That’s the name a coalition of advocates and youth have given their newly formed campaign committee. It’s urging voters in this fall’s election to vote yes to defend a vote by Denver’s city council to ban flavored tobacco products.
“Big Tobacco has never had a problem driving revenue and fattening their pockets off kids and producing products that are kid friendly,” said Herman White, with the Park Hill Pirates Youth Sports Organization. He singled out flavors used in vaping products like cotton candy and bubble gum that advocates say are used to hook kids “to ensure that they have a lifelong customer.”
White was one of a group of speakers, including pediatricians, hospital leaders and public health advocates, on Thursday at Children’s Hospital Colorado’s Outpatient Care site in Denver.
The city council voted 11-1 in December to approve a law banning the sale of most flavored nicotine products. It was signed by Mayor Mike Johnston. A pair of groups, led by vape shops, gathered thousands of signatures to challenge the law, enough to put the issue before voters.
“Tobacco-caused death within the African-American community is the second leading cause of death for folks in our communities and that's why I stand here in solidarity with this really great bunch of folks, healthcare practitioners and leaders within our communities to say, no,” said Councilmember Darrell Watson.
Flavored tobacco products were developed and are marketed as “starter products” for kids, several speakers said.
“Eighty percent of children report that their first exposure to an inhaled tobacco product or e-cigarettes was flavored,” said Dr. Monica Federico, a pediatrician specializing in lung health at Children’s Hospital Colorado. Flavors disguise the taste and the harshness of the tobacco, she said, making them appealing and easier for new users to try.
Research has shown that teenagers who begin smoking using e-cigarettes are more likely to become cigarette smokers, “leading to a lifetime of addiction,” and some kids will transition to using other tobacco products, even non-tobacco substances, led to by nicotine after “they have primed that pathway by vaping,” she said.
Smoking is expensive both for consumers and Denver’s health system, said Dr. Steven Federico, a pediatrician and chief government and community affairs officer at Denver Health.
He noted that smokers incur up to 40 percent higher healthcare costs due to the treatment of smoking-related diseases. That drives up health care costs, as well as insurance premiums and higher taxes, through increased costs via public health insurance programs like Medicaid and Medicare.
Big tobacco companies have a long history of targeting low-income and BIPOC communities with advertising for menthol cigarettes and flavored vaping products, he said.
“I personally certainly remember a camel and a cowboy trying to sell me addictive products in my youth,” said Federico, who is the husband of Monica Federico. “Low-income communities carry a heavier burden of tobacco-related diseases leading to premature death, low life expectancy, and a greater economic hardship throughout their life.”
Vape shops: “We are not Big Tobacco!”
The vote — likely to be held this November — will essentially be a referendum on flavored products. Nicotine retailers argue that council members went too far in regulating products that many adults use as well and which generate revenues for local businesses and taxes for government.
The change is expected to affect some 550 retailers that sell the products in Denver.
“We are not Big Tobacco! We are small family-owned businesses that have united to protect our interests and preserve the rights for adults to choose a better alternative to smoking cigarettes, which are still legal,” said Phil Guerin, who owns the vape shop Myxed Up Creations on Colfax Ave. He’s helping lead the effort to repeal the ban, via email.
“It is really unfortunate that the opposition has chosen to perpetuate a series of misinformation to confuse the public. This ban does nothing to address the issues that it is intended to. We have begged to engage in intellectual discussions to build on the common ground we all share, that we do not want young people using these products.”
Guerin accused city leaders of ignoring “the stakeholders and industry experts, choosing instead to follow the misguided lead of influences from outside our city.”
“Voters should send a message to the council to go back and do better. Leave adults and their choices alone and target products where youth rates are highest,” said Grier Bailey, executive director of the Colorado Wyoming Petroleum Marketers Association, via email.
The group represents 2,200 retailers statewide, including convenience stores. Bailey said the problem of youth use is “driven by flavors and products promoted by foreign, mainly Chinese companies, that don't have a chance of making it through the Food and Drug Administration approval process.”
Bailey noted his group is not part of the repeal campaign.
The showdown comes as federal tobacco regulation is being upended
Denver’s fight comes as the Trump administration is remaking the nation’s regulatory agencies. The Food and Drug Administration’s chief tobacco regulator was removed at the beginning of the month.
Politico reported in mid-April, that senior FDA officials asked laid-off employees from the agency’s tobacco enforcement to temporarily return after mass cuts “decimated the agency’s ability to penalize retailers that sell cigarettes and vapes to minors.”
The federal changes only make Denver’s ballot measure more important, advocates said.
“I think it's really important and it's a timely opportunity for Denver voters to have their voice heard on these health issues. And this is one avenue for that,” said R.J. Ours, Colorado government relations director for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network.
“What we are doing at the state level and at the local level is critically important in terms of being the safety net to protect kids' health,” said Jodi Radke of the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids. “We know that the FDA is being dismantled. We know CDC is being dismantled,” as well as FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, the division responsible for regulating tobacco products nationwide. “With that dismantling, that has a trickle-down effect.”
“We welcome common-sense regulation for adult consumers of these products and not bans,” Guerin, the vape shop owner, said. “We have previously seen the FDA fail to do exactly this.”
He noted a recent Supreme Court decision reaffirms the FDA's authority to regulate these products. “Recent changes at the FDA will create a clear path forward for the industry and adults that responsibly consume these products,” he said.
The vote seems likely headed for the November ballot. Alternatively, the city council could call a special election for the measure on a different date — but that hasn’t been discussed yet.
If the council does nothing, then it will be on the November ballot.
