PROVIDENCE — Governor Gina M. Raimondo on Wednesday issued an executive order to ban the sale of flavored electronic cigarettes in Rhode Island.
In her State House office, Raimondo signed an order directing the state Department of Health to enact emergency regulations in response to a national spike in vaping-related illnesses and deaths.
Raimondo’s initiative comes a week after Michigan and New York banned the sale of flavored e-cigarettes, and just a day after Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker ordered a more far-reaching, four-month ban on the sale of all vaping products in Massachusetts.
Raimondo told reporters Wednesday that she considers vaping a public health crisis.
“I hear from parents and teachers and coaches that the use of flavored e-cigarettes among teenagers and middle-school students is alarming and rising and scary,” the governor said. “As a mother, I see it with my children’s friends and what they see in school.”
Baker’s decision to declare a public health emergency — and apply the ban to both tobacco and marijuana vaping products — quickly reverberated through the country, drawing praise from concerned medical professionals and consternation from the fledgling legal cannabis industry.
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The ban, which the Massachusetts Public Health Council quickly approved Tuesday, took effect immediately and will last through Jan. 25, though Baker and the council could choose to extend it. It includes both flavored and unflavored vaping products, and applies to online and retail sales alike.
The Baker administration stressed that the decision is intended to allow the medical community and federal officials time to investigate what’s driving the spike in illnesses, which have been tied to nine deaths and 530 cases nationwide. Massachusetts officials have reported 61 possible cases in the state as of Monday — a jump from 38 just last week.
When asked if Massachusetts went too far in its ban, Raimondo said Wednesday: “It is different in Massachusetts because they have adult-use marijuana.”
“The crisis that is here before us, that I’m most worried about is for our kids -- our children who are using these products at an alarming rate, predominently flavored products,” she added.
Rhode Island has about 450 sites that are licensed to sell vaping and electronic cigarette products, Department of Health spokesman Joseph Wendelken said.
The state Department of Health only reports confirmed cases of vaping-related illness, and it had not confirmed any such cases as of Wednesday, Wendelken said.
Nationwide, vaping has been tied to nine deaths and 530 illnesses. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doesn’t yet know what is behind those cases, but a significant number of them involve vaping with devices containing THC, Wendelken said.
