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Supervisors vote to ban tobacco-flavored products

WAVE NEWSPAPERS — The county Board of Supervisors Sept. 24 unanimously voted its intent to approve a ban on flavored tobacco products, including menthol, despite protests by dozens of tobacco business owners and advocates who support vaping and e-cigarettes as aids to quitting smoking.

Published

5 years ago

October 7, 2019

Oakland Post

Photo by: Milkwork | Twenty20

By Wave Wire Services

LOS ANGELES — The county Board of Supervisors Sept. 24 unanimously voted its intent to approve a ban on flavored tobacco products, including menthol, despite protests by dozens of tobacco business owners and advocates who support vaping and e-cigarettes as aids to quitting smoking.

Groups from both sides of the issue tried to shout each other down while awaiting entry to the downtown Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration. Those against the ban — which would apply only to retailers in unincorporated areas of the county — carried signs reading “I Vape, I Vote,” while many proponents wore black T-shirts identifying themselves as “United Families and Parents.”

Supervisor Janice Hahn, who chairs the board, repeatedly warned the audience to respect other speakers and threatened more than once to clear the board room in the wake of shouts and cheers. More than 300 people signed up to speak on the issue.

“As you can tell, there’s a lot of passion around this issue,” Hahn told the crowd.

The ordinance needs to come back to the board for a second reading, as early as next week, and would take effect 30 days after that second vote.

Tobacco retailers would then have 180 days, under an amendment proposed by Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, to obtain new licenses required under the ordinance and to clear their shelves of flavored tobacco products.

Online sales would not be prohibited and users would not be punished under the ordinance, according to Judy Whitehurst, senior assistant county counsel.

Department of Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer told the board that flavored tobacco products “are driving the current vaping epidemic among youth” and encouraging experimentation that can lead to lifelong addiction.

“Evidence is mounting that vaping can severely impact lung function,” Ferrer said, pointing to nine recent vaping deaths nationwide — including one in Los Angeles County — and decisions by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and surgeon general to declare youth use an epidemic.

One pod of a popular vaping product has as much nicotine as a entire pack of regular cigarettes and nicotine can affect brain development up until the age of 25, according to Ferrer.

“Kids are lured in by the flavors and they are locked in by the nicotine,” said Annie Tegen of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

But dozens of vaping advocates said flavored products had helped them quit pack-a-day smoking habits and improved their health.

“People who smoked for 30 or 40 years were able to break free,” George Baida told the board.

“Please do not restrict flavors. This is helping adults quit,” Brandon Minkler said.

“I’m addicted to not smelling like an ashtray and living a longer, healthier life,” another man said.

Others warned that they would lose their jobs to the ban and worried aloud how they would support their families.

“[It’s] a horrible idea to ban this,” said A Kouture, founder of the International Black Restaurant & Hospitality Association.

Kouture pointed out that government didn’t ban McDonald’s over worries about children’s health or prohibit flavored alcohol over concerns about teen drinking and warned that the ban would fuel a black market.

Business owners said they had no interest in selling to kids and pointed out that minors are violating the law when they use e-cigarettes and vaping products. Opponents to the ban urged the board to focus on enforcing existing laws or take aim against youth use with more targeted measures.

“This is our livelihood, this is all we know,” Farid Zahreddine told the board. “We’ve been selling this product for 10 years. … Please protect the kids and protect us.”

However, Ferrer said a compliance check of 280 shops showed that one in four were selling to underage consumers.

Several schoolchildren spoke in favor of the ban.

“Our classmates are getting so addicted that they are hitting their JUULs in the classroom at class time,” student Lisa Lu said. “We hope that L.A. can stand up against big tobacco.”

Business owners pushed back against that characterization.

“We are not big tobacco, we are small business,” said Chris Wheeler of Savage Enterprises, warning the board that the flavor ban would amount to “handing big tobacco a win.”

Each side took potshots against the other. KFI-AM radio host Wendy Walsh accused opponents of being “tobacco industry foot soldiers,” while one business owner said he saw kids being coached on what to say outside the boardroom.

Many speakers asked the board to make a cultural exemption for hookah use, which they argued was also far too cumbersome to be popular among kids.

But Ferrer said that 2% of high schoolers and 4% of young adults surveyed by her department used hookahs in the prior month. She emphasized that the ordinance wouldn’t ban the use of hookahs, only the use of flavors.

“What we’re asking for is to ban the sale of flavors that mask the harshness of tobacco products,” Ferrer said.

