Media Contact:
Megan Manning
manningm@ash.org
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Santa Cruz County’s Cigarette Filter Ban Lights a International Hearth
SACRAMENTO, CA – MAY 20, 2025 – In honor of World No Tobacco Day (Could 31), Motion on Smoking and Well being amplifies the worldwide management of Santa Cruz County, California which grew to become the primary jurisdiction on this planet to ban the sale of cigarettes with filters in October 2024. They won’t be the final. Different counties and cities, U.S. states and international governments are strongly contemplating such a transfer. A United Nations treaty negotiation to finish plastic air pollution can also be contemplating cigarette filters for the chopping block.
The Santa Cruz County filter ban will go into impact January 1, 2027, offered two cities integrated within the county observe go well with. It’s fairly possible that this threshold will probably be met, based on native advocates. Environmental teams, led by Ocean Conservancy, had been the driving power behind the marketing campaign. However whereas the measure will undoubtedly scale back environmental degradation, it is going to even have a major influence on well being.
“Santa Cruz County’s daring motion sends a robust message to the world: we will now not ignore the environmental harm brought on by filtered tobacco merchandise,” stated Santa Cruz County Tobacco Schooling Coalition co-chair and government director of Save Our Shores, Katie Thompson. “Yearly, trillions of cigarette butts find yourself in our oceans, rivers, and metropolis streets, leaching poisonous chemical substances into the atmosphere. This coverage is a important step towards a cleaner, more healthy planet — and we hope different areas will observe go well with.”
The cigarette filter downside is gaining consideration worldwide. Final 12 months, 4 U.S. state legislatures thought-about filter bans. Authorities companies within the Netherlands and Belgium have really useful a ban, and the problem is below examination in a number of different international locations in addition to the European Union. A filter ban is on the desk on the negotiations for a global UN treaty to finish plastic air pollution. The ultimate negotiating session is in August.
Cigarette filters are the primary supply of poisonous waste in addition to the primary supply of plastic air pollution. Roughly 4.5 trillion butts enter the atmosphere every year. Finish to finish, that many filters would circle the Earth thrice. Cigarette butts leach toxins and carcinogens into the soil and waterways and are a significant supply of microplastics.
Cigarette filters had been launched within the Nineteen Fifties not as a solution to mitigate the well being results of smoking however as a advertising instrument to persuade individuals who smoked that they didn’t have to give up over rising fears of most cancers and different ailments. As the worldwide neighborhood unmasks tobacco trade ways this World No Tobacco Day, filters is a transparent tactic we will appropriate. Cigarette filters don’t reduce the harms of smoking; in actual fact, analysis exhibits that it might improve the chances of illness and demise. Filters additionally masks the harshness of smoking, rising youth initiation.
“Gathering or recycling cigarette butts is solely inconceivable,” stated Laurent Huber, Govt Director of Motion on Smoking and Well being (ASH). “The one answer is to take them off the market.” ASH co-chairs a worldwide group of public well being organizations pushing for cigarette filter bans, together with within the United Nations plastic air pollution treaty negotiations.
ACTION ON SMOKING AND HEALTH
Based in 1967, Motion on Smoking and Well being (ASH) is America’s oldest anti-tobacco group, devoted to a world with ZERO tobacco deaths. As a result of tobacco is the main reason behind preventable demise worldwide, ASH helps daring options proportionate to the magnitude of the issue.
