State board approves new regulations for flavored vaping, tobacco
The Massachusetts Public Health Council approved new regulations on Wednesday restricting the sale of nicotine vaping and flavored vaping and tobacco products, a step coming weeks after the state Legislature and Gov. Charlie Baker took similar steps of their own.
The vote solidifies the state's place at the forefront of flavored tobacco and vaping regulations, coming amid a national outbreak of vaping-related lung illnesses and deaths, and with stronger concerns about rising youth vaping rates.
The new restrictions, effective immediately, limits the sale and consumption of all flavored nicotine vaping products to licensed smoking bars. Non-flavored vaping products with higher nicotine levels are restricted to adult-only retail tobacco stores and smoking bars, while whose with lower levels may continue to be sold at retail locations such as convenience stores and gas stations.
[Related: Local health officials are dealing with vaping fallout]
A temporary ban on vaping sales Baker put into place in September, meanwhile, is no longer in effect.
Other measures will take effect next June 1.
Those include restrictions on the sale of flavored combustible cigarettes and other tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes and flavored chewing tobacco, which will be restricted to licensed smoking bars where they may be sold only for on-site consumption. A 75% tax on the wholesale price of nicotine vaping products, which will be added to the state’s 6.25% sales tax, will also begin then.
State officials' actions come as a vaping-related illness has spread to Massachusetts and nearly the entire country. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health has reported 93 cases to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including three deaths from vaping-associated lung injury, including a Worcester County man and a Middlesex County woman.
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments