Lincoln stores find cigarette ban doesn’t make a difference

Tobacco products the size and shape of cigarettes sit in a display on the counter of Jake's Cigars and Spirits. They are packaged in bright colors, with flavors such as Appletini, Pina Colada and Cosmo.

They aren't cigarettes, though. They are little cigars, still legal to be sold.

If they were cigarettes, the fact that they are flavored would make them illegal.

Federal health officials banned the sale of all flavored cigarettes Sept. 22, which was the first significant action taken by the Food and Drug Administration since it was given the authority to regulate tobacco.

Since the ban, local businesses have had various experiences in the wake of the ban.

The ban, which was part of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, states that "a cigarette or any of its component parts (including the tobacco, filter, or paper) shall not contain, as a constituent (including a smoke constituent) or additive, an artificial or natural flavor (other than tobacco or menthol) or an herb or spice, including strawberry, grape, orange, clove, cinnamon, pineapple, vanilla, coconut, licorice, cocoa, chocolate, cherry, or coffee, that is a characterizing flavor of the tobacco product or tobacco smoke."

At Jake's Cigars and Spirits, on the corner of 14th and P streets, the sales of domestic products have risen, while the sales of imports have decreased, according to employee Reese Shinall. Most of the flavored cigarettes that they sold were imported.

"Our import sales (have) been low," Shinall said. "It's definitely been hit."

Jose Rosas, an employee at the Mobil Gas Station at 17th and Vine streets and a sophomore human sciences major at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, hasn't noticed a difference in the amount of products being sold because the store didn't sell flavored cigarettes before the ban. They do sell cigarillos, though.

"There's been no spike or decline," Rosas said. "People do buy (flavored products) a lot."

Cenex, a gas station at 15th and P streets, only sold one brand of cloves before the ban took effect, and since then, employee Ryan Haase has had one customer come in and ask if they still sold them.

"A lot of people don't even know about the ban," Haase said.

A customer buying a brand of flavored tobacco stops and asks what the ban did. When Haase tells him, the customer nods.

"Oh, like vanilla and raspberry flavored?" the customer asks. "For the kids?"

The ban was "for the kids." A flavored tobacco fact sheet on the FDA's Web site states that flavored tobacco products are attractive to youth and can be considered "starter" products that could potentially lead to addiction. It also cites a 2004 study that 22.8 percent of 17-year-old smokers reported using flavored cigarettes over the past month, as opposed to 6.7 percent of smokers over 25 years old.