Kentucky House committee passes bill that vape retailers fear would ban majority of their products

FRANKFORT, Ky. (WDRB) -- A bill co-sponsored by 20 Kentucky Republican lawmakers would keep e-cigarettes, vapes and other tobacco products out of stores and the hands of children.

The Senate health services committee heard testimony on House Bill 11 on Thursday. The bill limits the sale of products to those authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and would punish retailers who sell unauthorized products or to anyone under 21 years of age.

"These vapes are not even supposed to be offered for sale per the FDA," said Rep. Rebecca Raymer, R-Morgantown, one of the bill's co-sponsors. "We, as a state, have an obligation to offer some protection to our citizens."

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a new report saying about 2.8 million kids and young adults currently use tobacco products. Among middle school students, tobacco use increased by nearly 50% from 2022 to 2023.

A study conducted in 2023 by the Center for Tobacco Research at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, which followed more than 2,000 people around 17 years old over a four-year period, found people who used e-cigs in the last 30 days were 81% more likely to wheeze, 78% more likely to have shortness of breath and 50% more likely to have bronchitis.

And a 2022 study published in Nature Communications found that the effects of e-cigarettes could cause sudden cardiac arrest or increase the risk for ventricular fibrillation. Researchers tested the cardiac impacts of inhaled e-cigarette aerosols and found that for all e-cigarette aerosols, the animals' heart rate slowed during puff exposures and sped up afterward. Researchers said this is a "fight-or-flight stress response."

Among other things, the bill would:

Require the Secretary of State to create and publish a list of certain tobacco product retailers
Require the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to create and maintain a tobacco noncompliance database and reporting system
Require wholesalers to verify a retailer's presence in the database prior to transactions
Establish and impose fines for wholesalers that unlawfully sell to a retailer that is in the noncompliance database
Make ineligible any retailer with unpaid fines that are more than 60 days overdue from selling Tobacco Control Act covered products until the fines are paid
Direct manufacturers of Tobacco Control Act covered products to provide safe harbor certification to wholesalers and retailers of their products
Prohibit a retailer from selling Tobacco Control Act products to persons under 21 years of age

"What you’re going to hear from the people in opposition of this bill is that it’s going to take everything off the shelf," Raymer said. "That is just simply not true. There’s other states that have used the same definition that we are using."

Troy LeBlanc, a Louisville vape retailer and distributer, traveled to Frankfort to speak against the bill, which he said would devastate dealers. In essence, LeBlanc said HB11 would create a monopoly.

"It will ban about 98% of my products as well," LeBlanc said. "Because all it's going to do is to make sure that Altria is the main seller in every convenience store throughout the city — which is JUUL."

LeBlanc and other like-minded retailers want lawmakers to change the bill to put the products in 21-and-older stores and even increase the fines.

"We do not want children smoking," LeBlanc said. "We've even suggested that the fines that they have — $1,000 for the first occurrence — be raised to $5,000. Because we want people who are selling to minors punished."

The bill passed out of committee by a 14-1 vote.

"I'm saddened that it passed committee," LeBlanc said. "However, I look forward to working with legislators to come up with a fix that is agreeable and also effective on fighting youth vaping."

"The bill now goes to the full House, and, if it passes there, on to the Senate.

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