All of the sudden Californians have voted against themselves by vetoing their actions in person of those buying and selling menthol cigarettes while being able and permitted to do so, as if told.
It’s not the first time that citizens vote against themselves in a referendum while given the chance, it happened in 2019 when New Zealanders voted against themselves and the right to buy and sell cannabis for personal recreational use back in the 2019 New Zealand general elections, when two questions had been set to ballot, assisted dying for patients who cannot endure their pain which gained an affirmative vote, and cannabis legalisation, and look at them now, struggling to smoke legitimately, both in terms of tobacco left on its own and set against that of cannabis and its rejected legalisation while the Labor government wants to raise the age limit by one year each year until nobody can buy tobacco.
Has voting against yourself become an epidemic for Californians or New Zealanders, or for both or for everyone? Since the term ‘ban’ is synonymous to, and actually means prohibition, prohibit, and forbid, voting in favour of doing so is equivalent to limiting the number of things that you can do when you do so alone.
In California’s referendum held yesterday in conjunction with the midterm elections to implement or reject the law banning the sale of flavoured tobacco products including mint cigarettes, the legislatively approved legislation was upheld after citizens voted to ban flavoured tobacco and mint cigarettes with the exception of certain cigars, hookahs and loose leaf rolling tobacco, to hence restrict themselves from their trade.
Proposition 31 of California State Law No. 793 banning cigarette flavours such as mint and extending the ban to e-cigarettes has been approved by legislative proceedings and signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2020 who placed the law in referendum in conjunction with the mid-term elections held yesterday November 8, after a sufficient number of signatures opposed its ratification.
The passed law has been called into question having collected several signatures against its implementation by the similar campaign subsidized by those who voted against it and the tobacco industry, Republicans as opposed to Democrats and other actors. Tobacco company RJ Reynolds is very likely to take legal action against the result to invoke in court the validity of federal legislation that does not restrict conditionally free trade of tobacco products.
By the time a quarter of the vote was counted, 76.3% of the vote was in favour of Proposition 31 of State Bill 97 making California the third state to ban mint cigarettes after Massachusetts and New Jersey, and Rhode Island, while San Francisco and San Diego along with other small cities have done the same at the municipal level.
Bring Back Smoking Freedom 