Protecting tobacco products from children’s hands and mouths must be a simple point of a universal, bipartisan agreement. In fact, even the “most ideologically polarized” Congress in modern history was able to pass the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.
However, in the next decade or so after the law was passed, e-cigarettes (also known as Vapes) exploded into the market. These are the most commonly used tobacco products in the US youth today. In particular, tobacco companies have successfully produced flavored e-cigarettes that are not subject to the 2009 law ban. In 2024, the annual National Youth Tobacco Survey reported that 1.63 million middle and high school students used e-cigarettes. Of these students, almost 90% used flavored e-cigarettes. At the same time, cigarettes remain “one cause of five deaths per year in the United States,” and “more than human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), illegal drug use, alcohol use, automobile injuries and firearms-related incidents.”
It is therefore not surprising that cities across the country have passed laws and ordinances to keep these products away from children. But such cities have discovered that tobacco companies have strong allies. Many state legislatures have passed state laws that block cities ban or regulate e-cigarettes and other tobacco products, limiting pressure from intense lobbying. The city is currently trapped in a pitched fight against these state laws, some have won.
In July, for example, an Ohio Court of Appeals found it favored Columbus and other Ohio cities. The court held that state law violated an amendment to the Ohio Constitution and granted the city the power of local autonomy.
The incident marked the latest move in a fierce skirmish between multiple Ohio government branches over tobacco control, particularly the ban on the sale of flavored tobacco products. The Fracus began in December 2022 after Columbus “permitted the Columbus Department of Public Health to enforce the city’s tobacco and health laws, allowing the Columbus Department of Public Health to establish a system of civil penalties such as fines and license revocation for violating tobacco regulations, and passing an ordinance that prohibits the sale of flavored cigarette products. Two days later, the Ohio Legislature responded by passing a state law prohibiting all local restrictions on tobacco products. The governor rejected the bill, explaining that the use of tobacco has increased the state’s healthcare costs, including costs borne by Ohio taxpayers, and that tobacco companies are “selling tobacco products seasoned to appeal to young people in particular.” Six months later, Congress passed another law, banning local restrictions on tobacco products. Again, the governor refused. But then, Congress voted to override the governor’s veto and enacted the law.
State law declared that tobacco products regulation was a statewide concern and argued that the state “adopted a comprehensive plan on all aspects” of tobacco control. Columbus and other cities sued, claiming that the law violated Ohio’s constitutional family rules.
Home rules empower the state to delegate authorities to local governments, engage local autonomy and pass the laws that the community desires. In Ohio, the state constitution gives local governments the power to “execute all powers of local autonomy and to adopt and enforce within restrictions such as local police, hygiene, and other similar regulations that do not contradict general laws.” Ohio courts have developed a professional definition and framework to identify which state laws are “general” and which are not. The court will consider whether the challenged state law is part of a broader statewide regulatory scheme, whether it actively regulates public welfare or limits local power.
Here, the court held that state law is not a “general law.” The court said it argued that, rather than setting its own regulations, the law simply banned local regulations. The court noted that it rejected one possible interpretation of state law that could make it a general law. This legal construction tool For things, By clarifying the relevant law, it directs the court to interpret ambiguous laws. By applying this method here, we can broaden the meaning of the law and include substantial regulations set out in other tobacco laws. However, the court said that the obvious laws that were “drawn with definitive language and unmistakable intentions” (such as the preemptive laws that are questionable here) should not be “belong to further interpretation.”
Additionally, the court has presented conflicting case laws that apply and reject its statutory construction rules. “The doctrine in the case of home rules “did not resolve the authority over when and how it should be applied,” the court said, omitting statutory construction until “we need to say what the law is” and identifying ambiguous laws.”
The court then stated that state law “violates constitutional home rules even without finding that it is not a general law. The court observed that the seized state law “is not regulated anything yet, trying to preempt the field of tobacco policy.” Focusing on the need to enact laws that address the specific issues facing cities, the court said the law “undermines the fundamental principle of amending home rules, which state that the government closest to the people is most useful to the people.”
Columbus Inn. Oh my godo is a clear victory for home rules, but perhaps not the end of the problem. The state can appeal this case to the Ohio Supreme Court, taking into account the uncertainty of With an equal problem Doctrine seems likely to do so. It’s also not the end of the problem. If you present a dispute between state and local tobacco regulations, it is penetrated or pending nationwide. In Oregon, the state Supreme Court is poised to hear immediately accusations of a decision that state law did not preempt county ordinances prohibiting the sale of tobacco products. In Missouri, new laws restricting urban regulations regarding tobacco are in front of the state Senate. If it passes, the law will likely be challenged.
These new conflicts come shortly after recent decisions in the region. In Massachusetts, the state Supreme Court ruled last year on a city’s rare “nicotine-free generation” ordinance. Michigan and Kansas courts have announced decisions related to the preemptive approach to cigarettes, with mixed results.
The interests of these cases are not high. The health effects of vaping in children are important and potentially throughout life. Recent public health initiatives on multiple fronts have reduced the number of young people vaping the number of young steam in 2024 from the peak number of 5 million young steam in 2019, and the city ban on the sale of flavored cigarettes is an important part of these efforts. It is a humiliation for their own nations to serve as antagonists in these efforts, both public health and local democracy.
Sarah L. Swann is a law professor at Rutgers Law School and a civic governance scholar at Dean.
Suggested Quote: Sarah L. Swann, Cities fight the state for their right to regulate steamsᴛᴀᴛᴇcᴏᴜʀᴛrᴇᴘᴏʀᴛ (Sep. 09, 2025), https://statecourtreport.org/our-fork/analysisis-opinion/cites-state-state-jislatures-right-hegulate
