E-commerce, a legal loophole in California's flavored tobacco ban

A study indicates that searches for online purchases of tobacco and vaping products spiked just after California's ban on the sale of these flavored products went into effect. To close this legal loophole, the researchers make several recommendations to better regulate the online sale of these products..

Menthol- and other flavored tobacco and nicotine products have long been identified as a source of smoking initiation and maintenance, particularly among younger people. In the United States, several states and other jurisdictions have already banned the sale of these flavored tobacco and nicotine products. In California, a ban on the sale of menthol cigarettes and flavored vaping products took effect on December 21, 2022.

California's regulations on flavored tobacco and vaping products, however, did not include the online sale of these products. A team of researchers from the University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego) observed a surge in searches for online purchases of these products just after the ban on flavored tobacco and nicotine products went into effect.[1].

Spike in online searches for tobacco and vaping products

Researchers at UC San Diego tracked weekly changes in online tobacco and vaping product purchases from January 1, 2018, to April 30, 2023. They found a sharp spike in searches for online tobacco and vaping products immediately after California's ban on the sale of these flavored products went into effect. Searches for online cigarette purchases increased by 194% and remained unusually high for 11 weeks after the sales ban. Searches for online vaping products increased by 162% and remained high for six weeks.

A legal loophole to be filled

The authors acknowledge that their study lacks sufficient time to better assess the evolution of these online searches during 2023. However, they believe that it is an indicator of a legal loophole that had excluded online sales sites from the list of tobacco and vaping product retailers. Accordingly, they propose several options to close this legal loophole. One would be to ban the online sale of all tobacco and vaping products. Another could be to simply add online stores to the list of retailers prohibited from selling flavored tobacco products. States that impose a sales licensing system for tobacco and vaping products could also extend this system to online retailers, which is rarely the case. This option would notably allow for greater control over the types of tobacco and vaping products sold online. More generally, this situation raises the question of the application of these types of measures, their compliance by online sales sites and the means deployed to ensure compliance.

Keywords: California, flavor ban, menthol cigarettes, e-commerce

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[1] Leas EC, Mejorado T, Harati R, et al. E-commerce licensing loopholes: a case study of online shopping for tobacco products following a statewide sales restriction on flavored tobacco in California. Tobacco Control, Published Online First: 07 November 2023. doi: 10.1136/tc-2023-058269