Former tobacco CEO wants national flavor ban + R’s fail to end special session + JEDI wanted
Good morning and welcome to the A.M. Alert!
FORMER TOBACCO CEO CALLS FOR A NATIONAL FLAVOR BAN
Last year, Californians voted for Proposition 31 to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products in the state. It was the culmination of a years-long effort, and the Golden State followed Massachusetts in implementing a ban.
But Brian Quigley worries that voters might have been oversold on the proposition’s benefits.
“I think it feels good but I don’t think it has the net effect that people want it to have on the industry and on the risks surrounding the use of products,” he said.
Who’s Quigley?
Well, for 16 years he worked for tobacco giant Altria, including serving as CEO of smokeless and innovative products. These days, he works to get people off of tobacco products, heading up a company, Qnovia, that sells nicotine-replacement therapy products.
Quigley isn’t opposed to flavored tobacco bans, but he argued in an interview with The Bee that the current efforts are haphazard and lack all-essential community buy-in. Without that, he said, the big companies might comply with the ban but smaller companies looking to slip under the radar won’t.
“They’re willing to sacrifice the chance of breaking the law to make a buck. It’s kind of like playing a game of Whack-a-Mole,” he said.
In addition to shady retailers, Quigley said that state-level bans suffer because those states border other states where the outlawed product remains legal.
“It’s like an environment of Swiss cheese. There’s just too many holes,” he said.
California shares a border with Oregon, Nevada and Arizona, all of which still allow the sale of flavored tobacco products. Then there’s the international border with Mexico. Then there’s the two major international shipping ports — in Los Angeles and Long Beach.
All of that, according to the right-leaning think tank the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and the pro-business D.C.-based nonprofit the Tax Foundation, is why California is No. 2 in the country for cigarette smuggling.
To get that number, the Mackinac Center analyzed the difference between the amount of cigarettes smoked in 47 of the contiguous states (North Carolina was not included) and the number of cigarettes acquired through legal sales in that state. The difference “could be explained by some form of smuggling, and this is our assumption,” according to the center.
According to the latest report, which came out in 2020 before the flavored tobacco ban went into effect, 45% of the cigarettes smoked in California came from outside the state.
The Tax Foundation released a report last week calling California’s flavored tobacco ban a costly proposition for the state.
While the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration initially projected that the ban would result in a tax revenue loss of $218 million, the Tax Foundation projects that the final annual loss would be closer to $329 million.
Advocates for the ban argue that the state will see considerable savings in the form of a healthier, more smoke-free population that places less of a strain on the state’s medical system.
California’s Medicaid program incurs $3.85 billion in smoking-related costs each year, according to the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids. Each year, Californians run up $15.44 billion in health care costs associated with smoking. The state also sees an estimated $28.1 billion in smoking-caused productivity losses.
The Tax Foundation argued that the loss in revenue isn’t coming from people smoking less, but from people buying tobacco products from out-of-state.
This report comes as California tobacco retailers struggle to comply with the new flavor ban. It also comes as state lawmakers are considering an even greater tobacco ban — barring anyone born after 2007 from ever buying a tobacco product.
Quigley expressed skepticism toward state and local efforts to ban flavored tobacco products because he said such efforts don’t go far enough.
“To achieve the goal, there needs to be a national, federal framework,” he said.
In other words, the federal government needs to ban flavored tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes, Quigley said. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is considering doing just that.
Quigley said that in addition to the need for a federal framework, “there needs to be enforcement and everybody has to care.”
Asked whether he regrets his time in the tobacco industry, Quigley said he doesn’t.
“We held ourselves to not only the letter of the law but the spirit of the law,” Quigley said of his time at Altria. “...I feel like the company did it the right way.”
That said, Quigley said that he’s happy to be doing something different these days.
ASSEMBLY REPUBLICANS TRY, FAIL TO END SPECIAL SESSION
If you blinked during Monday’s Assembly hearing on the special extraordinary session to consider a windfall profit tax on oil and gas companies, you might have missed Republican Assemblyman Heath Flora’s attempt to adjourn the session sine die (i.e. indefinitely).
According to Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher, the call to end the special session was “a call for a reality check.”
“Nothing costs less when you raise taxes. Enough with the distractions — it’s time to get to work on real solutions,” Gallagher wrote on Twitter.
The whole thing was over in just a few minutes.
Flora made his motion to adjourn sine die. Another lawmaker motioned to table it. There was a brief debate over whether the motion to table was debatable (it was ruled not to be), and then the Assembly voted 48-17 to table the motion, effectively squashing it.
