Over the weekend, a coalition of public health groups ran full-page ads in The Post and Courier and other S.C. newspapers warning against an effort in the state Senate to strip cities and counties of their right to do a job the Legislature refuses to do: regulating tobacco company efforts to addict teens.

The American Cancer Society, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and American Lung and Heart associations worry that the Senate will use the confusion of the final few days of the legislative session to pass H.3681, which would prohibit local governments from regulating cigarette, vape or other tobacco flavors or ingredients, and block these governments from requiring local licenses to sell tobacco products.

On its face, the bill appears long dead. Although the House passed it in 2021 and the Senate pulled it out of committee without so much as a public hearing, its been stuck on the Senate contested calendar for more than a year. Thats normally a sure sign of a bill thats going nowhere absent a compromise that all sides buy into. Normally, but not always.

Public health officials are concerned that the bill will suddenly be resurrected and passed this week. That might sound paranoid, but its actually quite common for lawmakers to wait until the end of the session to try to sneak through legislation they know the public would oppose. Activists say theyre hearing too much buzz about H.3681 to ignore. (And yes, we realize that it's popular for special-interest groups to claim to be under attack when theyre really not in order to raise money, but the anti-tobacco advocates arent trying to raise money; theyve been at the Statehouse furiously working the Senate to prevent the legislation from being brought back to life.)

So while we hope any effort to sneak the legislation onto Gov. Henry McMasters desk will fizzle and that if it doesnt, hell veto it its worth taking the time to explain what H.3681 is all about.

Its supporters say they want to ensure that tobacco laws are uniform across the state, but in fact they have fought efforts to have a uniform statewide law that would help enforce the law that prohibits tobacco use by minors. H.3754 would treat tobacco sales more like alcohol sales, requiring businesses to get a license to sell the products and empowering the state to revoke those licenses if they dont guard against selling tobacco to minors. Thats important because, according to the American Heart Association, three-quarters of kids who try to buy tobacco products succeed.

Tobacco companies have kept the tobacco licensing bill locked in subcommittee for two years because uniform tobacco laws isnt their goal. Their goal is to ensure that nothing is done in South Carolina to reduce sales of tobacco products even products that are deliberately manipulated to entice children to use them.

South Carolina has one of the nation's highest rates of teen nicotine use, and vaping has powered an uptick in youth tobacco use nationally. The CDC says nearly all high school students who use tobacco products use flavored products, so that's why some local governments want to prohibit the sales of such products.

The vaping pre-emption bill also is the latest in a long string of bills to strip elected city and county council members of the right to govern their communities. Such bills start out with a leg up at the Statehouse regardless of the underlying topic because too many legislators believe they know more about what should happen in local communities than the people who are elected to govern those communities.

Either the assault on local governments or the assault on public health would be reason enough to let this legislation die when the Legislature adjourns Thursday. The combination of the two makes it nearly criminal that anyone would seriously consider pushing it into law.

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Editorial: It's already too easy to addict kids to vaping. SC bill would make it worse. - Charleston Post Courier