California banned menthol cigarettes because menthol makes tobacco easier to inhale, more addictive, and has been disproportionately marketed to Black communities and young people for decades. Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 793 in August 2020, making California the first state to prohibit the retail sale of nearly all flavored tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes, flavored e-liquids, flavored little cigars, and flavored smokeless tobacco.
The law didn’t take effect right away. The tobacco industry funded a referendum to overturn it, putting the question to voters. In November 2022, California voters upheld the ban by a wide margin, and enforcement began on December 21, 2022.
How Menthol Makes Cigarettes More Addictive
Menthol isn’t just a flavor. It activates a nerve in the face and throat that produces a cooling sensation, which overrides the harsh taste of tobacco smoke and reduces the irritation caused by nicotine. The result is a cigarette that feels smoother, easier to inhale, and easier to inhale deeply. For someone trying a cigarette for the first time, that difference matters enormously.
The tobacco industry has long understood this. Internal company research shows manufacturers knew menthol interacts with nicotine in ways that make their products more appealing, especially to new and inexperienced smokers. Low-tar, low-nicotine cigarettes with menthol were far more acceptable to smokers than similar products without it. In other words, menthol functioned less as a taste preference and more as a delivery mechanism, lowering the barrier to nicotine addiction.
Decades of Targeted Marketing
The public health case for banning menthol extends beyond the chemistry of the cigarette itself. For decades, tobacco companies hired ethnic marketing firms to develop strategies specifically aimed at Black communities. Advertisements in Black publications and neighborhoods featured Black models, athletes, and entertainers. They used soul, jazz, and hip-hop music, and built campaigns around themes of sophistication, nightlife, and escape. In studies of ads placed in Black publications between 1989 and 2000, nightlife imagery appeared in more than 70% of menthol cigarette ads.
The strategy worked. In surveys of African American menthol smokers, 63% said they had always smoked menthol cigarettes. Nearly half said they could inhale menthol cigarettes more easily than non-menthol brands, and a third said they could inhale them more deeply. Forty-one percent said their friends who smoked also smoked menthol. These numbers paint a picture of a preference that was cultivated, not organic, shaped by marketing, social networks, and the sensory properties of the product itself.
California legislators cited this history as a core reason for the ban, framing it as a health equity issue. Black smokers in the U.S. smoke menthol cigarettes at far higher rates than white smokers, and the gap traces directly back to industry targeting that began in the 1950s and 1960s.
What the Ban Actually Covers
The law prohibits the retail sale of any tobacco product with a characterizing flavor, which includes menthol, fruit, chocolate, vanilla, honey, candy, and any other flavor distinguishable from tobacco. The banned products include menthol cigarettes, flavored e-liquids and vape pods, flavored little cigars and cigarillos, flavored smokeless tobacco, flavored blunt wraps, flavored roll-your-own tobacco, and tobacco flavor enhancers like flavor cards or capsules.
There are a few exemptions. Flavored loose-leaf pipe tobacco and premium cigars with a wholesale price of $12 or more can still be sold. Flavored shisha (hookah tobacco) is also permitted, but only in licensed stores that restrict entry to people 21 and older and comply with all state and local tobacco laws. These carve-outs reflected political compromises during the legislative process, largely protecting products associated with specialty shops and adult-oriented retail.
The Legal Fight That Delayed Enforcement
The tobacco industry didn’t accept the ban quietly. After the voter referendum upheld SB 793 in 2022, R.J. Reynolds filed a federal lawsuit arguing the ban was preempted by federal law and violated constitutional protections. The case eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court as R.J. Reynolds v. Bonta. In January 2024, the Supreme Court denied the petition, effectively ending the industry’s legal challenge and leaving California’s ban fully intact.
Penalties for Selling Banned Products
California built an escalating penalty structure to enforce the ban. Retailers caught selling flavored tobacco products face civil fines starting at $1,000 to $1,500 for a first offense, climbing to $2,000 to $3,000 for a second violation within five years, $5,000 to $10,000 for a third, and more than $20,000 for a fifth. On top of those fines, the state tax agency can issue an additional $250 penalty and suspend or revoke a retailer’s tobacco license. Each individual seized package of flavored product carries a separate $50 fine.
Online and delivery sellers face their own penalties, with fines up to $5,000 per violation. The state Attorney General can also pursue enforcement under California’s unfair competition law, seeking penalties up to $2,500 per violation plus disgorgement of profits.
How Tobacco Companies Have Adapted
Within months of the ban taking full effect, tobacco companies began selling “non-menthol” replacement cigarettes in California. Early versions substituted menthol with WS-3, an odorless synthetic cooling agent designed to produce similar cooling sensations without technically being menthol. California responded by updating its law to ban characterizing cooling flavors more broadly, not just menthol specifically.
Research published in 2025 analyzed the newest generation of these replacement cigarettes and found they contained neither menthol nor any major commercial synthetic cooling agent. The tobacco industry appears to have complied with the expanded legislation, but the products remain on shelves. The companies didn’t withdraw the cigarette brands from the California market. They simply reformulated them without the cooling sensation, betting that brand loyalty would keep some customers buying.
Impact on State Revenue
The ban has created a noticeable hole in California’s tobacco tax collections. According to the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office, tobacco tax revenues dropped from $1.84 billion in 2021-22 to $1.6 billion in 2022-23, then to $1.35 billion in 2023-24. While tobacco revenues were already declining before the ban, the pace accelerated sharply afterward. The estimated annual revenue loss attributable to the flavor ban is roughly $300 million to $400 million. The new penalty system could offset some of that, though the state has not published a firm estimate of how much enforcement revenue it expects to collect.
Some of that revenue loss reflects smokers quitting or reducing consumption, which is the law’s intended goal. Some likely reflects purchases shifting to neighboring states, tribal lands, or online sellers, and some reflects the growth of an illicit market for flavored products. Separating these effects precisely remains difficult, but the overall revenue decline signals a real reduction in flavored tobacco sales within the state.