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Santa Cruz County’s First-in-the-World Cigarette Filter Ban Passed
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA – OCTOBER 29, 2024 – Today, the Board of Supervisors of Santa Cruz County, California finalized its approval of a ban on the sale of filtered cigarettes and cigars. The sales ban will apply to all unincorporated areas of the county and requires that two of the four incorporated cities in the county pass similar ordinances before coming into effect.
Cigarette filters are the world’s leading source of trash and the leading source of plastic pollution. Globally, approximately 4.5 trillion used filters – or butts – are discarded into the environment every year. Filters are non-biodegradable and cannot be feasibly collected or recycled.
“There are no downstream solutions to the plague of cigarette filters,” said Laurent Huber, Executive Director of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH). “The only practical choice is to eliminate them from the market.”
“In addition to adding microplastics to the environment, hazardous chemicals from tobacco smoke that are trapped in the filters leach into water and soil,” said Dr. Georg E. Matt, co-director of the Center for Tobacco and the Environment at San Diego State University. “Cigarette filters have no health benefits to smokers; they just make it easier to get people addicted and keep them addicted.”
Filters were added to cigarettes by the tobacco industry in the 1950s in response to growing health concerns about smoking. However, filters do nothing to mitigate the harms of smoking and may make things worse.
“Filters are purely a marketing tool for the tobacco industry,” Huber continued. “They were designed to keep people from quitting smoking.”
While Santa Cruz County is the first to pass such a law, there is movement in this direction across the globe. Environmental ministries in Belgium and the Netherlands have recommended banning filters, and over the past several years bills have been introduced in several U.S. states. Current negotiations at the United Nations on a treaty to end plastic pollution include text banning filters world-wide.
More than 98% of cigarettes are filtered, making smoking less harsh and keeping bits of tobacco out of the mouth. Public health officials hope that banning filters will motivate adults to quit smoking and greatly reduce youth uptake.
ACTION ON SMOKING AND HEALTH
Founded in 1967, Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) is America’s oldest anti-tobacco organization, dedicated to a world with ZERO tobacco deaths. Because tobacco is the leading cause of preventable death worldwide, ASH supports bold solutions proportionate to the magnitude of the problem. ash.org
