The second American tobacco company after Altria (Parent of Philip Morris) RJ Reynolds which since 2017 together with the parent Reynolds American belongs to the British multinational British American Tobacco Plc filed a lawsuit against the positive result of the referendum held in California to ban flavoured cigarettes of tobacco items such as mint in voting conjunction with the mid-term elections of the United States.
Most Californians voted effectively against their actions to ban the sale of flavoured tobacco products in favour of the 2020 legislative and state-approved law that was challenged by a citizens’ petition with sufficient signatures.
The lawsuit by RJ Reynolds was filed in San Diego Federal Court, and the state law it targets will take effect in California automatically on December 21, 2022 unless overturned by court order. RJ Reynolds argues that the 2009 federal Smoking Cessation and Families Act leaves market regulation to the states without including its ban.
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.
Bring Back Smoking Freedom 