Supreme Court refuses to block California ban on flavored tobacco

Voters across the state overwhelmingly backed a two-year-old law, and lower courts refused to suspend it .

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday refused to block a California law banning flavored tobacco, paving the way for the ban to take effect next week .

As is customary for the court when deciding emergency applications, its brief order is not reasoned. There were no dissents noted.

R.J. Reynolds, the maker of Newport menthol cigarettes, had asked judges to intervene before next Wednesday, when the law is expected to take effect. The company, joined by several smaller ones, argued that a federal law, the Tobacco Control Act of 2009, allows states to regulate tobacco products but prohibits banning them.

< p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">"They may increase the minimum purchase age, restrict sales to particular times and places, and enforce licensing regimes," wrote attorneys for Reynolds and several small businesses in an emergency request." But one thing they cannot do is completely ban the sale of these products for failing to meet state or local preferred tobacco product standards. "

State officials responded that the federal law was intended to preserve the longstanding power of state and local authorities to regulate tobacco products and to prohibit their sale.Before and after the enactment of the federal law, did they laughs, state and local authorities have taken action against flavored tobacco and e-cigarettes.

Whether federal law supersedes the state depends on interpretation of language nested and overlapping legislation in federal law. State officials told judges that "courts have universally rejected tobacco industry arguments that state and local laws restricting or prohibiting the sale of flavored tobacco products are expressly preempted by this law."

They added, "Indeed, in the 13 years since Congress enacted 'the 2009 law,' "no court has endorses the tobacco industry's position that the law prevails over restrictions and bans on the sale of flavored tobacco products.”

Reynolds also lost out on this issue in March in a case involving a Los Angeles County ordinance similar to state law. A three-judge split panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco ruled ruled that the 2009 law had not superseded the ordinance. Reynolds has asked the Supreme Court to hear the case.

A federal judge reviewing the company's separate challenge to state law ruled in November that it was bound by this precedent and declined to block the law.

The law was supposed to come into effect early last year, but it has been put on hold while the voters were considering a referendum to challenge it. The tobacco industry spent tens of millions of dollars supporting the measure, but 63% of state voters approved the law in November.