Members of the City Council’s Human Services Committee directed staff June 5 to draw up an ordinance banning the sale of all flavored tobacco products in the city, receiving strong urging from local health community leaders to extend beyond that.
Council Member Kristian (“Krissie”) Harris (2nd Ward), chairing the meeting, was joined by Council Member Eleanor Revelle (7th Ward) in urging staff to create language for the ordinance “as broad as possible,” covering different forms of tobacco use the city might wish to prohibit.
At the meeting, committee members discussed a referral from Council Member Devon Reid (8th Ward) urging members to ban flavored vape and menthol products.
He picked those categories, he said, noting, “We don’t allow flavored cannabis products: strawberry-flavored weed or cannabis.
“You can’t have many other products that have artificial flavors that make them enticing, particularly to youth,” Reid said. “And we shouldn’t allow that [flavored products] with tobacco, because we know that tobacco is one of the more harmful substances in our community.”
By adopting this ban, he said, the city will be declaring, “These harmful products not being sold in our community are more important to us than the profits of tobacco-retailers. And I think this council is prepared to say that, definitively.”
Reid said menthol-flavored cigarettes are a particular problem in the Black community, citing a report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing 85% of Black smokers use menthol cigarettes.
He volunteered that he has used tobacco, specifically flavored e-cigarettes in the past, and expressed hope that legislation would present the “nudge for folks on the periphery to quit — some folks, not everyone.”
Reid added, “I think in Evanston we need to make sure that we are doing our part to help with smoking cessation.”
Similarly, Revelle pointed to the Evanston Health Department’s 2022 community health assessment showing “a rather shocking disparity’ in life expectancy between African American residents and other residents in areas of the city.”
She expressed hope that “this is one thing that we can do, I think, to try to address that really serious problem.”
Ban on flavored e-cigarettes or all flavored tobacco use?
Reid argued that the ordinance language for now should be limited to flavored e-cigarettes, including the menthol kind, which “have been a vehicle for introductory tobacco for our use.”
At this point, he said, he was not enthusiastic about a full-flavored tobacco ban.
Reid acknowledged that officials are confronting “an imbalance between trying to make sure that the next generation is not addicted to substances, and allowing some 50- or 45-year-olds who have been smoking to continue to live their lives as they choose.”
‘Leader’ in tobacco cessation
In a memo to the committee, Ike Ogbo, the city’s Health and Human Services director, pointed out, “Evanston has continuously been a public health leader in tobacco cessation and prevention measures.
“In 2005, the City of Evanston was one of the first communities to ban smoking in public places,” he wrote. “This step contributed to the City of Chicago and the State of Illinois eventually becoming smoke-free.”
Obgo further observed that in 2014 “Evanston was the first city in Illinois to raise the legal age for buying cigarettes to 21, from 18 years old. This measure was implemented explicitly to decrease the number of youth who started using tobacco products. The State of Illinois followed, once this law was established first in Evanston.”
The Evanston Health Advisory Committee, the advisory body to the City of Evanston Health and Human Services Department, supports Reid’s referral to ban the sale of flavored tobacco vape and menthol products within the City of Evanston “and also strongly supports the ban to be extended to all flavored tobacco products,” Ogbo said.
A number of local health leaders earlier in the meeting reinforced that point.
Candy flavors hide the bad taste of tobacco: American Heart Association
Derrick Cabrera, community advocacy director for the American Heart Association, noted that only the restriction of the sale of flavored tobacco products was on the agenda.
He told committee members that to truly make an impact, nicotine and unflavored e-cigarettes should be included.
“We ask, as the American Heart Association, to eliminate all flavors, in all tobacco products,” he said.
“The use of tobacco remains the nation’s number one cause of preventable death. In recent years, overall youth tobacco use in Cook County has continued to increase, largely driven by the youth e-cigarette-abuse epidemic. Tobacco companies target youth and products that come in kid-friendly candy and fruit flavors such as cherry, grape jelly, candy, piña colada, popcorn. … Flavors hide the bad taste of tobacco and make it easier to try. Nearly 97% of youth e-cigarette users report using flavored products.”
Breaking news
Dr. Donald Zeigler, chair of the Evanston Health Advisory Council, also spoke in support of banning all flavored tobacco products.
“Massachusetts took action in 2020 with a total ban on all flavored tobacco products and has seen declines in adult smoking rates and overall sale of cigarettes, including menthol and e-cigarettes,” he told council members. “It hasn’t put retail stores out of business. And the ban didn’t increase minority communities’ negative interactions with law enforcement.”
Zeigler also reported a bit of breaking news to the committee.
“I have just learned two hours ago that the U.S. Conference of Mayors today at its annual meeting in Columbus. Ohio, approved a resolution that supports prohibiting all flavored tobacco products, including flavored e-cigarettes, menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars just as well, [as] we are proposing now.”
Retailers say people will drive elsewhere
Another speaker, though, Thomas Briant – executive director of the National Association of Tobacco Outlets, a national trade association with member stores located in Evanston – spoke in opposition to an ordinance banning all flavored tobacco products.
Such a ban would prohibit products the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized for sale “because the agency is determined that certain tobacco products are appropriate for the protection of the public health.”
“These products authorized for sale by the FDA include nicotine lozenges, products of low nicotine, cigarettes, and other smokeless tobacco products shown to be less harmful,” he told committee members.
“Preventing these kinds of products from being sold means that adults who want to transition away from smoking cigarettes and cigars to less harmful products would not be able to purchase these in Evanston stores.
“Also, a complete ban on all flavored tobacco products will shift sales from the city’s licensed retailers to unregulated illicit sellers, over which the city has no control,” Briant told committee members.
“And these sellers will sell tobacco products to anyone, including youth who have cash. Moreover, Evanston residents will simply drive to neighboring cities to buy their preferred tobacco products.
“In addition, the FDA is now finalizing a new nationwide regulation that would ban the sale of all menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars and the regulation is supposed to be finalized by August, just two months from now,” Briant said.
“It is also important to note that the FDA hasn’t denied the marketing of more than 25 million individual electronic cigarettes and nicotine vapor products, the vast majority of which are flavored and they needed to be removed from the market.”
Staff is expected to bring a revised ordinance to the committee for their next meeting, scheduled for July 3.
What’s next? Fruit flavored alcohol? I am sure there are many young adults in Evanston that consume alcoholic beverages before the age of twenty one.
Do it, full tilt, in keeping with Evanston’s traditions. Of course foolish or merely desperate people will go elsewhere for a product to which they are addicted. But it is worthwhile to make any reasonable and even partially effective step to help prevent new addictions, increase the chances of successful quittings, or just reduce consumption.
Tobacco killed my first wife at age 49; she tried repeatedly to quit but always fell back to the mentholized cancer sticks someone “inspired” her to sample at 16. Even 24 years later, my body has an involuntary nasty reaction to the stink of smoke, especially mentholated.
We spent a few years in a part of Appalachia where “tabaccy” is an important source of revenue for small farms. I sympathize with those who lose income, but not with corporations that aggressively push appealing pathogens.
I’m so thankful or Evanston leaders are worried about our health, knowing better than we do how to take care of ourselves. Maybe soon they will outlaw foods they deem unhealthy. I’m thankful for their caring leadership and over-sized egos. I appreciate them telling all of us how to live.