Minnesota has a reputation as a national leader in both tobacco control and harm reduction. But as 2026 approaches, and after decades of watching policies unfold, I find myself asking where exactly Minnesota’s government is leading us in the nicotine space.
I love living here, as my family has done since the 1800s. My memories are full of lakes and forests, and the stick-to-your-ribs, warm-your-soul hotdishes that appear at every community potluck.
I have darker memories, too. I’ve watched generations of my loved ones smoke, get sick and die years too soon. Robbed of my elders, I’m left as the family elder long before I ever expected to be.
You’ve probably heard of “Minnesota Nice,” and I think we earned that tag. So how is it that here, tobacco control and harm reduction don’t go hand in hand?
Minnesota was one of the first states to establish a nonprofit dedicated to tobacco control in the early 1970s. We were the first state to pass a Clean Indoor Air Act in 1975, restricting indoor smoking in public places to designated smoking areas; a 2007 law later banned indoor smoking in public places, with a few exceptions, such as tribal lands.
We hold the distinction of being the first state to develop a comprehensive tobacco control plan. In 1994, Minnesota was the second state to sue the tobacco industry; the landmark case was settled in 1998. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota was a party to that suit, in a first for the health insurance industry.
Minnesota’s resistance to tobacco harm reduction began quietly in 2010 … Years later, economists would look back at this and call it a natural experiment.
Minnesota was also the first state to fund a media campaign encouraging its citizens not to smoke, and here we see the root of the problem. In 1989, the health department printed posters of animals smoking, with the line “It looks just as stupid when you do it.” The department handed out over 20,000 copies at the State Fair that year—sending the message it’s ok to stigmatize people who smoke.
Minnesota’s resistance to tobacco harm reduction began quietly in 2010, when the state became the first in the country to tax nicotine vapes. At the time, vaping products were still new; they didn’t have a proper legal category. Because their nicotine came from tobacco, Minnesota classified them as “other tobacco products,” and taxed them accordingly. That mattered less when the tax rate was 35 percent. But in 2013, it was raised to 95 percent of the wholesale price, without significant debate about relative risk.
Years later, economists would look back at this and call it a natural experiment. Their findings were not subtle. The Minnesota tax made vaping much more expensive, and as prices rose, fewer adults quit smoking.
One research team estimated that during the study period (2013-2015), roughly 32,400 Minnesotans who would otherwise have quit smoking did not—a predictable result when the safer substitute becomes dramatically more expensive, and when smuggled cigarettes from lower-tax jurisdictions are widely available.
In 2014, vaping was banned in schools and government buildings. That ban was extended in 2019 to all indoor public spaces, including bars and restaurants.
If the state laid the groundwork, our cities built on it. Local governments adopted their own layers of restrictions: flavor bans, zoning limits, Tobacco 21 ordinances, coupon bans and minimum prices.
Minnesota’s policies have created a state where it is easier to keep smoking than to switch away from it.
In early 2020, St. Louis Park went so far as to ban the sale of vaping products altogether, while leaving combustible cigarettes on the shelf. Council members acknowledged that the “EVALI” lung injuries dominating the news at the time were tied to illicit THC cartridges rather than legal nicotine vapes, but moved ahead anyway. Overnight, adults who had switched from smoking to vaping lost access to the very products that had helped them stay away from cigarettes.
St. Paul followed with one of the strictest commercial tobacco ordinances in the country, including restrictions on vapes. Then came Saint Anthony Village and Minneapolis, which in 2024 raised the minimum floor price for cigarettes to $15—an idea that might sound good, until you consider that the cost is overwhelmingly borne by people on low incomes, and that the state has an unusually large illicit cigarette market.
Worse still, the following year, Minneapolis voted unanimously to set a $25 minimum floor price for vapor devices, while St. Anthony Village set the price at $20.
The result is a landscape in which a Minnesotan trying to save their life by quitting smoking encounters a simple, consistent message everywhere they go: Smoking remains affordable and accessible, while lower-risk alternatives are increasingly expensive and, in some places, entirely unavailable.
Our state’s primary health authority speaks as though all forms of nicotine use carry comparable risks.
Given the messaging we hear, this outcome should not surprise us. The Minnesota Department of Health states: “Commercial tobacco use like smoking, using chew, or vaping kills over 6,530 Minnesotans every year.” The implication is unmistakable: that vaping contributes to this toll. The deaths are caused by diseases linked to combustible products. Yet our state’s primary health authority speaks as though all forms of nicotine use carry comparable risks.
When public agencies talk this way, it becomes easier for policymakers to believe that vaping must be taxed, restricted or banned with greater intensity than combustible cigarettes.
Vaping eliminates combustion, and it is combustion, not nicotine, that causes the overwhelming share of smoking-related harm. Studies consistently show that people who switch completely from cigarettes to vaping dramatically reduce their exposure to carcinogens and toxicants. For many people, vaping is the only smoking-cessation method that ever worked for them. Yet Minnesota’s policies have created a state where it is easier to keep smoking than to switch away from it.
Research also shows that when vape prices rise or products are banned, smoking, including by youth, increases. Some estimates suggest that a hefty federal vape tax, similar to the effective tax burden already in place in Minnesota, would lead to millions of additional adults smoking daily.
For people on low incomes, older adults, people living with mental health conditions, and others who are disproportionately affected by smoking-related illness, this is not an abstract policy discussion. It is a question of survival. Every time a person chooses a cigarette because the safer product was priced or regulated out of reach, a policymaker and the tobacco control groups supporting those policies made that choice more likely.
We’ve learned the value of harm reduction and how it saves lives. But harm reduction is still not the norm when we’re talking about nicotine use.
Tobacco control is not the only time Minnesota has been thought of as a leader in the addiction field. We are also known for the “Minnesota Model.” First developed in the 1950s, it pertains to treatment programs that involve professionals and people with lived experience, and insists that anyone living with a substance use disorder practice abstinence. That model quickly spread across the United States.
Since then, we’ve learned the value of harm reduction and how it saves lives. Long before statewide harm reduction policies existed, Minnesotans were already practicing it—distributing naloxone, offering syringe access and building community care in places where formal systems had failed.
Today, that early grassroots work has grown into something extraordinary. Minnesota recently became the first state in the nation to repeal its drug “paraphernalia” laws fully, and the second state, after Rhode Island, to authorize overdose prevention centers, dedicating millions to support supervised consumption and safer-use services. In 2025, Minnesota became the first state to earn Recovery Friendly Workplace certification, following a 2024 executive order directing agencies to recognize recovery from substance use disorder as a strength and reduce workplace stigma.
These are landmark, evidence-based reforms that treat people with dignity. But harm reduction and the inclusion of people with lived experience are still not the norm when we’re talking about nicotine use. As we look toward 2026, we should ask ourselves whether the course we have charted for people who use nicotine is the kind we genuinely want to lead.
Photograph of Minnesota State Capitol by Tony Webster via Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons 2.0
