Vaping News, Safety & Regulations
Another US City bans flavoured E-Liquid
In the United States of America, there are several states that have regulations on vaping, such as flavour bans, nicotine concentration limitations, and also where and who can sell nicotine containing vape juice.
Recently, a new major city has joined only a few other cities in America in prohibiting sales of flavoured vaping products as well as flavoured tobacco, and that is the city of Columbus, Ohio. The decision to bring this ban into effect was met with a unanimous 7-0 vote in favour of yes. I’m going to take a look into this in more detail, as well as giving an update on the battle going on in California over Prohibition 31 which revolves around the banning of flavours.
Columbus brings in prohibition
This all came about from the group called the Coalition to End Tobacco Targeting who are a group created and funded by the Tobacco Free Kid’s group who are hugely known within the country of America as they have been involved in several other campaigns in different states that have banned flavours.
They’re made up of several different groups of public health advocates, community groups as well as faith institutions who are hell bent on cracking down on Vaping being so attractive to the youth and younger generation in the state and want to stop the sales of flavoured vape juice as well as menthol cigarettes as they see this as an “effective and intentional” means of getting children and vulnerable communities addicted to nicotine. The usual preposterous reasonings from these groups who don’t really have a full grasp on the ideology behind vaping, and reasonings we’ve all heard before from similar groups!
They also bring up the historical deliberate marketing of menthol cigarettes to the Black communities in America, which has been an ongoing problem since the 1960s, and they want this to stop. They also bring up the facts and figures from 2019 of the volume of high school students using “flavoured tobacco” products, which we all know is when the JUUL epidemic was at its peak and I don’t agree with them being referred to as a flavoured tobacco product either, as it doesn’t contain any form of tobacco.
Based on these reasonings, the group wanted to see the sales of what they see as the problems prohibited within the state of Columbus. The proposal was put forward to a vote, where it received a resounding 7-0 vote in favour of Yes on the banning of flavoured vaping products being sold in the state of Columbus, Ohio. Columbus is the largest state in the state of Ohio, with over 900,000 residents and this ban is one of only few that are currently in place or going ahead in a city based within America.
The ban doesn’t only affect flavoured vape juice (either with or without nicotine) as it also will prohibit the sale of flavoured nicotine pouches as well as Snus pouches (which aren’t hugely popular within Columbus) and this ban is due to come into effect on January 1st 2024 so it gives manufacturers within the state, as well as retailers time to sell through stock, as well as customers time to stock up before the ban comes in!
An update on Proposition 31 in California
If you haven’t read my previous article on the happenings surrounding Proposition 31 in California, I’ll give you a brief run down now. A motion was passed which came to a vote by the patrons of the state of California which will prohibit the sales of flavoured vaping products as well as menthol cigarettes in the entire state of California. So, a similar method to what Columbus is adopting as I’ve gone over above, but the difference is this is for the ENTIRE state of California.
There was so much controversy surrounding this matter in the run up to the vote coming to fruition, and ultimately, Yes to Prop 31 was decided on and the ban of flavoured vaping products and menthol cigarettes will be going ahead as desired.
The outcome was met with open arms by “yes” voters, however the “no” voters tried to fight back and took the case to the Supreme Court to be heard and appealed for an emergency injunction being put in place to stop this ban from being implemented so quickly after the vote was cast. However, the Supreme Court refused to hear or even consider this injunction appeal and threw the case out and the ban will still be going ahead from December 21st. A very quick and sudden change for the state of California considering that the vote was only cast and settled on November 8th.
The only positive to come out of this is the lawsuit that is being put forward against the state by the plaintiffs will still be heard in the District Court, just the emergency injunction will not be going forward as ruled by the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, they do not have a good track record with lawsuits having previously lost in the past, but there may be hope for success for this one!
I’ll keep you all updated with the happenings and any updates that occur on these separate cases with future articles, so be sure to keep an eye out for them!
