The Supreme Court denied a challenge Monday to California’s voter-backed ban on flavored tobacco products, including vaping, rejecting R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company’s lawsuit to block it after alleging the ballot measure ran against federal law.
The high court rejected an emergency filing by R.J. Reynolds, which is a part of British American Tobacco, and other plaintiffs to halt the most populous state’s ban on all flavored tobacco products, which received 63% voter approval in November.
Plaintiffs argued they faced “substantial financial losses” due to the law, adding that menthol cigarettes make up a third of the cigarette market. They furthered that the federal Tobacco Control Act of 2009 allowed states to regulate tobacco but not make prohibitions such as statewide bans on such products.
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The high court justices provided no reason for not taking up the application, and there were no noted dissents.
The decision comes amid other regulatory efforts between the government and the U.S. tobacco products industry.
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Last week, the Justice Department announced an agreement for 20,000 retailers to display signs in their stores about the dangers of cigarette smoking. The agreement served to settle terms about a 1999 racketeering lawsuit filed by the U.S. government against the tobacco companies, including Reynolds.
A Texas federal court judge gave tobacco companies a small court win last week, blocking a U.S. Food and Drug Administration order that required large graphic warnings about the harms of cigarette use on individual packages.
