menthol’s “devastating” impact on a variety of diverse groups, including the Black, Latino, Asian Pacific Islander communities, with “cancer being a leading cause of death and disease in these communities. And this is why this makes this so critically important that we work on these prevention strategies.”
The industry has also targeted LGBTQ+ youth and women, she said. “We know that the use rates are higher in these populations. But also correlated to that is that we have higher numbers of those who suffer from chronic disease related to their use within these specific populations that have been marketed to,” Radke said.
“It's a social justice issue because of the predatory marketing to not only the Black population, not only to youth, but also other marginalized communities,” said Dr. Terri Richardson, a retired primary care physician who has worked on the issue for decades. “We can't wait for the feds to ban menthol. There's a slow churn of justice while people are dying.”
Last month, Denver's school board passed a proclamation calling on the City Council to pass a ban on flavored tobacco.
Three years ago the Council passed a similar proposal, which was vetoed by then-mayor Michael Hancock. He said he thought a statewide or metro area ban would be a better approach. A few months after his veto, Colorado lawmakers considered such a measure, before it failed.
An estimated 5,000 Colorado adults die from smoking-related illnesses each year. It also costs the state more than $2 billion annually on health care costs for illnesses caused by smoking.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has described cigarette smoking as the leading cause of preventable death and disability in the U.S.
Over many decades, the tobacco industry targeted Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Denver with extensive advertising and other efforts to encourage consumption of its products. A CPR News report last year uncovered numerous documents establishing the link.
Denver’s Mayor Mike Johnston could be more willing than his predecessor to back a flavor ban.
“I had said before [that] I'd be willing to support it if the council wants to do it,” Johnston told CPR News in December. “I think that things that we can do to reduce usage, particularly to reduce adolescent usage, we know has a major impact. We know often people start smoking early in life. That's how you develop a habit that's hard to kick.”
The last time the proposal came up, it sparked a spirited debate with education, public health, and anti-tobacco groups and other advocates facing off with businesses like vape shops and convenience stores and the industry that makes and sells flavored tobacco products.
Grier Bailey, executive director of the Colorado Wyoming Petroleum Marketers Association, which represents 2,200 retailers, including convenience stores, told CPR News last month that his group opposes flavor bans.
He said many flavored products, like some chewing tobaccos, are mostly used by adults, not young people.
“The presence of flavors themselves aren't necessarily the problem. It's how you market it. And are you generally trying to entice adult consumers or kids?” he said.
