Hawaii plans to ban the sale of flavored electronic cigarettes to combat teenage vaping | 1 NEWS NOW

First State to Limit Sales of Tobacco and Electronic Cigarettes to People 21 Years of Age and Older Plans New Nicotine Suppression: Banning Flavored Electronic Cigarette Liquids and Flavored Tobacco to Fight Teenage Vaping Spike .

Hawaii would be the first state to adopt such a ban under a bill submitted to the legislature. San Francisco was the first American city to do it.

The proposal would ban flavored electronic cigarette liquids such as Maui Mango and Cookie Monsta, as well as cloves and other flavored tobacco products, but would exclude menthol and vaporized liquids.

Supporters seek to make electronic cigarettes less attractive to teens, while studies show that an increasing number of high school and college students become addicted to nicotine through vaping.

"They look at the cigarettes and say," The cigarettes are disgusting. Tobacco is disgusting, "said Trish La Chica, a defender and lobbyist at the Hawaii Institute of Public Health. "Then remove cotton candy, remove the flavors that seem to belong to an ice cream shop, and they would not be attracted to the beginning."

Battery-operated electronic cigarettes generally heat nicotine-flavored solutions with inhalable vapors. They are more popular among teenagers than regular cigarettes, and most experts agree that they are less harmful than cigarettes because their vapors do not contain tar or any other type of cigarette. tobacco byproducts that cause cancer.

But there is virtually no research on the long-term effects of chemicals in vapors, some of which are toxic. And some researchers believe that vaping will encourage children to take cigarettes.

Earlier this month, the US Food and Drug Administration proposed limiting sales of most flavored tobacco products to stores verifying the age of the customer when entering or having a separate and limited area for vaping products. The FDA has indicated that it will give priority to the elimination of vaping products that are clearly of interest to children, such as those whose packaging looks like juice boxes, candies or cookies.

Students told lawmakers in Hawaii last week that their clbadmates were running out of steam in bathrooms and secluded corners of the campus. Some teenagers post videos on social networks that illustrate their breathing, the students said.

"I can not continue to go to the bathroom at school and be hit in the face with a vape cloud that smells like cotton and can not work the rest of the day because of a headache, "said Paige McCurdy, a sophomore at Kapolei High School, near Honolulu, in testimony to the Legislative Assembly. "It affects students and it just has to stop."

A study conducted in 2017 by the Hawaii Health Department revealed that 16% of middle school students and 26% of high school students were already using electronic cigarettes. The number of high school students experimenting with vaping has been multiplied by four between 2011 and 2015, according to the study.

The National Youth Smoking Survey found that youth vaping increased by 78% between 2017 and 2018 in the United States.

The Hawaii Health Agency has stated that teenage vaping is of particular concern because nicotine in adolescents may interfere with the growth of brain circuits that control attention and learning and lead to increased impulsiveness and mental disturbances. mood.

A committee of the House has exempted menthol from the bill because the ban on flavor could jeopardize the tax revenues that the state derives from menthol cigarettes. Representative John Mizuno, chair of the House Health Committee, said the state tax on flavored and unflavoured cigarettes was worth $ 22 million a year to a cancer research center, 11, NZD $ 7 million to ambulance services, $ 11.7 million to community health centers $ 11.7 million to a hospital trauma center. His counterpart in the Senate, Senator Roz Baker, said she was opposed to this change.

Opponents of the bill say that e-cigarettes play an important role in helping traditional cigarette smokers reduce or quit. They cite a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which found that e-cigarettes were almost twice as effective as nicotine chewing gums in helping people quit smoking.

Scott Rasak, vice president of sales and marketing at VOLCANO Fine Electronic Cigarettes, said a ban on flavors would encourage people who transgress tobacco to return to traditional cigarettes.

"Is this bill worth bringing back 75% of adults who smoke cigarettes to smoke?" he said.

He predicted the bill would "annihilate" Hawaii's independent retailers, such as his own, which has 16 stores and 100 employees on three islands.

Trevor Husseini, a 30-year-old software engineer, said he had been smoking at the unit for over 10 years and that he wanted to quit, but that he could not find nothing that can work before trying to vape. Since he's changed jobs, he has gradually reduced his nicotine intake in order to not run out of steam at all.

Husseini said that he thought the ban would open a black market because people order online companies from the mainland. "They will always have their juice," he said.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. paid NZ $ 17.6 million for an unsuccessful attempt to persuade voters in San Francisco to reject its ban on flavors last year. The Hawaii proposal is not in place for a public referendum, so such expenses have not been seen here. But there were announcements opposed to the bill. Juul Labs Inc., the country 's leading manufacturer of electronic cigarettes, has been registered for the first time at the Capitol Lobby of the State of Hawaii this year.

A separate bill would harmonize taxes on sales of electronic cigarettes with those of traditional cigarettes.

"By taxing them in the same way as tobacco, we hope to prevent more young people from trying it, catching it off guard, retaining it," said Baker, principal author of the second bill.

About 10 states already tax electronic cigarettes, according to the Public Health Law Center, a nonprofit organization based in Minnesota. Mark Meaney, a center lawyer, said that taxes are one of the most effective ways to discourage smoking.

The State Senate has adopted versions of both bills. Both measures must be adopted by the House Finance Committee by April 5 at the latest.