One Norman tobacco store has a variety of flavored cigarettes that it is unable to sell and must return to the manufacturer after a government ban on flavored cigarettes went into effect in late September.

In hopes that it would prevent youths from smoking, the government banned the sale of flavored cigarettes Sept. 22. They are seen as gateway drugs that lead younger smokers to become regular smokers as adults, according to the Food and Drug Administration. About 90 percent of adult smokers start smoking when they are teenagers.

At Plantations, a tobacco store in Norman, employee Dillon Summers said youths were not even the target audience for flavored cigarettes.

“I don’t see how it’s a big deal with younger people,” Summers said. “The flavored cigarettes we sold were more expensive than regular. Younger kids usually went for the cheaper stuff. It was more your older college crowd.”

Plantations will now have to send their 10 different varieties of flavored cigarettes back to the manufacturer to be reimbursed, Summers said. The most popular of these was the clove and cherry-flavored Dream cigarettes.

The bill is not clear on what will change and only bans flavored cigarettes, not all flavored tobacco products, like hookah, menthols or cigars.

“I don’t really know the details of the new law,” said Michael Hackney, aerospace engineering sophomore and clove cigarette smoker. “I will probably just switch to menthols to get my flavor fix. Tobacco is just not my favorite flavor.”

Hackney said that menthols would probably entice a younger crowd more than other flavors because they do not cost as much.

Menthols are a smaller, mint-flavored variety of cigarette; the FDA is currently looking into regulating menthol and other tobacco products, according to a press release about the ban.

Non-smokers were pleased with the idea of the bill but unsure of whether it will truly be effective in stopping youths from smoking.

Alicia Jones, finance and marketing senior, said the bill would probably not be a strong deterrent for youths in the end.

“I don’t know if it will decrease the number of youth smoking, but it will probably prevent an increase,” Jones said.

The measure is part of the Family Smoking Prevention and Control Act, which gives the government more control over regulating the tobacco industry, according to the FDA press release. President Barack Obama signed the bill into effect back in June.

“It sucks,” Summers said. “It didn’t seem like an important thing to do at the moment.”