AUGUSTA, Maine — An effort to ban the sale of flavored tobacco in Maine will have to wait at least another year.
The Legislature worked from Tuesday morning into the early hours of Wednesday to add roughly $11 million in spending to the two-year, $10.3 billion budget, but the flavored tobacco ban was not among the measures lawmakers funded before adjourning early Wednesday.
The bill from Sen. Jill Duson, D-Portland, was instead tabled. It would have halted the sale of flavored e-cigarettes and other tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes, by 2025. It called for retailers to face a $1,000 fine for violating the ban and a $5,000 fine for a repeat offense. The House never took up the bill, after the Senate approved it earlier in June in an 18-16 vote.
Gov. Janet Mills’ administration, through the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, testified in April in support of the bill. Duson had said Maine children are targeted by tobacco companies, which she called “a ruthless and predatory industry that doesn’t care a whit about them or the value they bring to our state.”
It was not a strict partisan split on the issue that partly features an urban-rural divide. The conservative Christian Civic League of Maine joined health groups in a coalition backing the ban while some Democrats supported a failed attempt from Rep. Joe Perry, D-Bangor, who owns a convenience store, to prevent cities from outlawing flavored tobacco sales.
The Legislature moved to ban the products in 2021 before Republicans stripped the proposal, which was estimated to cost $32 million over two years, from a budget deal.
Earlier this year, Bar Harbor and Rockland joined Portland, South Portland, Bangor, Brunswick in the group of Maine cities to pass flavored tobacco bans. The only states with bans on flavored tobacco sales are Massachusetts and California, while New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island only ban flavored e-cigarettes.
The Flavors Hook Kids Maine coalition favoring the ban touted polling showing majority support for such a ban among Mainers, with supporters also noting Maine has tobacco use and cancer rates above the national average.
Flavors Hook Kids Maine campaign manager BJ McCollister pointed to a “perfect storm of late session heated debates, and some absences of champions of this legislation on the final day” in response to the bill stalling this year.
The New England Convenience Store and Energy Marketers Association, which lobbied against the measure, provided its own survey showing majority opposition to banning menthol cigarettes.
Studies on flavored tobacco bans have reached varying health and economic conclusions while examining different factors.
Duson and other advocates argued the ban would protect kids and Black residents whom the tobacco industry has targeted, while retailers argued buyers will simply go to New Hampshire or online to acquire the flavored products.