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Flavored Tobacco: Old Trick Made New

Published

7 years ago

October 23, 2018

Just as cigarettes were finally decreasing in popularity, vaping came along and made tobacco cool again. From 2011-2015, the use of e-cigarettes, or “e-cigs,” among high school students increased nationwide from 1.5 percent to 16 percent—and this number just keeps going up. In fact, e-cigs were the most commonly used form of tobacco among California high school students in 2016.

But why is this happening? In short, flavors. The tobacco industry uses sweet, enticing flavors with fun names like Captain Berry Crunch, Sour Gummy Worms, and Mermaid Tears attracting kids to try these products and setting them up for a dangerous, life-long tobacco addiction. While e-cigs are relatively new, using flavors to get people hooked to tobacco isn’t.

The tobacco industry has been using menthol, the “original flavored tobacco,” to get people addicted for generations. Menthol was added to cigarettes nearly 100 years ago to give them a minty, fresh taste that masks the harshness of tobacco, making it harder for people to quit. For generations, the tobacco industry targeted menthol cigarettes at the African-American community through aggressive marketing and advertising—and the result is still evident today—70 percent of all menthol smokers in California are African American, a much higher percentage than in other groups.

But with menthol cigarettes, teens still had to buy them at retail stores, and they still looked and smelled like “traditional cigarettes”—giving parents, families, and teachers a fair chance to spot them. Now, e-cigarettes do not look or smell like traditional tobacco—some even look like USB drives and pens. They’re also purchased in a new way—online. When kids try to buy e-cigarettes online, they are successful 94 percent of the time. The Internet-savvy teens of today can easily bypass the age gates on e-cigarette and flavored e-juice websites.

Teens are even getting help to avoid getting caught. YouTube is full of tutorials that teach kids how to order a vape without mom and dad finding out. The instructions encourage teens to “order your Vape on Amazon” and “tell your parents not to open the package because you’re making an unboxing video.” Other tutorials show kids how to hide their e-cigs at home or school and how to conceal their vapor smoke.

The industry claims that it makes their products for adults, but the truth is undeniable—they need kids to use their products to become the next generation of customers. The tobacco industry must recruit new smokers to take the place of the people that are dying or quit every day. California’s smoking rate has decreased four times faster than any other state in the nation, making its smoking rate the second lowest in the US, but e-cigarettes changed all that. They contain addictive, harmful chemicals known to cause a host of illnesses, and when kids use them they are three times more likely to try cigarettes a year later.

Menthol was originally used by the Tobacco Industry as a “starter product” to get people addicted to their deadly products. A far wider number of flavors are being used for the same reason now. Go to FlavorsHookKids.org to learn more about how the tobacco industry is using flavors to hook kids to deadly products, and what you can do about it. Addiction is not a phase, our children will grow out of adolescent behavior but they won’t grow out of a deadly addiction.

Carol McGruder is Co-Chair of the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council.

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Poll Shows Support for Policies That Help Families Afford Child Care

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

Published

3 days ago

March 2, 2026

Oakland Post

By First Five Years Fund

New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

The national survey was conducted by UpOne Insight on behalf of the First Five Years Fund from January 13–18, 2026.

Key findings include:

• Parents need help: 80% of voters say the ability of working parents to find and afford child care is either in a state of crisis or a major problem.

• This is an affordability issue: 82% believe federal child care funding will help lower costs for working families — including 69% of Republicans, 84% of Independents, and 94% of Democrats.

• And there continues to be strong support (62%) for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), a federal program that makes it possible for hundreds of thousands of families to afford safe, quality care for their children while parents work or go to school, including a majority of Republicans, 63% of Independents and 72% of Democrats.

• Support for funding child care programs remains strong: 75% believe child care funding should be increased or kept at current levels — including 75% of Republicans, 85% of Independents, and 97% of Democrats.

• 74% say funding for child care is an important and good use of tax dollars, including a majority of Republicans, three-quarters of Independents, and nine in ten Democrats.

FFYF Executive Director Sarah Rittling said, “Voters across the country are sending a clear message: federal child care and early learning programs work. These investments help parents stay in the workforce, strengthen families, and support healthy child development. They have also long had strong bipartisan support in Congress. At a time when affordability is top of mind for families, continued federal funding is essential to ensure child care remains accessible and within reach.”

First Five Years Fund works to protect, prioritize, and build bipartisan support for quality child care and early learning programs at the federal level. Reliable, affordable, and high-quality early learning and child care can be transformative, not only enhancing a child’s prospects for a brighter future but also bolstering working parents and fostering economic stability nationwide.

We work with Congress and the Administration to identify federal solutions that work for families with young children, as well as states and communities. We work with policymakers to identify ways to increase access to affordable, high-quality child care and early learning programs for children. And we collaborate with advocacy groups to help align best practices with the best possible policies. http://www.ffyf.org

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Oakland Post: Week of February 25 – March 3, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – February 25 – March 3, 2026

Published

4 days ago

March 1, 2026

Oakland Post

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Trump’s MAGA Allies are Creating Executive Order Plan to Steal the 2026 Midterms

NNPA NEWSWIRE — The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

Published

6 days ago

February 27, 2026

Oakland Post

By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

A group of MAGA pro-Trump activists, who say they are working in coordination with the White House, are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that would claim without evidence that China interfered with the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential to President Joe Biden by over 7 million votes. Since Trump lost to Biden in 2020, he has repeatedly claimed that the election was “stolen” without evidence. The report of a group of “Trump allies” preparing an executive order to give Trump power over elections was first reported by The Washington Post.

The lies around the right-wing campaign that pushed falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen was trafficked through right-wing media, particularly Fox News. Fox News was then sued for defamation for the claims by Dominion Voting Systems. Fox lost the case and had to settle for the largest defamation amount on record of $787.5 million in April 2023.

The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

The story in The Washington Post arrives as Trump increasingly signals that he may take actions that would alter the result of the 2026 midterms. The Republicans are widely expected to lose as their approval ratings plummet as a result of a failing economy under Trump. Over 50 members of Congress have announced they will retire this year and not return in 2027.

The Trump Department of Justice, which now has a large image of Trump on the side of it, “sued five new states Thursday [Feb. 26, 2026] demanding access to their unredacted voter rolls — escalating a campaign that has been rejected by multiple federal courts and faces resistance from Republican-led states as well,” according to Democracy Docket, a group that works to protect voting rights.

Trump claimed back in late 2020, the last year of his first term, that he had the authority to issue an executive order related to mail-in voting for the 2020 elections — which he would then lose. But the Constitution states that control of elections lies with the states. As the GOP works to place hurdles in front of voting, Democrats worked to make voting easier.

In March 2021, President Biden signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to expand voting access as part of the Biden Administration’s effort “to promote and defend the right to vote for all Americans who are legally entitled to participate in elections.”

Trump’s focus is clearly on altering the November 2026 midterm elections. Trump’s polling numbers and the elections and special elections that have taken place around the U.S. over the last year clearly indicate that Republicans are about to be hit by a blue wave of Democratic victories.

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent investigative journalist and the founder of Black Virginia News. She is a political analyst who appears on #RolandMartinUnfiltered and hosts the show LAUREN LIVE on YouTube @LaurenVictoriaBurke. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke