This op-ed was written by Linn-Benton Community College’s Civil Discourse Program. To learn more about the program, you can visit its website here and its guidebook here.
A survey by the FDA found that cigarette usage among middle and high school students reached an all-time low of just 1.4% in 2024, but e-cigarette usage continues to be far more popular. Despite declining from 7.7% in 2023 to 5.9% in 2024, it’s still over four times more popular than cigarettes with 1.63 million youth reporting that they used an e-cigarette within 30 days of the survey. Interestingly, the survey showed that eight out of 10 current e-cigarette consumers used flavored products.
The popularity of flavored vapes hasn’t gone unnoticed. Senate Bill 207 in Oregon, introduced in the 2025 regular session, proposes banning “the sale of flavored products with tobacco or nicotine.” A similar ban has been proposed in Washington state. Would such legislation be the right move for Oregon?
YES
By Garrett Merchant, Alleyah Forrister, Carter McAleer, and the Civil Discourse Program.
Often misunderstood as a way to reduce and potentially quit tobacco products, flavored nicotine/tobacco is a method of creating new, younger nicotine users. Nearly nine out of 10 adolescents who use tobacco start with flavored products. With the use of tobacco at an early age, addiction doesn’t only develop faster but gets harder to overcome. For those who suffer from tobacco addiction and do not quit, up to half are killed. Eight thousand of these deaths occur in Oregon each year. Flavored tobacco products should be banned to reduce the risk of introducing a new generation to nicotine products and to maintain the 25-year trend of decreased tobacco use worldwide.
It is by design that flavored nicotine products appeal to a younger generation, creating long-term consumers. Over 79% of youth aged 12-17 in a 2014 sample of current tobacco/nicotine users report that their introduction to these addictive substances was in the form of flavored products. April has direct experience with this, having been drawn to electronic cigarettes because of the fun colors and flavors available. She struggles to quit now that she has made using e-cigarettes a habit, but had these flavors been unavailable, April believes she may never have started.
This testimony corroborates with the 84% of youth and 74% of young adults who attest that without the availability of flavored products, they would stop using e-cigarettes entirely. Garrett has also experienced the gateway effect of flavored tobacco products in the form of menthol-flavored cigarettes during his late teens. He shared that without the menthol flavoring, he probably wouldn’t have smoked for the 10 years he spent as a cigarette user. These flavored products are designed to develop addictions instead of assisting current users in quitting. Through this legislation, nicotine devices would still be available to those who need them, but flavored products would be banned, effectively protecting the youth of the state.
The state of Oregon has tried implementing county bans since 2021, but we’ve consistently seen these fall short. One of the main reasons that these bans don’t work is that individuals can travel between counties to purchase nicotine products. A statewide ban would more efficiently ensure the entire state is protected and eliminate this issue. There is always the risk that people will travel over state lines to buy products. However, that risk is significantly lower than if they can travel through counties, and Washington state is considering a flavored vape ban of its own, potentially further limiting access.
Banning flavored nicotine products is not just a regulatory move – it’s a moral imperative. By taking this step, Oregon has the opportunity to safeguard the health of its youth and continue its commitment to public health. Nicotine is a deadly chemical that is being painted as fun and exciting by tobacco companies eager to reach a new audience and negotiate the more taboo practice of cigarette smoking. Flavored tobacco products, by extension, are designed to foster new addictions and create new lifetime users of nicotine. Banning the practice of candy-coating these products will help to prevent people like April and Garrett from becoming trapped in the clutches of addiction. The choice is clear – the future of Oregon’s health depends on the decision we make today.
NO
By April Jang, Kai Young, and the Civil Discourse Program.
In recent years, vapes have sparked controversy in public health. Despite the criticism, evidence increasingly suggests that a blanket ban on flavored vapes is not the most apt solution. While the ban may seem beneficial at first, it doesn’t take into account the illegal market and the debilitating nature of addictions.
Banning flavored vapes is likely to lead consumers to an unregulated, illegal market. A ban does not necessarily correlate to the elimination of demand. Instead, it may encourage people to purchase from illicit markets. As found in a 2021 study, when faced with a ban on flavored vaping products, participants were more likely to purchase from the illegal tobacco marketplace. It is unrealistic that a ban can stop people from smoking nicotine, however, the government can control the safety of the products being smoked. The lack of regulation and safety standards not only increases the likelihood of inconsistent nicotine levels, but it spikes the risk of contamination of dangerous chemicals such as vitamin E acetate – which was found in illegal vaping products that contributed to the outbreak of vaping-associated lung disease in 2019. By keeping flavors legal, authorities can ensure products undergo proper quality control and decrease the number of unsafe products.
In addition to the dangers of an illicit market, an abrupt ban on certain vapes will not be beneficial for people who are heavily addicted. Nicotine changes the way the brain responds to chemicals, leading to addictions. This is why people who are especially addicted will be unable to quit on a whim. Withdrawals can be debilitating and people who are abruptly cut off can have serious repercussions affecting their daily lives as vaping often becomes part of one’s daily routine. As it associates with certain activities or even emotions, people don’t realize the level of dependence they have.
Some argue that vapes are marketing themselves through fun flavors, however this is not necessarily a negative trait. They are specifically marketed to be appealing so that smokers will be attracted to the product and choose to vape instead of smoking cigarettes. April has been vaping for four years, and has made multiple attempts to quit. She has noticed that when attempting to suddenly quit “cold turkey,” she experienced severe anxiety and could not function in her day-to-day activities without constantly feeling a sense of dread and irritability. The psychological association between the nicotine and flavoring made it so that she could not simply switch to a non-flavored vape.
Given the drastic side effects of an absolute ban, the government should consider one of the many more practical options to limit e-cigarette use. In regards to the concern of flavored vapes increasing tobacco sales, legislation should focus on harm reduction aimed to reduce negative consequences rather than a simple ban. The truth is that many teenagers are already addicted to e-cigarette devices; an all-out ban on flavors would cause them to turn to dangerous sources to find vapes without possessing the critical thinking or understanding of what is safe and what is not. Flavored vapes themselves do not put our society at as high of a risk as banning them would.
