Illinois’ Latest Flavor Ban Proposal Ignores Falling Youth Vaping and Smoking Rates

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Key Points:

• Legislative Overview: Illinois Senate Bill 3148 would establish the “Flavored Tobacco Ban Act,” prohibiting the sale of flavored tobacco and nicotine products, including combustible cigarettes and smoke-free alternatives.

• Broad Product Scope: The proposal applies to combustible cigarettes, cigars, smokeless tobacco, e-cigarettes, and alternative nicotine products, including oral nicotine pouches and synthetic nicotine products.

• Extensive Flavor Definitions: The legislation bans flavors including fruit, chocolate, vanilla, honey, mint, menthol, and others, while also creating a broad “rebuttable presumption” standard based on branding, colors, imagery, or packaging.

• Enforcement Structure: The Illinois Department of Human Services would oversee enforcement, with retailers facing escalating license suspensions for violations, beginning with a 3-day suspension for a first offense.

• Long-Term Legislative Push: SB 3148 follows years of similar Illinois proposals seeking to prohibit flavored nicotine products, including legislation introduced repeatedly since 2019.

• Youth Smoking at Historic Lows: In 2023, only 3.6 percent of Illinois high school students reported current cigarette smoking – one of the lowest youth smoking rates ever recorded in the state.

• Youth Vaping Continues to Decline: Current youth vaping in Illinois declined by 16.6 percent between 2019 and 2023, while national youth vaping fell to just 5.1 percent in 2025 – the lowest level in more than a decade.

• Flavors Not Primary Driver: According to national youth survey data, the most common reasons youth reported vaping were stress, anxiety, and nicotine effects – not flavors. Only 13.2 percent cited flavors as a reason for use.

• Adult Vaping Increasing: In 2024, approximately 680,863 Illinois adults (6.8 percent) were current e-cigarette users, representing a 9.7 percent increase from 2023 and nearly 66,000 additional adult vapers in one year.

• Smoking Declines Coincide with Vaping Growth: Between 2016 and 2024, adult vaping increased by 58.1 percent while adult smoking declined by 33.5 percent, representing more than 511,000 fewer adult smokers.

• Young Adult Smoking Collapses: Among Illinois adults aged 18 to 24, smoking declined by 68.3 percent between 2016 and 2024, reaching just 4.6 percent, while vaping among young adults increased by 54.1 percent.

• No Evidence of Gateway Effect: State-level data show no indication that rising vaping rates among young adults have led to increased combustible cigarette use.

• Adult Access at Risk: Hundreds of thousands of Illinois adults currently rely on smoke-free alternatives, many of whom are current or former smokers using flavored products instead of combustible cigarettes.

• Potential Unintended Consequences: Broad flavor prohibitions risk pushing adults back toward combustible cigarettes or into illicit markets while offering little evidence of long-term effectiveness.

• Bottom Line: Youth smoking and vaping continue to decline in Illinois and nationally, while adult use of smoke-free alternatives rises alongside substantial declines in smoking. Policymakers should focus on youth access enforcement rather than broad prohibitions that could undermine tobacco harm reduction for adults.

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Legislation in the Prairie State would limit adult access to tobacco harm reduction products. Senate Bill 3148 would establish the “Flavored Tobacco Ban Act” and prohibit the sale of flavored tobacco products, including combustible cigarettes and smoke-free alternatives.

Under the proposed legislation, distributors and retailers would be prohibited from selling or offering flavored tobacco products for sale. Specifically prohibited flavors include fruit, chocolate, vanilla, honey, mint, menthol, and others.

The legislation defines tobacco products broadly to include products containing tobacco that can be chewed, dissolved, heated, inhaled, or smoked, covering cigars, cigarettes, and smokeless tobacco. Electronic cigarettes are defined to include all components and parts needed for an electronic nicotine delivery system. Alternative nicotine products are defined as nicotine-containing products not derived from tobacco that are ingested into the body “whether by chewing, smoking, absorbing, dissolving, inhaling, snorting, sniffing, or by any other means,” which would include oral nicotine pouches and other alternatives.

A particularly broad provision in the bill establishes a “rebuttable presumption” standard, under which a product is presumed to be flavored if it produces a characterizing flavor; if the manufacturer markets it as flavored; or if the packaging, branding, colors, images, or text imply flavor characteristics.

