North Andover Board of Health Considers Phased Nicotine Sales Ban, Sets No Vote Date

NORTH ANDOVER -- February 26, 2026, North Andover Board of Health hears pitch for phased nicotine sales ban but takes no action. Advocates Maureen Busby, a tobacco prevention program manager from Melrose, and Anthony Ishak, a Brookline pharmacist who co-petitioned that town's 2020 nicotine-free generation bylaw, presented a policy that would prohibit retailers from selling nicotine products to anyone born after a rolling birth-year cutoff, phasing out the commercial market over 10 to 15 years. Ishak noted the policy has been adopted by 21 Massachusetts municipalities and survived a unanimous Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling upholding Brookline's bylaw. A board member identified as a pulmonologist said he was "conflicted" and pushed back on a ban-first approach: "I struggle about the idea of just banning without a plan of education with it." North Andover's lung cancer rate is 21 percent above the state average. The board took no vote and indicated it would weigh a public hearing, with members saying any such hearing should include representatives from North Andover schools.