Preventing underage access to tobacco and nicotine products is a public health priority. So is helping adults transition away from combustible cigarettes, the most harmful form of tobacco and nicotine use. Sound policy should advance both goals, and Aurora already has an evidence-based framework for doing exactly that.
In March, the Aurora City Council approved a tobacco retail licensing ordinance designed to reduce youth access to these products. The measure requires licenses, compliance checks, and meaningful penalties for retailers that break the law. The council also committed to reviewing youth-use trends along with compliance data and enforcement records annually, so future decisions would be driven by local data.
Only months later, advocates are pressing the city to replace that targeted approach with a sweeping ban on flavored tobacco and nicotine products, including products that FDA’s scientific reviews have determined are significantly less harmful than cigarettes and can be legally marketed and sold.
That raises a straightforward question: What has changed since March to justify abandoning an ordinance before it has had a full year to work?
The latest Healthy Kids Colorado Survey demonstrates that Colorado is heading in the right direction. In both Adams and Arapahoe counties, the data shows that 2.3% of high school students reported smoking cigarettes in the past 30 days. Reported nicotine-pouch use was 2.5% in Adams County and 2.4% in Arapahoe County. Vaping was at 10.6% and 9.2%, respectively, and at the lowest levels recorded by the survey. Put plainly, roughly 9 in 10 high school students in both counties are not vaping, and more than 97% are not using nicotine pouches.
The retail-sourcing data points in the same direction. More than 90% of underage users in Adams County and more than 86% in Arapahoe County did not report obtaining these tobacco and nicotine products from a retail store. A policy centered on removing these products from licensed shelves does little to address online sellers or social sources, while weakening the very channel the city can license, inspect, and enforce.
Aurora’s retailers also show high compliance with age-restriction laws, with 96% passing state compliance checks and 89% passing federal compliance checks, according to the available e-data. The March ordinance gives the city a direct way to focus enforcement on the comparatively small share of retailers that fail. That is more precise than imposing a ban that treats compliant businesses and repeat offenders alike.
Supporters of a ban frequently note that most young people who vape report using flavored products. That fact deserves attention but should not be isolated from the broader market context. The sale of flavored products represents more than 80% of all national sales for e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches; and flavors are highly preferred by legal-aged adult consumers. A prevalence of flavors among underage users does not establish that a flavored tobacco or nicotine product caused youth initiation or that by eliminating legal retail sales youth access would be prevented.
Policymakers should also weigh the risk of unintended consequences. Peer-reviewed research has found that restrictions on flavored e-cigarettes can shift purchases toward combustible cigarettes. One Yale analysis estimated that in states with flavor restrictions, sales of cigarette brands that attract underage smokers saw a 20 percent increase. That does not settle local policy questions but can serve as a serious warning against treating prohibition as consequence-free.
There are other policy stakes as well. According to the CDC, cigarette smoking remains a leading preventable cause of disease and death, and combustible cigarettes carry far greater health risks than smoke-free tobacco and nicotine products. A broad ban would remove legal alternatives used by adult consumers while leaving the principal non-retail sources of underage access largely untouched.
The numbers tell one consistent story. More than 9 in 10 kids are not using nicotine products. Nearly 9 in 10 retailers already pass compliance checks. More than 86% of underage access to these products does not come from retail. Preventing that underage access should always be a priority. But a ban that solves nothing and punishes the people who are already doing it right is not effective policy; it is prohibition for its own sake. The evidence does not support it. It argues directly against it.
The Aurora City Council made a responsible choice in March: target unlawful sales, hold bad actors accountable, then measure the results. It should let that policy work before replacing it with a broader ban that may miss the dominant sources of underage access to tobacco and nicotine products that could cause unintended consequences that impact legal-aged adult consumers. The city should follow its own data, enforce the law it just adopted, and judge that approach on evidence rather than just politics.
Dr. Jeffrey Willett currently serves as director of the Project to End Smoking for the Progressive Policy Institute.