Daily Vaper

What Are The Anti-Vaping Laws In Your State?

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Carl V. Phillips Contributor
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The CDC has published a useful table of anti-vaping laws in U.S. states and territories as of September 2017. Unsurprisingly, they took the opportunity to write a pointless anti-vaping diatribe. But if you just look at the table that contains all the actual research, and avoid reading the awful accompanying prose, this is a convenient resource.

The table has some good news. As of September, only eight states, plus DC and Puerto Rico, had indoor vaping bans that prohibit proprietors from allowing vaping on their own property. Eight states and three territories impose taxes on vapor products. Interestingly, there is not much overlap between these two groups, suggesting perhaps that when a state profits from vapor product sales it is not so inclined to discourage those sales. (There are, of course, both usage restrictions and taxes in many municipalities. CDC did not report these, but the Daily Vaper previously wrote about the most vape-friendly and least vape-friendly cities.)

The table identifies the five states and two territories that have Tobacco 21 laws that prohibit the sale of vapor products to adults who are 18 to 20-years-old. It also shows which states have self-service bans (requiring vapor products be behind the counter or locked) and require retail licenses, though the details matter a lot there (a mere registration fee is quite different from needing to wait for someone to die to get permit).

The report offers the relatively good news that only a third of the states and territories with laws that forbid private venues from allowing smoking also impose similar bans on vaping. The text erroneously refers to vaping bans as being part of smoke-free laws. But, again, the text can be considered nothing more than propaganda. (Obviously, vaping itself is smoke-free.)

A final figure shows that the enactment of anti-vaping laws at the state level peaked in 2015, declined in 2016 and is on pace to decline further in 2017. Political science research suggests that before restrictive policies are enacted by the majority of states, there are often several years with only a couple of early movers and not much happening. Then there is a rapid domino effect with most states imposing the restrictions. It is possible that we are simply in the early mover phase still, with much more to come. But it is also possible that 2014-16 was what would have been the domino phase, and it stalled out. Either way, there is relatively little anti-vaping momentum at the state level right now.

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Carl V. Phillips