The motion comes nearly a week after Senate lawmakers met in committee to discuss Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal to tax the oil industry’s profits. Experts and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle expressed skepticism about the proposal, according to this report from The Bee’s Lindsey Holden.
The Assembly Republican Caucus sent out an email blast criticizing Assembly Democrats for voting to continue the special session and Newsom for not responding to their request to delay the switch to the summer blend of gasoline, extend the diesel fuel gas tax holiday and suspend the planned 8% gas tax increase set to go into effect July 1.
Newsom’s office did respond to The Bee’s request for comment on the Assembly GOP’s proposal last week.
Newsom deputy press secretary Daniel Villaseñor said that legislative Republicans “are avoiding the core problem” of the oil industry operating “with zero accountability and too much power.”
“Gov. Newsom is working hard to pass a price gouging penalty with transparency measures to hold Big Oil accountable and Republicans are welcome to join our efforts at any point,” he said.
AS CALIFORNIA’S PANDEMIC EMERGENCY COMES TO AN END, PPIC LOOKS AT THE COST
Today marks the official end of California’s COVID-19 emergency.
The end of the nearly three-year-long emergency comes as a time of somber reflection. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, the pandemic has taken a toll on Californians’ economic optimism.
In January 2020, 43% of Californians expected bad economic times ahead. That number then swung wildly, hitting 79% in April 2020, rebounding in 2021 before dipping in 2022. According to the most recent February 2023 survey, that number has risen to 66%.
That economic pessimism was justified, according to the PPIC, as 2.8 million jobs were lost in the state in the first two months of the pandemic. Though the state has since regained that many jobs, those gains were not necessarily in the sectors that experienced the greatest losses, the PPIC said.
“The sectors that remain farthest behind their pre-pandemic levels are accommodations and food service, arts and entertainment, and other services. These sectors are still growing slowly, but the pandemic’s impact may be long term, given lagging demand for some services and increased demand for more flexible working conditions,” according to the PPIC.
The PPIC noted that while labor market conditions have improved for workers, wages have not kept up with inflation.
In November 2022, 29% of survey respondents said that their personal finances had worsened over the past year. In February 2023, 61% reported a financial hardship due to rising prices and 45% said they were concerned about paying for housing.
Meanwhile, the official emergency may be over but COVID-19 remains lethal. Last week, California surpassed 100,000 deaths from the virus.
JEDI WANTED AT THE CALIFORNIA DEMOCRATIC PARTY
This isn’t a mind trick.
The California Democratic Party is seeking out JEDI facilitators — that is, facilitators of the CDP’s Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion series of discussions.
The party enacted this anti-racist platform in 2021.
“In this 8-part series, we created a brave space for facilitated conversations about racism, ableism, homophobia, microaggressions and more with the aim of making our party a more inclusive and welcoming place for all who want to elect Democrats,” according to an email blast sent out by the party.
The party is seeking facilitators who are registered Democrats, passionate about the cause and interested in supporting a cultural change in the party, and able to attend an in-person training in Los Angeles on May 26, ahead of the California Democratic Party Convention.
Interested parties can sign up here.
May the Force be with you, always.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“To the surprise of absolutely no one, Republicans in #CALeg are doing the bidding of Big Oil and trying to stop us from holding Big Oil accountable. We will continue the fight to protect California families from getting ripped off at the pump.”
— The Office of the Governor of California official Twitter account.
Best of The Bee:
Perhaps you heard California’s COVID-19 state of emergency is ending — or maybe you didn’t, via Brianna Taylor.
If you dream of owning an electric vehicle but can’t afford one, you’re not alone. Zero-emission car sales in California showed an encouraging jump last year, yet most options remain unaffordable for most people, via Ari Plachta.
California legalized recreational cannabis use in 2018 — and years later the state had nearly 800 dispensaries, according to Statistica, a market consumer data website. How much marijuana can you legally hold in California? Here are the rules for personal use, via Jacqueline Pinedo.
Public transit is a lifeline for low-income Californians, essential for increased housing density and the key to realizing the state’s goal of drastically reduced carbon emissions. But the state’s major public transit agencies are facing a myriad of issues — from slumped ridership to proposed state funding cuts to a looming “fiscal cliff.” They’re looking to California lawmakers for a solution, via Maggie Angst.
Former MMA champion Ronda Rousey went 12-2 over the course of her fighting career. These days, she’s fighting for fellow retired mixed martial artists. Rousey spoke out in an ESPN interview published Thursday in support of a proposed California law to create a pension fund for retired MMA fighters, via Andrew Sheeler.