Hawaii targets flavored e-cigarettes

HONOLULU -- The first state to limit tobacco and electronic cigarette sales to people 21 and older is contemplating a new nicotine crackdown: outlawing flavored electronic cigarette liquids and flavored tobacco to combat a spike in teenage vaping.

Hawaii would be the first state to adopt such a ban under a bill before the Legislature. San Francisco was the first U.S. city to do so.

The proposal would ban flavored e-cigarette liquids such as Maui Mango and Cookie Monsta, along with cloves and other flavored tobacco products, but it would exempt menthol cigarettes and vaping liquids.

Supporters aim to make e-cigarettes less alluring to teenagers as studies show increasing numbers of high school and middle school students are becoming addicted to nicotine through vaping.

"They look at cigarettes and they say, 'Cigarettes are disgusting. Tobacco is disgusting,"' said Trish La Chica, an advocate and lobbyist for the Hawaii Public Health Institute. "So take away the cotton candy, take away the flavors that look like they belong in an ice cream shop, and they wouldn't be attracted to start in the first place."

Battery-powered e-cigarettes typically heat flavored nicotine solutions into an inhalable vapor. They're more popular among teens than regular cigarettes, and most experts agree they're less harmful than cigarettes because the vapors don't contain tar and other cancer-causing byproducts of burning tobacco.

But there is virtually no research on the long-term effects of the chemicals in the vapor, some of which are toxic. And some researchers believe vaping will make youths more likely to take up cigarettes.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration earlier this month proposed restricting sales of most flavored tobacco products to stores verifying the customer's age upon entry or include a separate, age-restricted area for vaping products. The FDA said it would prioritize removing vaping products clearly appealling to children, such as those with packaging resembling juice boxes, candy or cookies.

Students testified to Hawaii lawmakers last week their classmates were vaping in bathrooms and isolated corners of campus.

"I can't keep on walking into the bathroom at school and get hit in the face with a vape cloud that smells like cotton candy and not be able to work the rest of the day because of a headache," said Paige McCurdy, a sophomore at Kapolei High School near Honolulu, in testimony at the Legislature. "It is affecting students, and it just needs to stop."

A 2017 Hawaii Health Department study found 16 percent of middle schoolers and 26 percent of high school students were current users of e-cigarettes. The number of high school students experimenting with vaping jumped four-fold between 2011 and 2015, the study said.

The National Youth Tobacco Survey found youth vaping surged 78 percent between 2017 and 2018 across the U.S.