Tag: California

Kandypens Ordered to Pay $1.2 Million for Marketing to Youth
California-based vaping company Kandypens was ordered to stop targeting youth in its marketing and pay $1.2 million for past violations, Los Angeles County City Attorney Mike Feuer said. Feuer’s office had sued Kandypens in 2018 for marketing its vaping devices and e-liquids at young people through social media and by placing their products in music videos featuring artists like DJ Khaled and Justin Bieber, according to CBS News.
“Tobacco products including flavored e-liquids, hook kids and pose a threat to their health,” Feuer said in a statement. “The message from this victory to the vaping industry is clear: don’t sell or market to kids – we’ll hold you accountable.”
The lawsuit had alleged Kandypens targeted young consumers on YouTube and Instagram, and did not restrict access to its social media advertisements to people 21 and over, and had paid to get their products into the music videos of artists who have a large following of young people, in violation of the state’s Unfair Competition Law, the Stop Tobacco Access To Kids Enforcement, or STAKE, Act; and Proposition 65.
An investigator with the City Attorney’s Office was able to purchase a tobacco products from the Kandypens website while posing as a teenage customer using a fake email account and a prepaid gift card. Feuer alleges the company did not ask for a date of birth or verify the age of the customer, in violation of the STAKE Act.
April 20, 2021
Judge: ‘No Party Shall Vape’ During Juul Labs Depositions
A California magistrate judge said vaping would be off-limits during upcoming depositions in multidistrict litigation against Juul labs. The suits allege that the e-cigarette manufacturer intentionally marketed product to teens, according to law360.com. Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley wrote that the court “confirms that no party shall vape during deposition questioning.” She added that individuals who vape can take however many breaks as they need. “These breaks shall not count against the presumptive seven-hour deposition limit.”
Credit: Insurance Journal
The actions include putative class actions, actions on behalf of school districts and other governmental entities, and individual personal injury cases. The lawsuits allege that Juul Labs “marketed its JUUL nicotine delivery products in a manner designed to attract minors, that [Juul Labs] marketing misrepresents or omits that JUUL products are more potent and addictive than cigarettes, that JUUL products are defective and unreasonably dangerous due to their attractiveness to minors, and that [Juul Labs] promotes nicotine addiction.”
North Carolina was the first state to sue Juul over accusations that it targets underage youths with its products. Most specifically, the NC Attorney General’s office accuses Juul of violating the state’s Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
March 26, 2021
Vermont Revives Bill to Ban Flavored Vape Products
The U.S. state of Vermont is once again floating the idea of proposing legislation that seeks to ban the sale of flavored vaping products. Support for the bill is gaining traction in the state’s senate and would also ban flavored combustible tobacco, including menthol cigarettes.
The ban was originally proposed in early 2020 as a way to prevent youth use, but was sidelined after the Covid-19 pandemic began to impact the country. Ginny Lyons, chair of the Senate Committee on Health and Welfare, said in an interview this week that she’d like the Senate to pass the bill, S.24, “as quickly as possible.” She said use of nicotine products by young people has increased during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to vtdigger.com
If Vermont approved a ban on flavored e-cigarettes, it would be the third state to do so. Massachusetts banned flavored vapes and tobacco products in 2019, and California followed suit last year. However, California’s law was blocked after the tobacco industry moved successfully to have voters decide on the ban in a statewide referendum next year.
“During the pandemic, we’ve seen a real fallback from all the progress we’ve made on limiting youth access to tobacco and other flavored products, so it seems more important than ever to move forward with this bill,” Lyons said. “If we were only to eliminate all the other flavors and leave menthol on the market, we would see a transition of people to those menthol products, and we would be backsliding again.”
February 25, 2021
California Flavor Ban on Hold, Voters to Decide in 2022
Californians will decide next year if flavored vaping products should be banned. The California Secretary of State’s office certified a referendum challenging the state’s ban on flavored vapor and other tobacco product sales had garnered more than the minimum number of valid signatures. The referendum will head to the ballot in November, 2022.
Credit: Elsa Olofsson
The ban is on hold and retailers can continue selling flavored e-liquids and other products until votes are cast. The ban had been set to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2021, but was delayed until the signature verification process had been completed. I
n order to qualify for the ballot, organizers of the referendum submitted more than 1 million signatures, as they needed to get 623,212 verified signatures from California voters. On Friday, the Secretary of State’s office published a report indicating that organizers had gathered 781,885 valid signatures.
Had the minimum number of valid signatures not been met, the law would have taken effect once the Secretary of State had verified the process was complete. The election is scheduled for Nov. 8, 2022, and those results will then need to be certified. If the law banning flavors is approved, it would go into effect on Dec. 8, 2022.
It did not make it illegal to possess or use such products, however. In addition to the referendum, the state has also been sued over the ban by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co., American Snuff Co. LLC, Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co. Inc., Philip Morris USA Inc., John Middleton Co., U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co. LLC, Helix Innovations LLC, Neighborhood Market Association Inc. and Morija LLC, which does business under the name Vapin’ the 619. That litigation is currently ongoing.