Supervisor Kathryn Barger said she believed that roughly 700 businesses in unincorporated areas would be affected by the ordinance and noted a lot of confusion around what the ordinance did and didn’t cover. She asked staffers to develop a fact sheet for businesses.

If ultimately passed, the ordinance would require a new county business license for tobacco and e-cigarette retailers that carries an initial fee of $778 and an additional $142 fee every two years after that. Businesses would also be required to maintain a tobacco retail license — expanded to apply to stores that only sell electronic cigarettes or vaping products — that costs $235 per year.

The county debate came on the same day the state Department of Public Health issued a health advisory urging everyone to refrain from vaping until investigations in vaping-related hospitalizations and deaths could be completed.

To date, some 90 Californians with a history of vaping have been hospitalized for severe breathing problems and lung damage. Two of those people have died.

Though a specific cause has not yet been identified, the state agency warned that anyone inhaling a foreign substance puts themselves at risk and that vaping may lead to serious illness and death.

“Vaping is not just a concern for youth; the vaping cases under investigation affect youth and adults alike,” Acting State Public Health Officer Dr. Charity Dean said in a statement.

Officials urged anyone with difficulty breathing after vaping to contact a doctor immediately. They also asked affected users not to discard used vaping cartridges, to allow state labs to analyze the remaining substance.

Wave Wire Services

The article the Wave Newspapers.

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Recently Approved Budget Plan Favors Wealthy, Slashes Aid to Low-Income Americans

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — The most significant benefits would flow to the highest earners while millions of low-income families face cuts

Published

1 week ago

March 21, 2025

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown

BlackPressUSA.com Senior National Correspondent

The new budget framework approved by Congress may result in sweeping changes to the federal safety net and tax code. The most significant benefits would flow to the highest earners while millions of low-income families face cuts. A new analysis from Yale University’s Budget Lab shows the proposals in the House’s Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Resolution would lead to a drop in after-tax-and-transfer income for the poorest households while significantly boosting revenue for the wealthiest Americans. Last month, Congress passed its Concurrent Budget Resolution for Fiscal Year 2025 (H. Con. Res. 14), setting revenue and spending targets for the next decade. The resolution outlines $1.5 trillion in gross spending cuts and $4.5 trillion in tax reductions between FY2025 and FY2034, along with $500 billion in unspecified deficit reduction.

Congressional Committees have now been instructed to identify policy changes that align with these goals. Three of the most impactful committees—Agriculture, Energy and Commerce, and Ways and Means—have been tasked with proposing major changes. The Agriculture Committee is charged with finding $230 billion in savings, likely through changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps. Energy and Commerce must deliver $880 billion in savings, likely through Medicaid reductions. Meanwhile, the Ways and Means Committee must craft tax changes totaling no more than $4.5 trillion in new deficits, most likely through extending provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Although the resolution does not specify precise changes, reports suggest lawmakers are eyeing steep cuts to SNAP and Medicaid benefits while seeking to make permanent tax provisions that primarily benefit high-income individuals and corporations.

To examine the potential real-world impact, Yale’s Budget Lab modeled four policy changes that align with the resolution’s goals:

A 30 percent across-the-board cut in SNAP funding.
A 15 percent cut in Medicaid funding.
Permanent extension of the individual and estate tax cuts from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
Permanent extension of business tax provisions including 100% bonus depreciation, expense of R&D, and relaxed limits on interest deductions.

Yale researchers determined that the combined effect of these policies would reduce the after-tax-and-transfer income of the bottom 20 percent of earners by 5 percent in the calendar year 2026. Households in the middle would see a modest 0.6 percent gain. However, the top five percent of earners would experience a 3 percent increase in their after-tax-and-transfer income.

Moreover, the analysis concluded that more than 100 percent of the net fiscal benefit from these changes would go to households in the top 20 percent of the income distribution. This happens because lower-income groups would lose more in government benefits than they would gain from any tax cuts. At the same time, high-income households would enjoy significant tax reductions with little or no loss in benefits.

“These results indicate a shift in resources away from low-income tax units toward those with higher incomes,” the Budget Lab report states. “In particular, making the TCJA provisions permanent for high earners while reducing spending on SNAP and Medicaid leads to a regressive overall effect.” The report notes that policymakers have floated a range of options to reduce SNAP and Medicaid outlays, such as lowering per-beneficiary benefits or tightening eligibility rules. While the Budget Lab did not assess each proposal individually, the modeling assumes legislation consistent with the resolution’s instructions. “The burden of deficit reduction would fall largely on those least able to bear it,” the report concluded.

