Estimates of Cross-Border Menthol Cigarette Sales Following the Comprehensive Tobacco Flavor Ban in Massachusetts

On June 1, 2020, Massachusetts became the first state in the US to ban all flavored tobacco product sales, including menthol cigarettes. Recent research has estimated the reduction in cigarette sales in Massachusetts following the comprehensive tobacco flavor ban, but noted that missing data on border states was a major limitation of the findings. This letter replicates the procedures of Asare et al. with 1540 state-months and then adds Asare et al.s missing states with 2420 total observations for the period January 2017 to July 2021. The replication confirms Asare et al.s adjusted estimate for the reduction in menthol cigarettes, which falls within their 95% confidence interval. However, assigning Massachusetts and its bordering states as a single treatment group leads to an increase of 191.95 (95% CI, 96.82 to 287.09) total cigarette packs sold per 1000 people in the six-state region. In the 12-month period following the comprehensive flavor ban in Massachusetts, the state sold 29.96 million fewer cigarette packs compared to the prior period. However, a total of 33.36 million additional cigarette packs were sold during the same post-ban period in the counties that bordered Massachusetts. Given decreasing rates of smoking in all five bordering states between 2019 and 2020, the increase in border-state cigarette sales following the comprehensive flavor ban should be interpreted as a lower-bound estimate for cigarettes that were ultimately consumed in Massachusetts.