Tough vaping law to curb teen use? Hard to see it

Recreational marijuana aside, the other public health debate that’s guaranteed to reemerge in Arizona next year is vaping among our youth.

Eighteen states in recent years have adopted legislation to regulate e-cigarettes, including raising the age to 21.

The question for Arizona is, what else to regulate besides the age restriction?

A coalition of public health advocates on Tuesday is relaunching a campaign to reclassify vaping products as tobacco and regulate them as such, including banning use in public places and licensing of retailers so sales could be better monitored for compliance.

They also want stricter accountability — namely penalties, including fines and revocation of licenses, for the retailers that sell to the underage, not just for the clerks who ring up the purchases. Tough, certainly. Reasonable, arguably.

But assured? Hardly. Less-stringent standards, encapsulated in legislation that Sen. Heather Carter championed, stalled this past legislative session. The efforts were countered instead with a bill favored by the vaping industry — yes on raising the age to 21, but no on licensing, retailer accountability and stiffer penalties.

The industry-backed legislation called for making illegal sales a petty offense, for instance. It also would have preempted cities and towns from passing their own regulations.

Such preemption would have bad implications for Tucson, which long has had a license fee on tobacco retailers, and for Goodyear, which in September became the first city in metro Phoenix to raise the age for vaping to 21 and impose its own penalties for violation.

For a brief time, it appears tougher, broader enforcement of vaping was on the horizon.

Hundreds upon hundreds of cases nationwide of lung injuries associated with use of vaping products, including deaths numbering 42 at last count, set off alarms this year. The development triggered declarations of health emergencies in some states, along with temporary bans of sales of flavored e-cigarettes that attract young adults in particular. But that momentum has since dramatically slowed.

First, various courts put the bans on ice. Then the CDC issued findings that linked the lung injuries and deaths to vitamin E acetate, an addictive used sometimes to dilute THC oil in vape cartridges to make it go further. THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, is the ingredient in cannabis that creates the “high.”

And this week, news arrives that President Trump walked back an earlier pledge for a federal ban on most flavored e-cigarettes.

The attempted crackdown has drawn a big collective pushback from industry lobbyists and political advisers. Even from vapers themselves, who trot out the defense that e-cigarettes are less harmful than lighting up and help those addicted to regular cigarettes step down from nicotine.

Lobbyists of the multibillion dollar industry, such as those behind opposing legislation to Sen. Carter’s, managed to co-opt efforts in other states, including Arkansas and Virginia, raising the age for use but defanging the state of strong penalties and local enforcement powers.

The coalition of public health advocates remains undeterred in seeking reforms that target vaping sales to the most impressionable and vulnerable — the young.

The coalition has persuasive evidence on its side, backed by surveys showing big increases in experimentation and regular use of electronic cigarettes among middle-school- and highschool students since 2011. And studies that corroborate the belief those students are, at the very least, several times more likely to take up regular cigarettes.

There remains a lot unknown about the long-term effects of vaping. Ingredients and nicotine levels vary, with some rivaling or surpassing those of combustible cigarettes. Some young users have no idea they may be taking in nicotine at all, let alone of potentially dangerous chemicals in the aerosol they inhale.

The advocates express confidence that public concern about vaping, and support for its regulation, has grown in the months since Sen. Carter’s legislation failed. No doubt.

It’s the industry’s equally strong resolve against stringent regulation that should worry them.