CHICAGO -- A federal appeals court took apart a controversial vaping rule by striking down the portion that essentially gave a monopoly to a single security firm to regulate out-of-state supply, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Early this week, a panel of three judges from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago deemed “unprecedented” and “extraordinary” a requirement that allowed Lafayette, Ind.-based Mulhaupt’s Inc. to certify what out-of-state firms could supply Indiana businesses with electronic liquids or e-liquids. Although the rule only applied to manufacturers outside of Indiana, the court said it was an “extraordinary” stipulation to impose on out-of-state companies, according to the Tribune.
Indiana’s legislature first approved the vaping law in 2015 to set standards for e-liquid production. Then last year, lawmakers amended the rule to give Malhaupt’s sole discretion as to who was certified to produce e-liquid sold in Indiana, the news agency reported.
This week, the appeals court found that the restrictions violated the Constitution’s commerce clause and were “akin to telling out-of-state communities how to run their recycling programs.”
In 2016, Mulhaupt’s set a permit application deadline for e-liquid manufacturers one week before the bill was signed into law by former Gov. Mike Pence, the Tribune said, noting that Mulhaupt’s then certified just six companies to produce the liquid, freezing out other businesses. That same year, the Indiana Alcohol Tobacco Commission (ATC) decided to delay implementation of the e-liquid laws by 60 days (beginning July 1, 2016). The ATC reported it made the decision in order to review the new “deeming” regulations from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Silver Spring, Md., to determine if the state law needed to be amended.
Several well-established electronic-cigarette and e-liquid manufacturers raised concerns when they found themselves potentially shut out of the Indiana market due to the provision. When the law went into effect, it drew the attention of the Washington, D.C.-based Federal Bureau of Investigation, which questioned a number of people connected to it, the Tribune reported.
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