By Nate Raymond

(Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court docket on Monday declined to listen to R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Firm’s problem to a voter-approved measure in California that banned flavored tobacco merchandise within the most-populous U.S. state.

The justices rejected an enchantment by R.J. Reynolds, a unit of British American Tobacco (NYSE:), and different plaintiffs of a decrease court docket’s ruling holding that California’s legislation didn’t battle with a federal statute regulating tobacco merchandise.

California Lawyer Basic Rob Bonta, a Democrat who defended the legislation in court docket, in a put up on X, previously generally known as Twitter, referred to as the Supreme Court docket’s resolution “good news.”

“We stay up for persevering with to struggle to forestall habit and shield the well being of our folks,” Bonta stated.

R.J. Reynolds declined to remark.

Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom in 2020 signed into legislation a ban on all flavored tobacco merchandise – together with menthol cigarettes and cotton candy-flavored vaping merchandise – in response to considerations a couple of rise in e-cigarette and tobacco use by youngsters.

The ban’s implementation was delayed after a tobacco business coalition gathered sufficient signatures to place to voters a poll measure that might block California from turning into the biggest state to ban flavored tobacco product gross sales. However practically two-thirds of voters casting ballots on the measure generally known as Proposition 31 accepted the gross sales ban in November 2022.

The legislation made California the second state to ban all flavored tobacco product gross sales after Massachusetts in 2019. A number of different states have restricted flavored vaping merchandise and a number of other municipalities have adopted their very own bans.

The U.S. Meals and Drug Administration in 2020 banned all flavors besides tobacco and menthol in Juul and different cartridge-based e-cigarettes. In 2022, the FDA sought to ban gross sales of all Juul e-cigarettes, although it later put the order on maintain.

Past vaping, the FDA in April 2022 proposed banning menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars. These guidelines have but to be finalized and have been the topic of lobbying by tobacco teams.

A day after the California vote, R.J. Reynolds together with a gaggle representing tobacco retailers, the Neighborhood Market Affiliation, and a vape store, filed a lawsuit arguing the federal Tobacco Management Act, which the FDA enforces, preempts state and native legal guidelines that bar flavored tobacco product gross sales.

However a federal decide dominated these arguments have been foreclosed by an earlier resolution by the San Francisco-based ninth U.S. Circuit Court docket of Appeals upholding an identical ban in Los Angeles County.

The ninth Circuit upheld the decide’s ruling on California’s legislation in June, after the U.S. Supreme Court docket earlier in 2023 declined to listen to an enchantment of the Los Angeles ruling.

R.J. Reynolds had beforehand unsuccessfully requested the U.S. Supreme Court docket to forestall the California legislation from taking impact whereas it pursued its appeals. The justices rejected that request in December 2022.