Consumers, small businesses, and public health won a small but important victory in the city of San Leandro, Calif., Monday night.The city council refused to enact a ban on local retailers selling flavored tobacco products, throwing it back to a rules committee for reconsideration in September.Proposals for tobacco flavor bans have spread rapidly across the Bay Area and are under active consideration in Oakland and San Francisco.While occasionally well-meaning, these prohibitions are always misconceived.Aside from the obvious affront to consumer choice and small business, these bans have at their heart measures that would actually harm public health and undermine the very goals their proponents claim to be pursuing.This is because they would prohibit not just the sale of flavored cigars and pipe tobacco but also of flavored vapor and smokeless tobacco products, which represent a fraction of the risks of combustible tobacco.The value of these flavored vapor and smokeless tobacco products are that they allow smokers to switch to a nicotine product they find satisfying while massively reducing their risk of death and disease.

Quitting nicotine cold turkey often proves too difficult for many, and as a consequence, they continue smoking until they suffer an early death.e cigarette allergiesAs the late professor Michael Russell said, "People smoke for nicotine but they die from the tar."boutique ecigarette 93Anti-smoking activists may wish for a world in which adults could switch from smoking to abstinence at the drop of a hat, but in the real world the most effective policy to help smokers quit is to give them more options to reduce their risk of smoking-related disease — It is here that flavors play such an important role.e cigarette vending machineA survey of vapers published in 2013 showed more than 91 percent classified themselves as "former" smokers, with the majority saying flavor variety was a "very important" factor in their journey to smoking cessation.e cigarette bacon

The study also found that the number of flavors used was independently associated with quitting smoking.e cigarette bethlehem paSupporters of flavor bans argue they're necessary due to the rise in teens experimenting with flavored vapor products, which could lead to them transitioning to smoking.e cigarette bethlehem paBut there is no evidence to suggest these products are acting as any sort of gateway to smoking.The teen smoking rate has been in free fall, dropping to its lowest point in recorded history at 9.3 percent in 2015, at the very same time as experimentation with vaping has risen.Furthermore, the number of teens who vape on a daily basis as opposed to those who have tried vaping remains minuscule.The most effective way to stop children using adult products is to enforce the age of purchase laws already on the books, which in the case of California is 21.

But in the name of public health, these Bay Area ordinances would ban safer flavored vapor products for adults while regular cigarettes can be bought and sold just as freely as before.In San Leandro, however, thanks to a host of small business owners and tobacco harm-reduction advocates who turned out to make the case against the ban, the city council actually listened to the strength of the arguments presented and decided to knock the ban back to the rules committee.Vice Mayor Lee Thomas even took the rare and admirable step of actually asking for more information about vapor products, an openness to information that is often in short supply when it comes to issues around tobacco and harm reduction.Supervisors in San Francisco and city council members in Oakland would do well to look not just to San Leandro but to the Bay Area's own proud history of championing effective harm-reduction policies over abstinence-only prohibition.Guy Bentley (@gbentley1) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog.

He is a consumer freedom research associate at the Reason Foundation and was previously a reporter for the Daily Caller.If you would like to write an op-ed for the Washington Examiner, please read our guidelines on submissions here.Days of our LivesChloe's decision stuns Nicole and Brady; Chad learns Abigail plans to marry Dario.NEWSLETTERS Receive the latest local updates in your inboxAn Oakland-based national nonprofit health watchdog on Thursday announced it was suing 14 tobacco and e-cigarette companies, claiming their products contain too-high levels of cancer-causing chemicals.A representative for the tobacco industry called the allegations false, and accused the group of suing Big Tobacco to settle hefty claims.Sweltering Heat Grips Bay Area“Obviously, they see a financial upside,” Ray Story of the Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association told NBC Bay Area by phone on Thursday.“The problem with the lawsuit is that they’re just trying to make money.”But the Center for Environmental Health said its goal is reduce the number of young people who smoke and vape.

Teen use of e-cigarettes is skyrocketing, the organization said: among 8th and 10th graders, twice as many say they use e-cigarettes as compared to those who smoke traditional cigarettes.34 Dogs Saved From 'Deplorable' Conditions in Bay Area HomeThe organization filed lawsuits in Alameda County against RJ Reynolds, Fontem/Imperial Tobacco, NJOY and 11 others after the nonprofit bought e-cigarettes, e-liquids, and other vaping products from major retailers in the Bay Area between February and October, according to CEH spokesman Charles Margulis.The suits are seeking injunctive relief and civil penalties.With the help of an independent testing agency, Margulis said scientists found that formaldehyde and acetaldehyde on 97 e-cigarettes found that 90 percent of the companies had at least one product that produced high levels of one or both chemicals, above the state safety limit.A test on one e-cigarette found the level of formaldehyde was more than 470 times higher than the California safety standard, the organization alleged.Beachgoers Continue to Use Closed Shortcut in Los GatosIn all, Margulis said the nonprofit has launched legal actions against more than 60 companies for failing to warn consumers about exposure from e-cigarettes to nicotine and one or both of the two cancer-causing chemicals, formaldehyde and acetaldehyde, as required by California law.But Story said these attacks on e-cigarettes are unfair.Arrest in Fatal Shooting Near Movie Theater in Concord“Clearly, e-cigarettes are less harmful than a conventional tobacco product,” he said.