New Yorkers have been on edge in recent years.
And why wouldn’t they be? Crime is soaring, the streets are filthy, and local shop owners are struggling to keep their doors open.
It is apparently the perfect time, in Governor Kathy Hochul’s world, to test-run a plan to completely prohibit the sale of tobacco products in her state, because nothing says “leadership” like inserting yourself in the lives of anxious residents and robbing them of their cigarettes.
New York state hit with huge crime surge in 2022, data shows https://t.co/qPySIXem49 pic.twitter.com/41I4ZAouBi
— BPR (@BIZPACReview) March 24, 2023
According to the New York Post, Hochul’s state Health Department quietly commissioned a new survey to see how the public would react to an all-out ban on tobacco. This, after the governor failed to garner support from lawmakers to nix the sale of menthol cigarettes and flavored tobacco products in the still-not-approved state budget.
The Post took a look at a “New York Local Opinion Leaders Survey,” conducted by nonprofit research organization RTI International, that went out last week to community leaders across the state, including “county legislators and county directors of public health.”
“What is your opinion about a policy that would end the sale of all tobacco products in New York within 10 years?” it asked participants. “What is your opinion about a policy that would ban the sale of all tobacco products to those born after a certain date? For example, those born after the year 2010 or later would never be sold tobacco.”
“The poll also solicited input on whether there’s backing for other tobacco-related measures, including capping the number of retailers who can sell ‘products in a community’ and prohibiting its sales near schools,” The Post reports.
It’s obvious, one Albany insider stated, that the Health Department is “test marketing” potential changes to the smoking policies.
“An outright ban being considered … is all new territory,” the source said. “And I’ve never seen anything like this where [the state] uses this kind of focus grouping, alliance building, momentum building.”
Kent Sopris, president of the New York Association of Convenience Store Owners, called the move “bizarre.”
“I think it would be bizarre for the state to create another category of illegal product that could lead to more conflict between law enforcement and the community,” he said.
Sopris also said such a ban would only serve to put a bunch of local stores out of business. Smokers, he said, would only go across state lines to buy their cigarettes or they’d get them illegally through black market channels.
What’s more, he added, it’s a completely hypocritical concept, considering Hochul’s enthusiasm for legalized cannabis dispensaries and regulated marijuana products such as flavored edibles.
New Yorkers prepare for home deliveries of marijuana, edibles thank to new rules https://t.co/ww7efjy6AN pic.twitter.com/26sWEzbE8M
— BPR (@BIZPACReview) December 11, 2022
If you are out there advocating for the expanded sale of retail cannabis that sells candied flavored options, how can you tell regulated legal convenience stores they can’t sell menthol cigarettes to adults?” Sopris seethed.
Health Department spokesman Cort Ruddy downplayed the import of the tobacco survey, stating that the questions “do not indicate whether the department supports or opposes the policies they highlight.”
The department, he noted, has been conducting similar surveys on “tobacco, youth vaping, and other important topics for more than a decade” and soliciting the opinions of community leaders “is crucial for effective public health.”
Perhaps, but according to The Post, the department “couldn’t immediately provide evidence of earlier local leader polls focusing on banning all tobacco products.”
Online, even rabid anti-smokers see the absurdity of a tobacco ban.
“I HATE cigarette smoke. I think smokers are inherently selfish people, too. But ‘prohibitions’ dont work, they just create blackmarkets run by organized crime,” one Twitter user wrote. “How is this not understood???”
I HATE cigarette smoke. I think smokers are inherently selfish people, too. But “prohibitions” dont work, they just create blackmarkets run by organized crime. How is this not understood???
— Rishi J. (@realmaharishi) April 22, 2023
Others see the survey as proof of misplaced priorities.
Bringing back Prohibition!
Legal weed, legal crime, don’t prosecute murderers, but smoke? Slammer Time!— JR (@GoodYarngrl) April 22, 2023
And still others wish the governor would mind her own business.
I have an idea. Why not let adults make up their own mind?
— TuckerFace11 (@TuckerFace11) April 22, 2023
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
Melissa Fine is the former executive editor of Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and Poker
Digest magazines. She is a UCLA graduate, news junkie, and dedicated Stargate SG-
1 fan. Melissa currently lives with her dog and two cats in a tiny town in the Sierra
Nevada foothills.
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