A measure to prohibit sales of flavored tobacco products to Oahu’s youth drew praise as well as criticism during its first reading last week.
The Honolulu City Council voted unanimously Aug. 9 to advance Bill 46 that intends to ban flavored tobacco products — including electronic cigarettes and other vaping devices — which contain “a characterizing flavor or that imparts a cooling or numbing sensation during consumption of a tobacco product,” the bill reads.
If passed on a third reading at a future date, Bill 46 would attempt to curb a rise of nicotine addiction among youth here. The measure notes a 2019 state Department of Health study that showed more than 30% of high school students in the state regularly use electronic smoking devices. These devices, the bill states, have been linked to severe lung disease, potential harm to brain development and acute nicotine poisoning.
But there’s a caveat to
Bill 46 — it will only take effect if a 5-year-old state law that stripped authority from Hawaii’s four largest counties to regulate or restrict the sales and use of tobacco and nicotine products is overturned or suspended.
Once that law disappears, then the city measure introduced by Council Chair Tommy Waters and Council member Matt Weyer will create a so-called trigger ban on flavored tobacco products that target youth smokers.
“The trigger ban is part of a larger issue, which involves the counties being preempted from regulating the sale of tobacco products,” Waters previously told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser via email. “Act 206, Session Laws of Hawaii 2018 nullified any existing local ordinances or policies that restricted the sale of
tobacco products.”
Prior to the Aug. 9 meeting, Waters added that the state’s law does not adequately address the issue of youth vaping.
“It is my position that the state must either enact sufficient legislation to protect our keiki, or provide the counties with the necessary authority to address the issue at the local level,” he said. “Bill 46 is an effort to ensure that if enabling legislation is passed at the state level, protections can go into effect immediately in Honolulu.”
To do so, Waters said the counties “agreed in their desire for this to be a local issue and introduced, as part of the Hawaii State Association of Counties package last year, a measure to repeal state preemption.”
Waters said: “While those specific measures never moved, other similar measures did. We intend to raise the issue again, and we will continue to do so until this issue is resolved. This year, the Legislature came closer than ever to repealing
preemption with Senate Bill 1447. We hope our efforts will send a message and galvanize support for the passage of a bill at the state level next session.”
Meanwhile, each year the state’s collected tobacco tax money — which Act 206 is directly tied to — remains substantial.
In 2022, the state Department of Taxation brought in almost $96.9 million from such taxes. Of that amount, $86.02 million was collected from Oahu alone, according to state reports.
Of the overall cigarette and tobacco tax monies collected in Hawaii that year, the state government directed more than $31 million — or about 32% — toward cancer research, trauma and medical services, and community health centers, the state
reported.
At the Council meeting, many supported passage of Bill 46.
Jill Tamashiro, a public health educator at the state’s Department of Health, said the Council’s measure was important despite past failures to pass similar legislation at the state Legislature.
“It’s the ninth year it’s been taken up at the state level but not passed, and so we appreciate the county’s consideration of this measure,” she said. “We know that 85% of youth who say they use e-cigarettes say that they started because of flavors. We also know that menthols are a really huge problem; it disproportionately affects certain communities.”
She added that the
Native Hawaiian community “in particular, has a really high use of menthol” and that the tobacco industry uses menthol to make e-cigarettes and tobacco products “more palatable and it’s also more
addictive.”
Don Weisman of the American Heart Association Hawaii Division said his organization also supports Bill 46.
“From a cardiovascular standpoint, e-cigarettes are not safer than cigarettes,” he said. “They present many of the same health
issues as traditional
tobacco use.”
Weisman said this was not “just about e-cigarettes — this was about all tobacco products” because “it doesn’t just affect kids, it affects all smokers in our state, many who find it difficult to quit.”
Resident Choon James said the city needed to protect public health and protect the island’s most vulnerable population — its youth — from addictive vaping products.
“I just do not think it’s an honest and moral thing to make money out of something that’s going to hurt a lot of the population,” she said.
Those in the youth community agreed.
“It’s time to put people over the profits of Big Tobacco,” said Joshua Ching, a youth advocate for the Coalition for a Tobacco-Free Hawaii. “It’s time to protect our keiki.”
But others remained opposed to Bill 46.
Jasmin Rios, who spoke in support of small businesses, said the measure, if passed, would be a detriment to retailers and to her own smoking addiction as well.
“As an adult smoker I use flavor vapes to reduce my use of cigarettes, and by passing a ban like this you’re not helping me get off of tobacco,” she said. “I respect the need to protect the youth, but retailers do not sell tobacco products to anyone underage, because it is already illegal to sell to anyone under the age of 21.”
Rios added that the city “needs to enforce current regulations and not add an unnecessary and burdensome ordinance in an already highly regulated industry.”
Jaime Rojas, with the
National Association of Tobacco Outlets, said his group of retailers and convenience store members “supported traditional tobacco retail licensing” in this city.
As far as tobacco retailers in Honolulu selling to minors, Rojas said business owners have a 97% passing success rate with regard to retail compliance checks during local sting operations conducted in the past three years by
the Food and Drug
Administration.
“Retailers are doing their jobs,” he added. He’d also note the “City Council should focus to address other issues like stopping tobacco online sales to youth, penalizing individual adults who give or sell tobacco products to youth and improving education school resources regarding youth vaping and school curriculum.”
Resident Natalie Iwasa said she opposed Bill 46, too.
“And it’s not because I’m not concerned about the health of people, and personally I hate the smell of vape, but you have no authority to make this ban, the state has been clear,” she said. “So, I understand your position but I just oppose it because it’s not going to do anything unless the state changes their law.”
The Council did not discuss this measure at the meeting.
