Buffalo, NY (WBEN) There are reports New York Governor Kathy Hochul may be looking at an all-out ban on sales of all tobacco products in the state. This, in spite of Hochul’s failure to secure support from state legislators to include a ban on menthol cigarettes and other flavored tobacco products in the yet-to-be-approved state budget.
Several reports say Hochul and the state health department sent out surveys to gauge interest in a possible ban on all tobacco sales.
Albany insider Jack O'Donnell of O'Donnell and Associates tells WBEN he believes any proposal is way off. "The politics realistically of this, is that Governor Hochul had proposed a ban on menthol cigarettes in the budget. While the budget remains undone, it doesn't look like that's going to be part of a final budget deal. So the idea that, that they're not able to do menthol cigarettes, but then they would go and try to ban all cigarettes. That just seems a step too far for me," says O'Donnell.
O'Donnell says there's a lot of reaction, most of it critical and putting the possibility in serious question. "Not only is the state allowing recreational marijuana, but in fact, they're pushing it and they're there. They're advocating for this whole new marijuana marketplace, and the economy. So the idea that they're going to push that while at the same time trying to ban all cigarettes? There's certainly an optics problem, if not a hypocrisy problem," says O'Donnell.
Any such proposal, O'Donnell says, would likely end up in court. "There are really loud voices on other sides here to talking about how much tobacco use costs ... in terms of health care and sickness and early death," and O'Donnell notes that may be where this is coming from.
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O'Donnell says advocates against the bill say this won't ban smoking. "It's just driving more of it underground, driving it into the black market, where people are buying off off brand cigarettes or counterfeit cigarettes or people bringing them over state lines or from native lands and then reselling them," says O'Donnell, which could lead to other problems.
That is also the concern of Kent Sopris of the New York Association of Convenience Stores. Sopris says people will continue to find ways to smoke. "What you're doing when you prohibit a product like that, a product that is legal in the country, is you just make people purchase them somewhere else. In New York State. They can go to any other state, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, or they can go to any of the reservations that are in upstate," explains Sopris.
Sopris also calls the concept hypocritical in nature. "It makes no sense. Especially since the reason that cannabis was was legalized, is because prohibition of cannabis was a failed policy. Prohibition of tobacco will be a failed policy," contends Sopris. He adds it's disingenuous for the state to push the sales of flavored weed and other cannabis products while trying to ban adult products such as cigarettes and flavored tobacco.
As far as convenience stores go, Sopris says tobacco sales are about of third of stores' business. "The sales in New York State are upwards about $1.1 billion a year in tobacco, so that would go away," says Sopris. A ban would be devastating to the jobs of folks in convenience stores throughout upstate and and the rest of New York. "There's no way to make that that money up and again, that those sales would just move into another marketplace, a one in which taxes are not paid and products are not inspected," notes Sopris.
Sopris says there's a better solution to the desired smoking cessation goal. "New York should focus on cessation programs, they should focus on funding those programs, they should focus on funding enforcement of illegal trade. And they'll be able to, I believe, get to the numbers they want to get to. That being said, New York has an extremely low smoking rate for both adults and youth," believes Sopris.