Beacon Hill must act on e-cigs
Keep kids from getting hooked on deadly vaping
Hey, Charlie Baker — maybe you should check out the bill filed in March looking to ban flavored tobacco products in Massachusetts. The reports are in, and we know that e-cigarettes are killing people.
Six people have reportedly died from using them … another 450 cases of lung illness have been associated with them, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
New York’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo just announced his plan to issue an emergency executive order and make his state the second in the nation to ban flavored e-cigarettes to underage users and raise the purchasing age of e-cigarettes from 18 to 21.
“New York is confronting this crisis head-on and today we are taking another nation-leading step to combat a public health emergency,” Cuomo said in a statement. “Manufacturers of fruit and candy-flavored e-cigarettes are intentionally and recklessly targeting young people, and today we’re taking action to put an end to it. At the same time, unscrupulous stores are knowingly selling vaping products to underage youth – those retailers are now on notice that we are ramping up enforcement and they will be caught and prosecuted.”
The bill lingering in the State House on Beacon Hill would go one step further than New York.
Quincy state Sen. John Keenan filed the bill, calling it “the quickest and most effective way to tell the industry we won’t let them target teens anymore.”
The bill would ban the sale of flavored tobacco products across the commonwealth, limiting the sale to adult-only smoking bars, such as hookah lounges.
Now with food delivery service apps, teens are placing orders through their phones at convenience stores and then contacting the delivery driver and asking them to add on e-cig pods to their orders. It is not sold in the app, but they are negotiating the deal directly with their driver or at least the ones who are willing to break the law for an extra tip. It has become too easy for teens to work around the laws requiring them to be 18 in order to purchase tobacco products.
Baker has kids himself. He should govern with his parental hat on here and take steps similar to New York’s governor while this bill makes its way through the legislative process.
It is currently in the Joint Committee on Public Health. The Baker administration, meanwhile, is talking about a sin tax and waiting for the feds to do something — when we should be talking about banning e-cigs.
It is time for Massachusetts to stand up to the powerful vaping and tobacco industries and protect teens.