Strawberry Watermelon. Vanilla Almond Custard. Apple Pear. Matcha.
These are candy and dessert flavors for e-cigarettes and tobacco products that Big Tobacco has designed to hook a new generation of young people on nicotine. By reinventing their products, tobacco companies are putting millions of young people at risk and threatening decades of public health progress.
Yesterday, I announced a lawsuit to send a clear message that these products will not be tolerated in San Francisco.
A few years ago, San Francisco put young people first, by enacting laws that ban the sale and distribution of flavored tobacco products and e-cigarettes. But while our city and state have done a good job enforcing against brick-and-mortar tobacco retailers, online retailers are the next frontier in the fight.
My Office sued three online tobacco retailers – Millennial One, Inc., Gashiro Technology LLC, and DeSmokey LLC – who shipped flavored tobacco products to our city with flagrant disregard for the laws meant to protect kids. This year alone, 2.8 million middle and high school students in America have used e-cigarettes, with 89 percent choosing flavored products. In San Francisco, 20% of our high school students have tried e-cigarettes. You can learn more about our lawsuit in the SF Standard:
Our lawsuit builds on the tremendous work of many advocates, from local activists with the Youth Leadership Institute and the San Francisco Tobacco-Free Coalition, to doctors with the San Francisco Marin Medical Society, to national organizations such as Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association, to San Francisco Supervisors and our Department of Public Health.
Someday, we will have a tobacco-free generation. But until then, we’re in the fight together to stand up for our kids.