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General Assembly Moves To Raise Virginia’s Tobacco-Purchase Age To 21

VCU CNS | February 8, 2019

Topics: General Assembly, juul, tobacco purchasing age, youth smoking

Legislation making its way through the General Assembly would raise the legal age for purchasing and possessing tobacco and vaping products from 18 to 21, drawing mixed reactions from young adults who would be affected by the new law.

The House and Senate have passed similar bills to increase the age to buy or possess products containing tobacco or nicotine. Each chamber is now working on the other’s measure.

In the state that gave birth to the tobacco industry, not everybody is happy about the legislation. William Bechtle, a 20-year-old computer science major at Virginia Commonwealth University, believes it would infringe on people’s rights.

“If an 18-year-old who is legally an adult wants to make the horrible choice to start smoking, they have that right,” said Bechtle, who smokes cigarettes. “If they don’t, then why is the age of adulthood 18 and not 21?”

Other young smokers do not seem to view the bills as a threat — only as an inconvenience.

“I can get older friends, people at that age limit, to get it for me,” said Katie Breighner, a freshman at Centreville High School in Fairfax County. “Regardless of your age, someone can find a way to get it.”

Some lawmakers also oppose the proposals to raise the smoking age — but apparently not enough to derail the legislation.

On Tuesday, the House voted 67-31 in favor of its bill, HB 2748. That measure has been referred to the Senate Courts of Justice Committee.

The Senate passed its bill, SB 1727, on a 32-8 vote on Jan. 29. On Wednesday, the House Courts of Justice Committee approved that measure, 9-6, and sent it to the full House for consideration.

If the legislation becomes law, Virginia would join six other states in raising the tobacco purchase age to 21.

The Senate bill was sponsored by Sen. Thomas Norment, R-James City. Thirteen Republicans and all 19 Democrats in the Senate supported the measure; eight Republican senators opposed it.

The House bill was introduced by Del. Christopher P. Stolle, R-Virginia Beach. Forty-six Democrats and 21 Republicans voted in favor of the bill, while 29 Republican delegates and two Democratic delegates voted against it.

Among the opponents was Del. Mark Cole, R-Spotsylvania.

“I have no problem with raising the age to purchase tobacco products up to 21, but I think it should be done in a step process, because there are, whether we like it or not, 18-, 19-, 20-year-olds who are using these products now,” Cole said. “While I applaud the intent of this legislation, I think it has problems.”

Photo by Itay Kabalo on Unsplash

The legislation targets all tobacco and nicotine products, not just cigarettes. A primary goal is to combat the recent trend of teen vaping, which the U.S. surgeon general has called an “epidemic.”

The number of teens who have vaped in the past 30 days has almost doubled since 2017, including children as young as eighth grade. While some may argue that vaping is healthier than smoking cigarettes, many are unaware that one Juul pod (a popular method of vaping) contains as much nicotine as 20 cigarettes.

That’s why students like Reem Alul view the legislation before the General Assembly as a sign of progress. Alul, a biology major at VCU, hopes new laws will help curb youth addiction to nicotine.

“As someone who’s been smoking for over a year now, I know how addictive and toxic nicotine is to my quality of life,” Alul said. “Although minors will still have access to these products, it’ll be much harder to get a hold of it on short notice.”

By Serena Fischer, Capital News Service. Top Photo: Public Domain, CC0 1.0

A Richmond-based National Campaign Fighting to Keep Flavors in Your Juul

Sarah Honosky | August 3, 2018

Topics: Avail vapor, charlie's chalk dust, global vaping standards association, juul, smok, Tobacco, vaping

Richmonder Ryan McCreary was graduating high school when vaping became a fad. Like many modern smokers looking to transition, he spent a year vaping as an alternative, using a small battery-powered vape pen to get his tobacco fix. He acknowledges the youth appeal of e-cigarettes, especially the flash-drive-sized Juuls, but argues that it isn’t the flavors, it’s the culture.

From college kids to high schoolers, it was a trickle-down effect, driven by popular Instagram accounts and well-known YouTube stars. “Kids do it because it’s mainstream. It’s not about the flavors,” McCreary said.

Still, the FDA has begun an inquiry into the flavored liquids–e-liquids–that vape pens heat up and turn into vapor. Like the 2009 ban on flavored cigarettes enacted by Congress, regulators say that flavors like cherry and chocolate appeal to youth, pointing to the extremely negative health impacts smoking has on young lungs.

