New Jersey goes full ban on flavors

January 22, 2020

making them the first state in the nation to entirely ban flavored vaping products.  Senate Bill 3265 was signed into law on by Gov. Phil Murphy on Tuesday, and effectively bans the sale of most flavored eLiquids and vape products. 

Of course we know the full story, the governor is an idiot and bought whole hog into the anti-vaping rhetoric stating; “Research shows that flavored electronic smoking devices and products, such as mint, candy, fruit, and chocolate, are extremely appealing, especially to children"

Murphy who apparently hates the thrifty and the poor alike also signed a measure that would ban the use of coupons and other price rebates for the purchase of tobacco and e-cigarette products. The ban he chose was the boilerplate all flavors except for menthol, mint and curiously, wintergreen.

Fines can be as much as $2,000 for businesses that violate it, and repeat offenders could be subject to a three-year license suspension after a third offense and total license revocation after a fourth offense. The bill was written such that the ban goes into effect in three months, giving business owners time to sell off inventory and close shop.

Murphy oddly pocket vetoed a measure that would have dramatically ramped up restrictions for businesses that sell vaping products: Assembly Bill 5922.  “The bill contained common-sense measures to keep these products out of the hands of young people by cracking down on illicit, underage sales by bad actors who exploit their vulnerability to the allure of e-cigarettes and other vaping products,” said the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Joe Vitale adding; “Many of the action items derived from the governor’s own task force on vaping.”

Murphy argued in a Tuesday statement that the legislation proposed an “unnecessarily complicated” tax scheme “which favors certain players in the marketplace,” as well as “inconsistent treatment of different vaping retailers and manufacturers.”

Legislative sponsors naively said they hope banning most flavored products will stymie the use of vaping by persons under 21 years old, which of course hasn't worked for alcohol but why not try it because vaping isn't drinking. 

Assemblyman Herb Conoway, who chairs the Assembly Health and Senior Services Committee, stated from the governor’s office: “Getting flavored vaping products off the market will protect our youth. If we don’t, we will have another generation of young people addicted to nicotine when we were so close to reducing widespread dependency on this chemical,” he added completing the 360 degrees of mental gymnastics required to ignore that vaping helps end smoking and nicotine dependency. 

Lawmakers abruptly pulled the ban on menthol cigarettes, perplexing opponents and supporters of the bill. But Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-3rd District, said that the menthol restrictions will likely move forward as part of budget talks because the loss of tax revenue from their ban could be significant.

What do you think about this flavor ban? Sign of things to come or is New Jersey unique in it's backward prohibitionist thinking?  Well the citizens be able to get together an injunction or do anything about this or will people simply revert back to smoking if not move out of state entirely? 

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