Flavor Ban Bills Are Dead in Colorado and Connecticut

As time ran out on the Connecticut Normal Meeting’s 2022 session, SB 367—the flavour ban invoice that had handed two joint Home-Senate committees—died and not using a remaining vote in both physique. The legislative session ended Could 4.

It was the fourth time since 2020 that Connecticut vaping advocates have helped combat off a taste ban. Taste prohibition was included in each the 2020 and 2021 state budgets, and a separate invoice was additionally launched final yr.

“We’re extremely annoyed that the legislature can’t appear to get their priorities so as in a manner that might shield youngsters, the best way all of Connecticut’s neighbors have already got,” Tobacco Free Children’ Kevin O’Flaherty informed the CT Mirror. The 4 closest states to Connecticut—Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey—all have flavored vape bans.

Tobacco-Free Children lobbyists aren’t used to dropping, and so they don’t prefer it. O’Flaherty accused Connecticut politicians of “[continuing] to assist trade and trade income as an alternative of defending youngsters.” However one other drawback for the anti-vaping activists was an absence of unity. A few of the particular curiosity anti-vaping teams have been lukewarm a few invoice that excluded menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars.

Testimony at a March listening to of the joint Public Well being Committee from well-known lecturers, together with Yale well being economist Abigail Friedman (see video above), created doubt for some legislators. The writer or co-author of a number of scientific research exhibiting that vaping restrictions enhance smoking, Friedman made a reputable and highly effective witness.

Following that listening to, some state legislators appeared to agree with points raised in testimony by Friedman and others. An amended model of the invoice that might have allowed gross sales of flavored merchandise in adult-only shops was deemed an excessive amount of of a compromise for among the anti teams to simply accept.

In Colorado the flavour ban invoice HB 1064 handed the state Home and made it via the primary Senate committee listening to, however didn’t get previous the Senate Appropriations Committee, which rejected it Tuesday by a 5-2 vote.

The outcome was an enormous victory for vaping advocates, who overcame greater than 25 lobbyists and lobbying companies engaged on behalf of Tobacco-Free Children. In accordance with the Colorado Solar, the Bloomberg-backed anti-vaping behemoth spent greater than $180,000 via March selling the ban it helped writer. (Massive tobacco firms additionally spent a whole lot of 1000’s of {dollars} lobbying towards the invoice.)

“Colorado rejecting the flavour ban is a sign for different jurisdictions to refocus public well being efforts on what works—vaping,” American Vapor Producers (AVM) President Amanda Wheeler stated in a press launch. “Nicotine vaping is the only best smoking cessation technique ever devised. Lawmakers can study from Colorado. Taste bans received’t work, however selling vape merchandise does assist adults stop smoking and retains adults from relapsing to lethal cigarettes.”

Each CASAA and AVM issued calls to motion in Colorado, giving 1000’s of vapers and vaping trade advocates the chance to register their opposition to the vape shop-killing invoice. Moreover, as in Connecticut, prestigious vape-supporting lecturers signed as much as testify at a Home listening to full of audio system each for and towards.

Legislators heard sturdy proof that taste bans don’t work from College of Ottawa adjunct legislation professor David Sweanor, Drug Coverage Alliance founder Ethan Nadelmann, and Dr. Michael Cummings of the Medical College of South Carolina, amongst others.

Ultimately, anti-vaping pursuits couldn’t muster sufficient assist to cross the ultimate committee and get the invoice to the complete Senate earlier than the state’s legislative session ended. However nobody ought to doubt that they’ll be again with an identical invoice within the subsequent session.