The Illinois Department of Human Services would be responsible for enforcing the ban and would be granted authority to adopt implementing regulations. Violators would face escalating license suspensions, including a 3-day suspension for a first violation, a 7-day suspension for a second violation, and 30-day suspensions for third and subsequent violations.

The legislation includes a limited distribution exception. If flavored products were acquired outside Illinois and are only being temporarily stored in the state before shipment elsewhere, distributors would be permitted to possess them.

The intended effective date of the legislation is June 1, 2026, though the bill currently remains stalled after being reassigned to the Senate Assignments Committee on May 22.

SB 3148 is only the latest in a long line of proposals seeking to prohibit flavored tobacco and nicotine products in Illinois. Since 2019, lawmakers have introduced multiple flavor-ban bills, including House Bills 3883 and 3887 and Senate Bills 2274 and 2275. Similar proposals were introduced again in 2021, 2022, and 2025, reflecting a years-long effort to prohibit flavored alternatives despite changing public health trends and declining youth use.

Supporters justify the prohibition by citing a so-called youth vaping epidemic, yet the legislation ignores real-world data showing youth vaping has fallen significantly and youth smoking is at historically low levels. At the same time, increasing adult use of smoke-free alternatives has coincided with substantial declines in combustible cigarette smoking among adults in Illinois.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey, only 3.6 percent of Illinois high school students reported current cigarette smoking in 2023, defined as smoking on at least one occasion in the previous 30 days. This represents one of the lowest smoking rates ever recorded among Illinois youth.

Youth vaping has also declined. In 2023, 16.6 percent of Illinois high school students reported current e-cigarette use, representing a 16.6 percent decline from 2019, when youth vaping peaked. National trends are even more striking. According to the 2025 National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS), only 5.1 percent of U.S. middle and high school students reported current vaping – the lowest level recorded in more than a decade.

Moreover, survey data consistently show that flavors are not the primary reason youth experiment with e-cigarettes. According to the 2021 NYTS, the most common reasons middle and high school students reported using e-cigarettes were because they were “feeling anxious, stressed, or depressed” (43.4 percent) and to “get a high or buzz from nicotine” (42.8 percent). Only 13.2 percent of current youth e-cigarette users cited flavors as a reason for use. Among students who had ever tried vaping, only 13.5 percent cited flavors, compared to 57.8 percent who reported using e-cigarettes because they had friends who used them.

The legislation also ignores the growing number of adults – many of whom are current or former smokers – who rely on flavored smoke-free alternatives instead of cigarettes.

According to the CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, approximately 680,863 Illinois adults – or 6.8 percent of the adult population – were current e-cigarette users in 2024. This represented a 9.7 percent increase from 2023, when 6.2 percent of adults reported vaping. In total, Illinois had an estimated 65,948 additional adult e-cigarette users in 2024 compared to the previous year.

Importantly, the rise in adult e-cigarette use has coincided with significant declines in smoking. In 2016, only 4.3 percent of Illinois adults were current e-cigarette users. Between 2016 and 2024, adult vaping increased by 58.1 percent, representing an additional 255,581 adult e-cigarette users. During the same period, adult smoking declined by 33.5 percent, representing 511,334 fewer adult smokers.

There is also no evidence suggesting that increased youth vaping has caused increases in smoking among young adults. In fact, CDC population-level data show the opposite trend.

In 2016, 14.5 percent of Illinois young adults aged 18 to 24 were current smokers. By 2024, that figure had fallen by 68.3 percent to just 4.6 percent – the lowest rate ever recorded by the BRFSS in Illinois. Meanwhile, vaping among young adults increased by 54.1 percent, rising from 9.8 percent in 2016 to 15.1 percent in 2024. Similar patterns have been observed nationally, providing no evidence that the availability of smoke-free alternatives has led to increased cigarette smoking.

Lawmakers should carefully consider the real-world data before advancing broad prohibitions that could eliminate access to products used by hundreds of thousands of adults. Existing flavor bans around the country have produced little evidence of long-term success, particularly as youth vaping has continued to decline nationwide regardless of state-level prohibitions. Rather than pursuing policies that risk pushing adults back toward combustible cigarettes or fueling illicit markets, Illinois lawmakers should focus on enforcing youth access laws while recognizing the important role smoke-free alternatives can play in reducing smoking-related harm for adults.

Nothing in this analysis is intended to influence the passage of legislation, and it does not necessarily represent the views of Tobacco Harm Reduction 101.