January 25, 2021
Two California Cities Start Nation’s Strictest Vaping Bans
Two California cities have become the only jurisdictions in the U.S. to eliminate the sale of all vaping and traditional tobacco products. On January 1st, Beverly Hills and Manhattan Beach, both in the Los Angeles area, began to enforce the strictest vaping rules in the country. The law also included a phase-out period for retailers to empty their shelves of e-cigarettes. Other cities are considering enacting similar bans.
The Beverly Hills City Council, the first to pass its ordinance, proposed the rule nearly three years ago during a meeting discussing the potential ban of flavored vaping products. Ultimately, the council settled on a total ban of all vaping and traditional tobacco products.
Credit: Haiberliu
“Somebody’s got to be first, so let it be us,” said then-Mayor, current Councilmember John Mirisch, who first proposed the concept in 2017, according to a press release. Mirisch recently joined the Board of Trustees of the advocacy group Action on Smoking & Health (ASH), which coordinates Project Sunset, an effort to phase out tobacco sales worldwide.
“Cigarettes have become so normalized that to some this might seem like a drastic step,” said Chris Bostic, ASH Policy Director. “But if another product emerged tomorrow that was highly addictive and killed when used as intended, of course we’d ban its sale. We’d probably charge the people who marketed it with manslaughter too.”
Total vaping and tobacco bans have been gaining traction more recently, within the public health community and more broadly. The Danish Institute for Human Rights, after concluding a human rights assessment of Philip Morris International in 2017, concluded that “there can be no doubt that the production and marketing of tobacco is irreconcilable with the human right to health. For the tobacco industry, the UNGPs [United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights] therefore require the cessation of the production and marketing of tobacco.”
Vapor industry advocates say that banning e-cigarettes only pushes former combustible cigarettes smokers back to combustibles. They also say that vaping bans increase the size of the black market. Black market THC vaping products were the cause of a lung disease that sickened and killed numerous youth in 2019.
January 5, 2021
California Flavor Ban Postponed Beyond Jan. 1, 2021
The controversial California flavored e-cigarette ban will not take effect on Jan. 1, 2021. The Superior Court for the County of Sacramento approved an agreement between the parties in its case which will suspend the Jan. 1, 2021 date of enforcement until, at the very least, after the signatures are verified for a ballot measure proposal that seeks to repeal the law.
Credit: Viviana Rishe
The law was passed this August and was set to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2021. A campaign was started to create a ballot measure for California’s voters to repeal the law. In order to get on the ballot, those in support of the referendum needed to get 623,212 verified signatures from California voters. The group supporting the repeal said it has over 1 million signatures.
But now those signatures need to be verified at the county level, a process that is underway but might not be completed until Jan. 21, 2021, after the law was set to take effect. Now, the parties have agreed to delay the law until after the signature verification process is completed.
If the verified signature threshold is not met, the law would then take effect once the Secretary of State has verified the process is complete. There are also multiple legal challenges to the law that could produce additional delays.
However, if the signatures are verified the flavor ban would be suspended until at least December 2022. California voters would have a chance to either keep the law or roll it back on Nov. 8, 2022. Those results would need to be certified, meaning even if the law was approved by voters it wouldn’t be enforceable until Dec. 8, 2022.
December 16, 2020
Flavor Ban Opponents Submit Signatures for California Ballot

Photo: pjedrzejczyk from Pixabay
The California Coalition for Fairness has turned in more than 1 million signatures seeking to qualify a referendum for the November 2022 ballot aimed at overturning a law banning the retail sale of flavored tobacco products in California, reports The Los Angeles Times.
If the Secretary of State’s office determines there is a sufficient number of signatures to qualify the referendum, the new law, which was scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, would be suspended until the voters act on the ballot measure in November 2022.
Opponents needed to collect the signatures of 623,312 registered voters to quality the referendum.
The coalition has received more than $21 million from Philip Morris USA, U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co., and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., among others.
Health advocates criticized the initiative.
“We know Big Tobacco has hidden behind smoke and lies for years to hook generations of young people on deadly tobacco products, and this referendum is just one more tactic to continue the status quo,” said Lindsey Freitas, advocacy director for Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, in a statement. “If this referendum qualifies for the ballot, we’re confident that California voters will reject Big Tobacco’s desperate attempt to keep hooking our kids for a profit. But the delay will be costly and deadly.”
Governor Gavin Newsom, who signed the new law in August, denounced the referendum effort when it launched.
“This is Big Tobacco’s latest attempt to profit at the expense of our kids’ health,” Newsom said at the time. “California will continue to fight back and protect children from Big Tobacco.”
The law that Newsom signed would ban the retail sale of flavored tobacco products including menthol and fruit flavors, as well as those used in electronic cigarettes.
In addition to supporting the referendum, the tobacco industry has filed a federal lawsuit against the state, seeking an injunction to block the new law, arguing it is “an overbroad reaction to legitimate public-health concerns about youth use of tobacco products.”
A court hearing on the lawsuit is scheduled for Dec. 10.
