CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The full House of Delegates passed a bill Friday to regulate the sale of vaping products by a vote of 88-5.
Del. David McCormick, R-Monongalia, said House Bill 5437, the Vape Safety Act, is an effort to remove dangerous unverified materials that are primarily marketed to kids.
“That’s what this bill is all about, really,” McCormick said earlier Friday on WAJR’s “Talk of the Town “. “These kids are getting hooked on a lot of this stuff, and they’re being marketed to and there’s language in there about that.”
McCormick said the bill establishes a product registry that would include requiring the products to be approved or pending approval by the FDA. More operational licensing and oversight, including a fee system to allow shops to operate and increasing the standards for obtaining a license to operate a vape shop. The bill also restricts the ways the products can be marketed and advertised.
“They’re texting and emailing kids to get them to come to the shops,” McCormick said. “They’re marketing things with bubble gum, Cookie Monster, cereal, and candy canes, and that’s who we’re trying to get rid of.”
Many of the provisions in the bill are modeled after the location, advertising and signage regulations currently in place for neighborhood video lottery parlors.
During Friday’s floor debate, Del. Hollis Lewis, D-Kanawha, said a store in his district is lighted with bright colors and cartoon images, in some cases seemingly targeting younger people.
“Who are they trying to attract with that? Are they trying to attract us? I don’t think so,” Lewis said. “By having flashing lights looking like a darn carnival, and it’s up to us to do something about that.”
Several other delegates who spoke in favor of the bill Friday said it targeted “bad actors” not those who are abiding by the law.
Elliott Pritt, R-Fayette, who is also a school teacher, said that several vape cartridges are confiscated from students daily. During his daily duties he smells evidence of the use of vapes in the school regularly.
“I do bathroom duty at my school, and I’m going to tell you, walking into the bathroom between class changes, it’s like strawberry fields and blueberry haze—every single day.”
McCormick said there’s also a Senate version, SB 1000, that he would support if his bill doesn’t survive in the upper chamber.
“Everyone in this building agrees we need to tamp down and get rid of the bad actors,” McCormick said. “This bill is not putting people doing the right things out of business; people who are doing the right things the right way are going to be fine.”