Top Takeaways:

• A proposed Massachusetts bill would prevent city and town Boards of Health from banning the sale of any legal consumer product.
• The measure would overturn local tobacco and nicotine restrictions, including Northampton and Belchertown’s “generational” tobacco bans.
• Public health advocates claim the proposal would undo one of the most innovative state-level tobacco-control efforts in the world.

A pending bill in the Massachusetts Legislature would strip local Boards of Health of their authority to ban sales of legal consumer products — a move that, if passed, would effectively nullify community-level bans on tobacco and nicotine sales.

While the proposal does not specifically mention tobacco, legal experts say it is written broadly enough to prevent municipalities from enforcing independent restrictions on nicotine products, including the so-called “nicotine-free generation” rules that ban residents born after 2004 from ever buying cigarettes or vaping products.

The measure directly challenges ordinances in Northampton and Belchertown, which currently ban tobacco sales to anyone born in or after 2004. Those local laws were upheld earlier this year by the state’s highest court, which ruled that towns have the authority to implement public-health measures more stringent than state law.

Supporters of the bans argue that the pending bill would reduce that autonomy. “We want to regulate an industry that specifically targets our youth with a deadly, addictive substance,” said Virginia Chadwick of the Nicotine-Free Generation Coalition, adding that empowering communities is “essential for protecting future generations.”

Mark Gottlieb, a law professor at Northeastern University and the executive director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute, told lawmakers that towns often serve as “policy laboratories,” citing Massachusetts’ early adoption of a 21-year-old tobacco purchase age as an example of local innovation later adopted statewide.

“These bills seek to reverse this and stop one of the most exciting and impactful tobacco policy movements in the world,” he said. A bill in a Massachusetts State House committee would implement a statewide generational ban if passed.