AUGUSTA, Maine — Four Maine cities have already banned flavored tobacco. But supporters are pushing a new bill in the Legislature that would take it statewide.
Sen. Jill Duson, D-Portland, is sponsoring the bill, which is still in its infancy. Portland is one of the cities that had banned flavored products locally, along with South Portland, Brunswick, and Bangor. Duson said the move in her city has been good for families, but a statewide ban stops people from crossing town lines to get those products.
"I think a lot of it is about setting community standards," Duson said after a Tuesday press conference about the bill. "I think the ban is a great message to families, to parents who are concerned about their kids getting involved in smoking. And, I think it's a great message to the young adults in our community, that this is important, that it has direct health impacts that they might not be paying attention to."
Proponents included leadership from local workers' compensation insurance giant MEMIC; and Lisa Harvey-McPherson, a registered nurse with Northern Light Health, who said smoking is costing Mainers.
"We all have a responsibility to protect our youth, but we also need to partner together to help all of us manage the explosion of the cost in health care related to tobacco use," she said.
But Duson did not say how much the ban would cost the state in tax revenue lost.
Rep. Joe Perry, D-Bangor, is a member of the joint standing committee on taxation and is skeptical of the bill's true financial cost.
"The money's gotta go somewhere," he said on Tuesday.
Perry owns a shop in Bangor that sells tobacco products. He said the flavor ban in his city has been disastrous. However, Perry added he is happy each time one of his customers quits smoking, and he supports a ban at the federal level, leaving the feds to make up for resulting deficits. In lieu of that, he would support a statewide ban, but only if the money is made up responsibly.
"If there's any chance of this being a successful program, it has to be done, at least, statewide," he said. "The flipside to that is, doing it statewide comes with a huge price tag to the state budget that we have to weigh this ban against things like indigent legal services, drug addiction, homelessness. I don't know if it measures up."
Duson's bill is still in its early stages. She hoped to gain bipartisan co-sponsors for it but, for the time being, was still assessing her allies in this cause.