After an hour-and-a-half discussion Tuesday night, the Long Beach City Council unanimously approved temporarily banning sales of flavored tobacco and vaping products throughout the city.
City Attorney Charles Parkin will draft a formal ordinance to that effect for council approval. Sellers will have 30 days to comply with the ban, which includes menthol cigarettes, and it will stay in effect until a council member brings it back for further discussion and action.
Kelly Colopy, director of Health and Human Services, agreed to present more information to the council before it votes on the ordinance with the latest findings regarding recent deaths and lung-related illnesses associated with e-cigarette and vaping products.
Councilmember Suzie Price– who had brought the item forward with the support of Councilmember Stacy Mungo and Vice Mayor Dee Andrews– said that the Center for Disease Control (CDC) has reported over 800 cases of lung injuries and 12 deaths nationwide directly connected to vaping and e-cigarettes.
“No one picks up an e-cigarette for the first time expecting that it will rapidly injure their lungs and land them in the emergency room,” Price said. “No one expects to be killed by using these products either.”
Price acknowledged that adults use such products as a way to stop smoking cigarettes but that the vaping mechanism seems to be causing injuries and needs to be examined more closely.
“Additionally, we’ve seen teen nicotine-addiction increasing rapidly and connected with vaping e-cigarettes,” she said. “This is heavily connected with the marketing of vape products to teens throughout mimicking candies and sugary fruit flavors.”
Price said the temporary ban would target flavored nicotine vaping products to safeguard the city’s youth until health officials can further study the injuries that result from their use.
“Under our temporary ban, [consumers] would still be able to access the products,” she said. ”It would just not be the flavor of cotton candy.”
Price noted that Los Angeles County also just instituted a ban Tuesday night on flavored vape and tobacco products, including menthol, joining other California counties such as San Mateo and San Jose as well as states such as Massachusetts, Michigan and New York with similar bans.
“I believe it’s time for the City of Long Beach to do the same,” she said, adding that she would make it a permanent ban if her colleagues agreed.
Councilmember Daryl Supernaw noted that a recent CDC report indicated that THC-infused vaping products may be likely to blame for the lung injuries and deaths, not flavored tobacco products.
Attending audience members– many from Long Beach’s 13 vape shops– applauded this information.
Information on the CDC’s website as of Sept. 27 states that the lung injuries may be associated with products containing THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. Of 514 patients, 77% reported using THC-containing products in the month prior to symptom onset, with 36% reporting exclusive use of those products.
However, the CDC says it doesn’t know the specific chemical exposure causing the injuries since no single product or substance has been linked to all cases, and recommends that users refrain from any e-cigarette or vaping products, particularly those containing THC or anything off the street.
Supernaw also raised the point that the ban may drive up black-market demand for flavored vaping products, which also drew audience applause. And he asked if simply switching the vaping liquid from oils to water-soluble would help.
“I have more questions than answers here,” he said.
Further council discussion veered toward the need for education, not just for vaping but tobacco use in general, with Mungo calling for an aggressive tobacco-education campaign.
Councilmember Jeannine Pearce said that though the council is supportive of small businesses, she supports a permanent ban to protect the health and safety of citizens. She also called on Colopy for more user data to help the council understand the issue better so it could be better informed when the formal ordinance comes back for council approval.
“We’re all kind of working without […] shared information on that,” Pearce said.
An image from The California Smokers’ Helpline (1-800-No-Butts) depicting different types of vaping devices.
Colopy noted that 61% of high schoolers buy products in vape shops, even though the law requires consumers to be 21 years of age.
Councilmember Rex Richardson advocated asking city staff to formulate a policy. He also said that flavored products may attract youth, but menthol-flavored products target the African-American community.
“What we don’t want to do– while we’re excited about this motion– is to go out and shape the policy without doing the work,” Richardson said. “Let’s put the burden on staff to go figure this thing out and bring us quality policy.”
Over 20 members of the public commented on the ban, with several supporting it but others– especially those in the vape business– suggesting that the ban is misplaced and advocating instead for more industry self-regulation.
Vape-shop owners uniformly said they check licenses to make sure they don’t sell to kids. One handed the council a stack of 42 fake-identification cards his business had collected.
Many shop owners, such as Nick Almaguer, said they themselves were previous smokers who had quit using flavored-nicotine vaping products and have helped large numbers of other smokers quit the same way.
“I am looking at losing my job, […] my boss is looking at losing his business, my friends are looking into going bankrupt,” he said. “And the thing that I care about the most is my customers.”
Other shop owners warned of a larger black-market as a result of the ban, and said that the problem for underage consumers is really Juul products, which contain 10 times as much nicotine as the flavored products they carry, and which kids can purchase at nearly 500 convenience stores in Long Beach.
Many owners advocated targeting the illegal THC-product market since the CDC says that may be behind the recent deaths, not the flavored-nicotine products that have been on the market for years.
Parents, anti-smoking and anti-tobacco organizations, a retired public-health professor and one sixth grader spoke in support of the ban and for more tobacco education in schools.
After public comment, Mungo offered friendly amendments to Price’s proposed ban, including having it begin on Jan. 1, 2020 to allow 90 days for retailers to sell their remaining product and limiting product tobacco levels to 2.5%. She also said it was easy to order products on online sites like Amazon so banning may not be effective.
Price declined those amendments, as well as the idea of banning Juul and non-flavored THC products.
“We’re talking about a public-health issue where people are dying,” Price said. “While I want to support our businesses, […] we are the only city that’s offering a mitigated, temporary ban while we figure out some policies that will be long-term implemented.”
She added that she doesn’t believe a temporary ban will force businesses to close.
“We’re just starting to learn more and more about this industry because of deaths,” Price said. “I don’t want those to be Long Beach deaths. […] I can’t control what people buy on Amazon. This item is meant to address what people buy in Long Beach.”
Mungo clarified that she doesn’t want to punish and ban an industry that hasn’t actually caused any deaths and that the council needs more information.
The council agreed that it doesn’t want to drive consumers to other cities or to the black market for tobacco products. It asked Colopy to not only present more information but work with vape shops and outline an education campaign. Some council members added that parents and schools should be involved as well.
“I think everyone in this room wants to protect the youth,” Supernaw said. “The only question is how we get there.”
WRONG. You need to be looking at thc cartridges morons. The nicotine vape industry has been around for over a decade and not had any issues! You are attacking the wrong industry forcing people to go back to cigs that we know kill 40000 people a month. As far as the kids, it needs to be regulated. Guarantee in the long run, you and all of the other idiots will be looking dumb when the truth comes out as it mostly has. The cdc and fda are close, just not there yet. Why don’t you ban cigarettes? Kills more than heroin. Yet that’s legal. Oh, I forgot it sick and all about the money in this country. Bet you more than half of these flavor bans would have happened anyway, because the states and big tobacco are losing their butts. Big tobacco is funding the flavor bans. They just hit the gas petal now more than ever because their stocks were going nowhere but down and this thc vape crisis, NOT NICOTINE VAPE, just gives these idiots more leverage. Matter of fact, it’s the most leverage they will ever have.
You guys are banning something that you know nothing about. These people that are dying, are vaping FAKE THC cartridges. They can be filled with anything. I have been vaping for 8 years. Used to smoke 2 packs a day. On average i consume 30ml of 6mg strength eliquid. You want to tell me that people are dying that use SIGNIFICANTLY less vape than I do, and you cant pinpoint the reason? Dont lie to everyone. The ban came about because big tobacco PAID you guys. You are filthy scumbags on the council and you sold your soul to kill more people. You will get yours back. Its coming.
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