November 25, 2020
Cannabis ‘Breath Analyzer’ Going to Beta Testing Phase
Cannabix Technologies plans to begin beta testing its marijuana THC Breath Analyzer version 3.0 with an occupational health care provider in southern California early next year. Newport Beach-based Alipour Medical Centre provides drug and alcohol testing services to a number of local employers in the state.
Credit: Elsa Olofsson
After the recent election, 33 U.S. states now have some form of legal marijuana. The THCBA is an ideal device for employers and other markets who are seeking a way to quickly, easily and non-invasively test for recent use of Delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) – the psychoactive component of marijuana that causes impairment, according to a press release.
Alipour Medical Centre provides drug and alcohol testing services to a number of local employers in the state. Cannabix will be seeking additional organizations for beta testing. Interested parties to contact the company via its website www.cannabixtechnologies.com.
“The Cannabix device allows for more relevant THC detection from breath allowing employers to create an onsite regiment whereby they can perform pre-access testing for recent use of marijuana before and during work hours, instead of testing for drug use when employees are not at work,” the release states. “Cannabix will be beta testing its device in order to continue training the device’s machine learning database and improve user experience through testing feedback. The THCBA has been built to provide easy to understand screen prompts for the positive and negative detection of THC in breath in a portable manner, and can be administered without extensive training.”
Current forms of testing for marijuana use can identify THC ranging from minutes to days prior to actual use, making it impossible to show the difference between the two. Studies¹ have shown that breath is a better indicator of impairment than saliva, blood or urine because THC is present in breath for a relatively short period of time (1-3 hours); whereas, it is excreted at detectable levels in other body fluids for many hours, days, or even weeks after smoking. This short time period of detection in breath aligns with the peak impairment window.
“We are very pleased to be using one of the world’s first marijuana breathalyzers in our medical facility. We know first-hand how the legalization of marijuana has affected employers in our state. As occupational health practitioners based in Orange County, we understand the challenges that employers are facing in providing relevant drug testing for existing and new employees,” said Dr. Nima Alipour, CEO of Alipour Medical Corp. “We advise corporations on how best to keep their workforce safe; identifying safety issues as they pertain to impairment, while taking into account employee rights in an environment of state legalization.”
November 23, 2020
Vapor Advocacy Groups Want California Flavor Ban Repealed

Three e-cigarette advocacy groups are asking California State General Assembly to repeal the state’s ban on flavored vaping products. The group’s leaders say an estimated 900,000 former smokers in California could be forced to switch back to smoking if the bill (CA SB793) is not overturned by referendum or repealed.
Greg Conley, AVA
“Unless California lawmakers want to force hundreds of thousands of vapers back to smoking, they need to reconsider this flavor ban,” said Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association (AVA). “While voting for bans may make legislators feel righteous, the reality is that prohibition is failed public policy and never works for adult consumer products.”
The World Vapers’ Alliance (WVA), Consumer Choice Center (CCC) and the AVA, which combined represent hundreds of thousands of consumers, sent a letter today to members of the California State Assembly members urging them to repeal the flavored tobacco ban bill in California to avoid pushing vapers back to combustible cigarettes.
“Instead of improving public health by reducing the number of smokers, this law will have the opposite effect: more people smoking again,” said Yaël Ossowski, deputy director at the Consumer Choice Center. “Moreover, these measures will push people into the illegal market and will also have a disproportionate impact on people of color, who overwhelmingly prefer flavored products and would suffer the most from criminalization and over-policing in our local communities.”
California joins Massachusetts as the two states having flavored vaping bans, though each have unique exemptions to the laws. In Massachusetts, businesses defined as “smoking bars” are still able to sell flavored vaping and tobacco products.The ban goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2021.
“Gavin Newsom’s plan will have disastrous consequences and he is celebrating a victory for public health,” said Michael Landl, director of the World Vapers’ Alliance. “More than 900,000 vapers in California could switch back to smoking due to the ban. Either Governor Newsom is poorly informed about the unintended consequences prohibition always generates or he is just an anti-vaping crusader.”
The bill prohibits a vape shop owner or tobacco retailer, or any of those entities retailer’s agents or employees, from selling, offering for sale, or possessing with the intent to sell or offer for sale, a flavored tobacco product or a tobacco product flavor enhancer, subjecting them to a fine of $250 for each violation. It also allows local governments to impose greater restrictions on the access to tobacco products than the bill imposes.
November 11, 2020
‘Draconian Ban’ on Flavored E-Cigs Challenged in California

Credit: Peter Gonzalez
California’s ban on flavored e-cigarettes and other tobacco products is being challenged by several tobacco companies. Reynolds American Inc. (RAI) and its subsidiaries, alongside three other entities, called the ban “draconian” and want the law overturned.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the ban Aug. 28. Opponents filed a petition to put the question to voters in a referendum to overturn it shortly after its passage. The lawsuit could prevent enforcement of the ban if successful.
Helix Innovations LLC, Neighborhood Market Association Inc and Morija LLC (Vapin’ the 619) have joined RAI in a lawsuit they hope will overturn the law. The lawsuit was filed Oct. 9 in the U.S. District Court of Southern California.
The filing names Xavier Becerra, attorney general of California, and Summer Stephan, district attorney for the County of San Diego, as defendants.
October 23, 2020