The Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to California’s law banning flavored cigarette sales, leaving the law intact.
Tobacco manufacturers argued the state law conflicts with federal regulations, but the court declined to comment on the case.
California’s law, SB 793, prohibits the sale of flavored tobacco products, and its challengers have been unsuccessful in overturning it. (Trending: U.S. State Passes Personal Pronoun Ban)
The companies claimed the law would result in economic losses and job cuts, while California argued for the state’s authority to regulate tobacco.
Attorneys for a group of Tobacco manufacturers and retailers said, “Under the TCA, states have broad authority to regulate the sale of tobacco products. They can raise the minimum purchase age, restrict sales to particular times and locations, and enforce licensing regimes.”
“But one thing they cannot do is completely prohibit the sale of those products for failing to meet the state’s preferred tobacco product standards,” they continued.
The court declined to hear the case without comment.
According to California law, SB 793, it is illegal to “sell, offer for sale, or possess with the intent to sell or offer for sale, a flavored tobacco product or a tobacco product flavor enhancer,” in the state.
The tobacco manufacturers and retailers argued that the law “has shut the doors to one of the Nation’s largest markets for flavored tobacco products and thereby banned a product (menthol cigarettes) that has been lawfully sold for nearly a century.”
They warned that the law “could result in $1.4 billion in lost economic output and cost thousands of jobs.”
California Attorney General Rob Bonta highlighted, “In the 14 years since the TCA was enacted … no court has agreed with the tobacco industry position that the Act preempts restrictions or prohibitions on the sale of flavored tobacco products.”
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