Many in the industry fear a similar ban is coming for vaping. In Richmond, the Global Vaping Standards Association has created a national coalition to get ahead of regulators and fight any such ban.

The non-profit created the #FightForFlavor campaign after the FDA opened an inquiry earlier this year into flavored e-liquids. The current inquiry is seeking comments on vaping flavors, an early phase that might lead to a full ban or other regulation.

The association’s executive director, Maggie Gowen, saw this as a crucial moment to push back against regulators. She’s built an industry coalition of vape companies and launched a campaign to encourage adult vapers to share their personal comments on e-liquid flavored products with the FDA.

The group argues that the flavors play a crucial role in helping adults transition from cigarettes to vaping products. “As an industry, we thought it was extraordinarily important for vapers that use flavoring to submit their comments to the FDA in regards to how flavors helped transition them,” Gowen said. “We see it all the time in the industry.”

A Richmond e-liquid manufacturer, AVAIL, the largest e-liquid or vape retailer in the US, has worked closely with Gowen on the campaign. While much of the #FightForFlavor campaign is about customer advocacy, AVAIL has been submitting scientific studies to the FDA to lobby for greater understanding of the importance of flavors.

“They’ve done extensive consumer research that shows the journey,” Gowen said.  “What you’ll traditionally see…a smoker will come in, they’re comfortable, they know the tobacco flavor, the menthol flavor, they’ll quite often stick with those flavors for maybe a month. And then when they’re not smoking as much anymore, their taste buds are reinvigorated, and all of a sudden they don’t like tobacco and menthol anymore.”

Consumers will start graduating toward sweet and savory flavors—of which there are hundreds, from peppermint to coffee, to blueberry. A short walk around the VCU campus quickly becomes a foray into sweet-smelling vaporous clouds, and almost any trip to Carytown includes being engulfed in a cotton candy scented fog.

“There’s hundreds of e-liquid manufacturers and hundreds of thousands of vape retailers that this would greatly affect. Not to mention, helping product these adult vapers who have transitioned from tobacco,” Gowen said. “What is that going to do? Are they going to revert back to smoking again because they can’t get their flavors?”

The primary concern of the FDA seems to be the risk of youth addiction, and it’s easy to see why. Not only do vape products have enticing flavors—like key lime pie, orange sticky bun, or “Candy Crush”—but new vape technology like Juuls makes the e-cigarette devices incredibly easy to conceal and afford.

Juuls now make up more than half of the e-cigarette retail market sales in America and have become commonplace in high schools and universities nationwide. Though initially created to help adults transition from smoking, the rise of the Juul among minors is a high-traffic topic in recent publications.

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Gowen said the association is combatting FDA concerns about youth appeal by targeting adult smokers, and doing so responsibly.

“We have all types of age-gating that is part of policy and procedure in the company. As far as marketing practices, everyone adheres to strict marketing practices and guidelines,” Gowen said. Despite the popularity of Juuls and e-cigarettes among young smokers, Gowen maintained that it was not due to industry advertising. She said, “You look at the marketing and the youth appeal is not there.”

The coalition includes industry partners such as AVAIL Vapor, Charlie’s Chalk Dust, Mama’s, and SMOK. They seek to engage adult vapers with education and information, reaching out to retailers across the US to spread the message.

“The industry leaders of this coalition are all committed to advocating for vapers’ rights and their right to choose flavored e-liquids while also following strict regulations to keep vape products out of the hands of minors,” Gowen said.  “It’s been wonderful working with these companies. We all joined together.”

The thoroughline of the campaign is to get smokers away from traditional tobacco products.  Public Health England studies have found that e-cigarettes are 95 percent less harmful than tobacco. And though popular public misconception is that nicotine is causing cancer, nicotine is only the addictive substance–it’s the tar in cigarettes, along with various other chemicals, that make smoking so dangerous.  

“Because the FDA has the regulatory authority over the industry now, we cannot make any smoking sensation claims or health claims,” Gowen said, in response to a question about whether vaping is actually healthier. “But we hear customer testimonials on a daily basis.”

“We’ve seen an extraordinary response,” Gowen said. Public comment on the FDA website has reached over 520,000. “It’s really great seeing everyone join together with this unified voice. At the end of the day, we are all working toward the same goal.”

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