WA House Cmte amends bill that would have banned sales of e-cigs and flavored tobacco products

[Bill Godshall]

Yesterday, the WA House Cmte on Health Care & Wellness approved a Substitute HB 1246 (see attachment at bottom of this posting), which basically amended HB 1246 by deleting Section 4, which would have banned the sale of e-cigarettes, flavored OTP, and individual portioned smokeless products (pouches and dissolvables).

The original HB 1246 is at http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=1246&year=2011

The Substitute HB 1246 has now been referred to the House Rules Cmte
House Rules Committee
Committee Members and Staff
which is comprised of caucus leaders from both parties, and which is chaired by WA Speaker of the House Frank Chopp.

Although the worst (for vendors and users of e-cigarettes and smokeless tobacco) clause of HB 1246 (i.e. Section 4) has been removed, Section 1 of the bill (which was slightly amended) still contains false and misleading claims about the health risks of smokeless tobacco (and cigars), and misleadingly implies that flavored tobacco products and dissolveables (which it claims "closely resemble candy" are being ) are target marketed to youth.

Also, it appears that Section 3 of the bill would authorize (by repealing the existing local preemption clause) local governments in WA to ban the sale of e-cigarettes, flavored tobacco products, dissolvable smokeless products, etc.

Please note that King County/Seattle just banned e-cig usage indoors because some council members didn't want to reminded of smoking.

Therefore, it would be wise to encourage the House Rules Cmte to amend HB 1246 to:
- delete the inaccurate, misleading and inflamatory statements in Section 1,
- add a sentence to Section 3 to preempt local governments from banning the sale of any tobacco product(s), and
- add a new Section to the bill to ban the sale of e-cigarettes to minors.

Bill Godshall
Executive Director
Smokefree Pennsylvania
1926 Monongahela Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15218
412-351-5880
smokefree@compuserve.com

 

[tybin]

Thank you for posting this Bill. I hope all washingtonian vapers will do some contacting of their reps

 

[Petrodus]

Please note that King County/Seattle just banned e-cig
usage indoors because some council members didn't want to reminded of smoking.

You can imagine my surprise!

 

[Placebo Effect]

Awesome news, although there's obviously still some work to do.

What's the retort to the claim "From 2004 – 2008, youth consumption of tobacco products other than cigarettes increased forty-three percent locally"? Is this one of those BS statistics claim where 2000-2003 were at normal levels, 2004 saw a drop, and then 2005-2008 went back to up normal, allowing them to claim a huge increase? Is there a source for this claim?

Or is it a case where less teenagers are choosing to use cigarettes, and a small number of those who would've smoked cigarettes have decided to use smokeless?

I also wonder how much of that % increase is attributed to flavored blunts, which are seemingly never smoked as-package, and just hollowed out and filled with ..........

 

[Thulium]

You can imagine my surprise!

No I can't.

 

[tybin]

bump for the evening washingtonian crowd

 

[Vocalek]

Awesome news, although there's obviously still some work to do.

What's the retort to the claim "From 2004 – 2008, youth consumption of tobacco products other than cigarettes increased forty-three percent locally"? Is this one of those BS statistics claim where 2000-2003 were at normal levels, 2004 saw a drop, and then 2005-2008 went back to up normal, allowing them to claim a huge increase? Is there a source for this claim?

Or is it a case where less teenagers are choosing to use cigarettes, and a small number of those who would've smoked cigarettes have decided to use smokeless?

I also wonder how much of that % increase is attributed to flavored blunts, which are seemingly never smoked as-package, and just hollowed out and filled with ..........

Rodu and Cole just published a journal article: Evidence against a gateway from smokeless tobacco use to smoking. Evidence against a gateway from smokeless tobacco use to smoking

Conclusions: ST use has played virtually no role in smoking initiation among White men and boys, the demographic groups among which ST use is most prevalent. There is evidence that, compared with cigarette initiators, ST initiators are significantly less likely to smoke. This suggests that ST may play a protective role.

I have put Brad Rodu's blog on my Favorites list: http://rodutobaccotruth.blogspot.com/

 

[maltose66]

Any further movement on the House and Senate bills?