The Kansas City Council postponed an Oct. 10 vote on a proposed ban on selling flavored nicotine products in Kansas City.
The ban, if passed, is tentatively set to take effect the first of the year.
At the council meeting, many said the ban, introduced less than a week ago, is being rushed.
Some local retailers say they want council members to vote against the ban, citing that around 35% of their income is based on these sales. They say the financial effects could be devastating because sales support both the local economy and employee salaries, according to media reports.
The council held its first reading on the proposed ban on Oct. 3, the first many retailers said they’d heard of these plans to outlaw the sale of flavored tobacco products.
Retailers claim the rushed process is disrespectful because the city failed to provide time for those impacted to voice their concerns. The city council is also aware of the significant tax revenue lost if this ban is passed. The ban would move sales to nearby cities where flavored tobacco remains legal.
A vote on the ban in currently scheduled for late October.
The Kansas Senate passed House Bill 2269, 28-11, which will raise the minimum tobacco purchasing age in the state to 21 from 18, reports ksnt.com. The bill now heads to the governor’s desk.
The bill would bring Kansas into compliance with federal law, making it illegal for a retailer to sell tobacco products, including electronic cigarettes and cigarettes, to anyone under the age of 21.
Representative Tom Kessler, a Republican from Wichita who carried the bill, said the state could lose funding from the federal government if the legislation is not enacted. “We do stand to lose a little bit of funding if we don’t conform with federal law,” Kessler said. “We’re going to lose about $1.2 million of funding if we don’t make this transition within the window that the feds allowed us to.”
Representative John Eplee said that some retailers in the state have moved toward federal compliance but others have not, making federal law harder to enforce. “Most vendors have already complied with this, but are not required to, and it makes enforcement ‘herky jerky’ in our state,” Eplee said. “Forty-six other states have already fallen into compliance … we’re just asking Kansas to do the same thing.”
A new push to legalize medical marijuanain Kansas is picking up some steam. The bill, if passed, would also make vaping cannabis illegal.
According to Marijuana Moment, state senators filed a new measure – SB 135 – that seeks to provide legal access to medical cannabis for people with debilitating conditions.
Backed by the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee, the new legislation would regulate the cultivation, processing, distribution, sale and use of medical cannabis.
“The patients of Kansas have been eagerly anticipating the opportunity for a program and to join the 37 other states that have adopted comprehensive medical cannabis programs,” Kevin Caldwell, a legislative manager at the Marijuana Policy Project told Marijuana Moment’s Kyle Jaeger. “Patients have been forced for too long to have to go to the illicit market for products that have not been tested for contaminants as well as face legal repercussions for possessing medicine that can greatly improve the quality of their lives.”
The licensing process would be overseen by a Division of Alcohol and Cannabis Control, while a Medical Cannabis Advisory Committee would supervise the implementation of the marijuana program.
Taxed at 10 percent, medical marijuana products would have to contain less than 35 percent THC for flower, while tinctures, oils and concentrates could not exceed 60 percent THC.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued three more warning letters for illegal e-liquids. The regulatory agency issued the letters on May 28 and June 3 and posted them to its website on the same days. Companies that received the latest round of letters have a combined 750 products registered with the FDA. The agency has now issued 123 letters to vapor companies for marketing vapor products without having submitted a premarket tobacco product application (PMTA) by Sept. 9, 2020.
Credit: Chris Titze Imaging
North Carolina-based Asheville Vapor received letter on May 28 (50 registered products), while Kansas-based Tiger Vapes (100) and New York-based The Vapor Shop received the letters on Thursday, June 3.
In May, the FDA issued a total of 19 warning letters to firms who manufacture and sell unauthorized e-liquids, advising them that selling products which lack premarket authorization is illegal and therefore they cannot be sold or distributed in the U.S.
While each of these 19 warning letters cites specific products as examples of tobacco products that lack the required premarket authorization, collectively those firms have listed a combined total of more than 378,000 products with the FDA, according to an email from the agency.
Since January 2021, FDA has issued a total of 123 warning letters to firms selling or distributing more than 1,280,000 unauthorized ENDS and that did not submit premarket applications by the Sept. 9 deadline.
The FDA recently released its list of products that are legal for sale in the U.S. A total of 360 companies filed more than 6 million PMTAs. The FDA stressed it has not independently verified the information provided by applicants about the marketing status of their products. In addition, the list excludes entries of products from companies that did not provide information on current marketing status of their products to the FDA so that the agency could determine whether the existence of the application could be disclosed.
The FDA often only lists a few products that a company is selling as illegal in the letter. It then states that there may be more, but it is impossible to know if the warnings encompass all the company’s registered products. The agency states that it is the responsibility of the company to only sell products with a submitted PMTA. Companies have until Sept. 9, 2021 to sell product unless the agency makes a decision on the PMTA approval or grants an extension.
Companies that receive warning letters from the FDA have to submit a written response to the letter within 15 working days from the date of receipt describing the company’s corrective actions, including the dates on which it discontinued the violative sale, and/or distribution of the products. They also require the company’s plan for maintaining compliance with the FD&C Act in the future.
A vape shop in Wyandotte County in the U.S. state of Kansas business has been ordered to pay $30,000 for selling counterfeit vaping products. Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt says a Vinodbhai Patel, operator of Jay Ganegh, LLC, has been ordered to pay $30,000 in penalties for selling fake e-cigarette products.
Credit: Auremar / Dreamstime.com
The company was ordered to pay the civil penalties in a consent judgment that was approved on Tuesday in Wyandotte Co. District Court by Judge Constance Alvery, according to an article on wibw.com. Schmidt said the defendants were also ordered to reimburse the cost of the investigation into their business.
Schmidt said that the consumer protection judgment is the third reached by his office in the past six months that address counterfeit e-cigarette products discovered by his Tobacco Enforcement Unit. Schmidt said in October of 2020, Aaron Dune and Smoke Stax, LLC, were ordered to pay $5,000 in civil penalties and the costs of his investigation in a case filed in Sedgwick Co.
According to the ruling, the defendants knowingly misled customers by falsely representing e-cigarette products to be authentic branded merchandise when they were not. Schmidt said the products involved in the case included both vaping hardware and e-liquids, adding that additional investigations into counterfeit vaping products remain pending.
The Kansas City Council postponed an Oct. 10 vote on a proposed ban on selling flavored nicotine products in Kansas City.
