Ban on flavored vaping may have led teens to cigarettes, study suggests

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2021-05-26 14:00:06

May 26, 2021

by Michael Greenwood, Yale University

When San Francisco voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure banning the sale of flavored tobacco products in 2018, public health advocates celebrated. After all, tobacco use poses a significant threat to public health and health equity, and flavors are particularly attractive to youth.

But according to a new study from the Yale School of Public Health (YSPH), that law may have had the opposite effect. Analyses found that, after the ban's implementation, high school students' odds of smoking conventional cigarettes doubled in San Francisco's school district relative to trends in districts without the ban, even when adjusting for individual demographics and other tobacco policies.