Cony High School junior Matteo Hardy is pushing to end the sale of flavored tobacco products. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

Matteo Hardy witnessed widespread vaping at Cony High School, as well as the clever new ways tobacco companies are using to get teens to try these products.

There is a pocket computer video game that is also a vape pen with style illustrations like the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” book series and even children’s clothing designed to conceal vaping devices from teachers and staff.

“It’s just crazy what we’re seeing now,” said Hardy, 16, a student at Cony High School in Augusta and an advocate for banning flavored tobacco. “There are so many different ways kids can get tobacco into their bodies that no one knows about. We know that tobacco companies target young people. What we have seen is an increase in targeting, preying on younger and younger children.

Some Maine lawmakers and an advocacy group Hardy belongs to — Flavors Hook Kids Maine — have pushed for a flavored tobacco ban that would prevent the sale of tobacco products with added flavors such as mint, fruit, candy and menthol.

Hardy said he hadn’t tried vaping, but among his high school classmates who had, all were drawn to the flavors.

Yet despite Democratic majorities in the House and Senate and support from the Mills administration, the bill failed to cross the finish line.

A measure passed the Senate by two votes in 2023, with all Republicans and four Democrats voting “no” and 18 Democrats voting yes, but it never came up for a vote in the House. Instead, the bill was carried over to the 2024 session, where it failed to get a vote in the House. Democratic leaders told the Press Herald earlier this year that they feared the measure would divide the Democratic caucus.

In the face of inaction from the State House, several Maine cities and towns have approved their own bans, including Portland, South Portland, Bar Harbor, Bangor, Brunswick, Freeport and Hallowell.

Varieties of disposable flavored e-cigarettes are on display at a store in Pinecrest, Florida, June 2023. Rebecca Blackwell/Associated Press

Despite the failure of efforts to ban tobacco statewide, there may be another attempt in 2025 to ban flavored tobacco in all tobacco products in Maine. Flavored tobacco is currently banned or restricted in seven other states, including Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, California, Utah, Maryland and Rhode Island, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

“We still see the need to end the sale of flavored tobacco products,” said Matt Wellington, associate director of the Maine Public Health Association, a nonprofit advocacy group. “Legislators should consider banning flavored tobacco as one of the primary evidence-based strategies to reduce youth tobacco use.” »

It is unclear whether another attempt at a ban will take place, Wellington said.

Groups have lobbied against the ban, including the New England Convenience Store and the Energy Marketers Association, which argue that without a nationwide ban, a ban in Maine would only encourage people to cross the border. New Hampshire border to purchase the products.

When the ban took effect in Massachusetts, it “created a massive black market” and also pushed people to simply buy them in New Hampshire, said Peter Brennan, executive director of the advocacy group.

“We think it’s bad public policy that would deprive the state of sales tax money,” Brennan said, noting that sales tax money is intended for smoking cessation and prevention. “It’s better to have a regulated market, to keep them with our retailers, so we can keep the buyers out.”

Dan Cashman, a spokesman for Flavors Hook Kids Maine, argued that flavors are a draw for teens, as are new marketing techniques. Adding them together is a dangerous combination to get “replacement smokers”.

“What’s changed over the last couple of years is how much more aggressive they’ve become in their marketing to younger audiences,” Cashman said.

There is encouraging data on vaping among young people. The percentage of high school students who reported vaping in the past 30 days fell from a high of 29% in 2019 to 16% in 2023, according to the Maine Integrated Youth Health Survey. According to the survey, about 30% of Maine high school students have tried vaping. Combustible cigarette use remains low in Maine, at 5.5 percent.

Flavorings are banned nationwide in combustible cigarettes, with the exception of menthol, but vaping is most often how children are introduced to tobacco.

Hardy, the Augusta teen, said the danger of getting young people addicted is real.

“There is a perception that regular tobacco is disgusting and a lot of people don’t want it,” he said. “But they try the flavors, and the first couple of times might be a choice, but after that the addiction takes over.”

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