Massachusetts Further Regulates Tobacco and Vape Industry

Massachusetts state lawmakers gather at the State House in Boston to pass a bill on tobacco products. (Flickr)

Massachusetts state lawmakers passed a bill taxing vaping products and banning menthol cigarettes on November 21 in a comprehensive effort to fight widespread tobacco and vaping use. While allowing owners of vape shops to continue their business, the bill would impose a 75 percent excise tax on electronic cigarettes and permanently ban menthol cigarettes and e-cigarette flavors.  A report by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention this November found that vaping lung disease has sickened 2,172 people and killed 42. As a result, states that have acted with urgency in passing effective regulations to lower vaping usage. Although Michigan, New York, Rhode Island, and Washington are among a handful of states who have already passed temporary bans on the sale of flavored electronic cigarettes, Massachusetts’s new bill would make it the first state in the nation to ban all flavored vaping and tobacco products. 

Though some Republican state lawmakers and private interests raised concerns about the possibility of creating a black market for banned products, the bill passed the House 126-31 and the Senate 32-6 with overwhelming bipartisan support. One of the main sponsors of the ban, Representative Danielle Gregoire (D-MA), argued that the bill marked “a chance to put an unprecedented nail in the coffin of Big Tobacco.” Senator John Keenan (D-MA) took a similar tone, bashing big tobacco for targeting “our kids with flavored products,” while claiming that this bill would tell tobacco interests “their days of hooking kids in Massachusetts are over.”

A 2017 Massachusetts Youth Health Survey found that 20 percent of teens use a vaping product, with 41 percent of teens reporting having ever used an e-cigarette.  The same survey revealed that nearly 10 percent of middle schoolers have tried vaping.

Representative Jon Santiago (D-MA), a lawmaker and emergency physician at Boston Medical Center, declared that though “this is a public health issue…it’s really about justice.”

The new law comes as a replacement for a four-month temporary statewide ban placed on all online and retail sales of nicotine and marijuana vaping products, which is set to expire on January 25, 2020.