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A Threat to Pre-emptive Pardons

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — it was a possibility that the preemptive pardons would not happen because of the complicated nature of that never-before-enacted process.

Published

1 week ago

March 21, 2025

Oakland Post

By April Ryan

President Trump is working to undo the traditional presidential pardon powers by questioning the Biden administration’s pre-emptive pardons issued just days before January 20, 2025. President Trump is seeking retribution against the January 6th House Select Committee. The Trump Justice Department has been tasked to find loopholes to overturn the pardons that could lead to legal battles for the Republican and Democratic nine-member committee. Legal scholars and those closely familiar with the pardon process worked with the Biden administration to ensure the preemptive pardons would stand against any retaliatory knocks from the incoming Trump administration. A source close to the Biden administration’s pardons said, in January 2025, “I think pardons are all valid. The power is unreviewable by the courts.”

However, today that same source had a different statement on the nuances of the new Trump pardon attack. That attack places questions about Biden’s use of an autopen for the pardons. The Trump argument is that Biden did not know who was pardoned as he did not sign the documents. Instead, the pardons were allegedly signed by an autopen. The same source close to the pardon issue said this week, “unless he [Trump] can prove Biden didn’t know what was being done in his name. All of this is in uncharted territory. “ Meanwhile, an autopen is used to make automatic or remote signatures. It has been used for decades by public figures and celebrities.

Months before the Biden pardon announcement, those in the Biden White House Counsel’s Office, staff, and the Justice Department were conferring tirelessly around the clock on who to pardon and how. The concern for the preemptive pardons was how to make them irrevocable in an unprecedented process. At one point in the lead-up to the preemptive pardon releases, it was a possibility that the preemptive pardons would not happen because of the complicated nature of that never-before-enacted process. President Trump began the threat of an investigation for the January 6th Select Committee during the Hill proceedings. Trump has threatened members with investigation or jail.

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Reaction to The Education EO

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Meanwhile, the new Education EO jeopardizes funding for students seeking a higher education. Duncan states, PellGrants are in jeopardy after servicing “6.5 million people” giving them a chance to go to college.

Published

1 week ago

March 21, 2025

Oakland Post

By April Ryan

There are plenty of negative reactions to President Donald Trump’s latest Executive Order abolishing the Department of Education. As Democrats call yesterday’s action performative, it would take an act of Congress for the Education Department to close permanently. “This blatantly unconstitutional executive order is just another piece of evidence that Trump has absolutely no respect for the Constitution,” said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) who is the ranking member on the House Financial Services Committee. “By dismantling ED, President Trump is implementing his own philosophy on education, which can be summed up in his own words, ‘I love the poorly educated.’ I am adamantly opposed to this reckless action, said Rep. Bobby Scott who is the most senior Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee.

Morgan State University President Dr. David Wilson chimed in saying “I’m deeply concerned about efforts to shift federal oversight in education back to the states, particularly regarding equity, justice, and fairness. History has shown us what happens when states are left unchecked—Black and poor children are too often denied access to the high-quality education they deserve. In 1979 then President Jimmy Carter signed a law creating the Department of Education. Arne Duncan, former Obama Education Secretary, reminds us that both Democratic and Republican presidents have kept education a non-political issue until now. However, Duncan stressed Republican presidents have contributed greatly to moving education forward in this country.

During a CNN interview this week Duncan said during the Civil War President Abraham “Lincoln created the land grant system” for colleges like Tennessee State University. “President Ford brought in IDEA.” And “Nixon signed Pell Grants into law.” In 2001, the No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law by President George W. Bush which increased federal oversight of schools through standardized testing. Meanwhile, the new Education EO jeopardizes funding for students seeking higher education. Duncan states, PellGrants are in jeopardy after servicing “6.5 million people” giving them a chance to go to college. Wilson details, “that 40 percent of all college students rely on Pell Grants and student loans.”

Rep. Alma Adams (D-NC) says this Trump action “impacts students pursuing higher education and threatens 26 million students across the country, taking billions away from their educational futures. Meanwhile, During the president’s speech in the East Room of the White House Thursday, Trump criticized Baltimore City, and its math test scores with critical words. Governor West Moore, who is opposed to the EO action, said about dismantling the Department of Education, “Leadership means lifting people up, not punching them down.”