A coalition’s push to put a statewide ban on all flavored tobacco, including menthols, a ban on all flavored vapes and increase the cigarette tax by $2 per pack faltered this year in two tries.
The first bill didn’t advance out of committee, and a revived version that embedded an increase to the state cigarette tax didn’t advance either.
This month the coalition shamed the state Legislature in a press release, saying it caved to Big Tobacco.
The current state cigarette tax is $3.025 per pack of 20 cigarettes, on top of a federal tax of $1.01 per pack.
A pack of cigarettes in Washington state, on loose average today, is $11.
Altria, the maker of Marlboro cigarettes that has 40% of its market, has slowly increased its list price of Marlboros by 86 cents per pack since Jan. 1, 2024; since Jan. 1, 2023, the list price has increased by $1.49 per pack, according to disclosures in its annual report to stockholders. A list price is similar to a manufacturer’s suggested retail price. The price increases are in the face of decreasing cigarette consumption. The company reported net revenues in cigarette sales were nearly flat from 2023 to 2024, and shipments were down by the equivalent to 400,000 packs.
On vapes
The Legislature’s focus on vapes is tied to youth vaping use.
California set its own statewide ban on flavored disposable vapes, and also menthol cigarettes, that carry penalties for retailers that violate California’s ban.
In Washington, flavored disposable vapes are widely found in stores. JUUL is not around anymore. Elf Bar is sales king, with countless others crowding the market.
Part of the reason why is because the FDA banned flavored cartridge-pod vape pens and sticks in 2016, which functionally crippled JUUL. It banned single-use disposables, but hasn’t put teeth into it.
Flavored single-use disposables absorbed the market JUUL dropped, particularly with youths. JUUL stopped selling its original model of vape sticks in 2023.
Altria, which also makes FDA-authorized NJOY vapor devices, believes 60% of the vape market is flavored disposable vapes not authorized by the FDA, according to its annual report to stockholders.
The FDA lists its only authorized vapes as Vuse, NJOY and Logic. None of those authorized vapes are single-use and none are flavored, said an analysis by the Public Health Law Center of Mitchell Hamline School of Law in Minnesota.
