The bills on vaping and e-cigarettes now being considered by the state Legislature are not the solution and would have very negative unintended consequences. Some points:
>> Not all e-liquids contain nicotine. I started at the highest level of nicotine (over 24 milligrams, or mg) and am now at ZERO nicotine. If you ask many of the local vape shops, their biggest sellers are 0 and 3 mg. To give a comparison, a Marlboro ultra light cigarette contains 7 mgs of nicotine.
>> E-liquids are not tobacco. Those against e-liquids consistently mix up the terms “tobacco,” “nicotine” and “e-liquids.” E-liquids are flavored fluid that produce vapor. This is still something that after all these years people get wrong. There is no tobacco in e-liquids. Another farce is popcorn lung. E-Juice manufacturers stopped using diacetyl years ago. There may be a handful, but responsible vape-shop owners and e-liquid manufacturers simply don’t use diacetyl in their products. Again, this information is all available with a quick search.
>> Banning e-liquids will decimate Hawaii’s local mom-and-pop stores. Anecdotally, there are about 200 local vape shops in Hawaii, each with about 10 employees. Banning e-liquids will close these local businesses, cause about 2,000 workers to lose their jobs, and significantly reduce tax revenues to the state. The biggest expense we have is payroll. Our employees have families, and we have always started our employees at $12 an hour to help them be more successful.
>> Local vape stores do not want kids vaping. Local vape owners have already followed Food and Drug Administration regulations and have re-packaged their products. They are all interested in working with organizations like the state Department of Education to educate our keiki about vaping. We have always been willing to work with the county and the state to combat teens being able to get their hands on vaping products. Just as with flavored alcohol, which there is no shortage of, keiki should not be able to have access to any products that are intended for responsible adults. But instead of working together, to stop the spread and continued use, some would rather, at the expense of responsible adults, ban what has now been proven to be the most effective cessation products on the market.
>> Banning e-liquids will cause adults to go back to cigarettes. According to a study by the International Journal of Environmental Research & Public Research, a ban will cause adults who successfully stopped smoking cigarettes by using flavored e-liquids, to go back to smoking cigarettes. This would be a terrible unintended public health consequence of these bills. The number of Hawaii residents who have stopped smoking cigarettes with the aid of vape products is unprecedented. No matter how you want to crunch the numbers, vaping is the most successful cessation device on the market.
Why don’t you reach out to vape shops and get their side of the story? Or cite just one of the many studies that show the benefits of vaping? Reuters and other news outlets just published a new study that shows how vaping has a better success rate than the patch, gum or other cessation devices. What’s frustrating is that these studies are done by legitimate sources, like the UK’s equivalent of our FDA, Public Health England (PHE). They promote the use of vaping products to stop the use of traditional cigarettes. These are all available by a simple Google search.
Both sides of the argument should be shown so people can make informed decisions — not biased one-sided stories that doesn’t give the public the whole of what’s actually happening.
Sean Anderson is owner/operator of Black Lava Vape in Kailua-Kona.
