SALT LAKE CITY -- National e-cigarette groups are urging Utah Gov. Gary Hebert to veto a bill that would regulate the sale of electronic cigarettes and the e-liquids they vaporize, arguing the measure contains a gift-wrapped exemption for Big Tobacco, according to a report in the Salt Lake Tribune.
The bill—HB415, sponsored by Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clearfield—imposes labeling and quality-control requirements on makers of e-vapor "juices." The regulations include a mandate that the products have childproof caps and that the nicotine content on the label reflect the amount in the liquid.
But the labeling requirements do not apply to sealed e-cigarettes, commonly sold at convenience stores.
That exempts the products made by companies such as R.J. Reynolds and Altria from the regulations, Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association, told the newspaper. In doing so, Conley said, the bill doesn't apply to Big Tobacco—Altria, Reynolds American and Lorillard—companies that have cornered 96% of the sealed e-cigarette market.
"The past misdeeds of tobacco companies are often used as justifications for harsh regulation of vapor products," Conley wrote. "Exempting from regulation the e-cigarette products made by these companies does not pass the sniff test."
Regulating one segment of the industry and not the others, Conley argued, puts Big Tobacco's competitors at a severe disadvantage.
Ray said it made sense to exempt the sealed e-cigarettes because they don't pose the same risk that a child could unscrew the lid and drink the juice.
"Second, they don't come in all the fun flavors that minors go for," Ray said. "And these are sold primarily by your convenience stores by people who already put them behind the counter. We have a good track record that we know they don't sell to minors because we're checking them all the time. … We're just not seeing the problems with the sealed ones that we see with the open bottles."
Ray said the main problem he was trying to confront is the lack of quality control among the makers of e-cigarette juices.
"Some of these are made in somebody's bathtub or their garage or basement," he asserted. "There's no labeling, and the ones that do put labels on, … the percentage of nicotine that is supposed to be in there, 86% of the time, is incorrect."
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