Tag: New Mexico

  • New Mexico Lawmakers Want Total Ban on Vaping

    New Mexico Lawmakers Want Total Ban on Vaping

    Credit: pabrady63

    Elected officials in New Mexico are hoping a new batch of bills that aim to make it harder to buy and use vaping and other tobacco products lay the groundwork for a statewide ban.

    State Sen. Martin Hickey, told KOB4 news that he knows there’s not much lawmakers can do to keep lifelong smokers away from cigarettes – but he believes they have a duty to protect younger generations from the threat of addiction.

    Hickey is also a physician, and he believes the state is losing the battle against teen vaping.

    “The trends are, they’re going up, we were waiting to get another survey and I bet we’re probably moving close to 50 percent of high school students,” he said.

    Hickey also said those trends are skewing younger.

    “Apparently nine out of 10 middle school students have tried vaping,” he said.

    Hickey offered no evidence to support his claims.

    Since 2019, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of high school students who have tried vaping (1 time in the last 30 days) has dropped by 50 percent, and the number of middle school students has plummeted by 70 percent. During that same time period, the number of high-school students who “frequently” vape dropped by 37 percent and the number of middle school students dropped by 65 percent.

    A recent CDC report titled “E-cigarette Use Among Middle and High School Students — United States, 2022” found that 9.4 percent of middle and high schoolers surveyed reported currently vaping. In 2019 this figure was at 20 percent, and in 2020, 13.1 percent.

    Looking at just middle school students, the CDC reports that 3.3 percent use vaping products. 

    Hickey admits there are likely too many barriers to enact a statewide vaping ban, but that’s why he and other state lawmakers are putting forth a menu of bills working to chip away at the problem.

    Some of the ideas include raising tobacco taxes, banning flavored products, and allowing local governments to enact tougher restrictions against smoking. There are also proposals to prohibit smoking in racinos (a combined race track and casino) and fund prevention programs.

    “Whatever doesn’t make it, we’re coming back, because this is so critical and fundamental to youth health,” Hickey said. “I mean, it’s, again, think of it as a chain reaction, it starts here with vaping.”

  • New Mexico Lawmakers to Consider Flavor Ban

    New Mexico Lawmakers to Consider Flavor Ban

    New Mexico State Capitol at dusk (Credit: Ball Studios)

    A New Mexico lawmaker is proposing a ban on all flavored vaping and other tobacco products. The bill would stop the sale of any vaping or other tobacco product that has any flavoring added. The representative behind this bill says the main goal is to stop kids from getting hooked on nicotine.

    “Most of my sales are all flavored stuff. There’s far few and in between that will come and be like ‘I just want nothing flavored,’” says Sabrina Garley, manager of Biroska SmokeShop, a vape vendor in New Mexico, according to KRQE.

    Local smoke shops around Albuquerque say they fear a bill banning these flavored tobacco products like e-cigarettes and vapes will hurt their business. “I thought, ‘we’re going down.’ Definitely, definitely one of our biggest sellers. We’d have to figure out something else to replace that,” Garley says.

    House Bill 94 is sponsored by Las Cruces State Representative Joanne Ferrary. “House Bill 94 will prohibit the sale of flavored tobacco products and it will define the terms and make sure that we aren’t losing a new generation of kids to nicotine,” Ferrary says, “By removing the flavored tobacco products from the market, it will keep kids from gravitating towards any of the flavors on the market.”

  • Professor Receives Funding for Pilot Vaping Study 

    Professor Receives Funding for Pilot Vaping Study 

    Nathan Jackson

    A group of researchers from The University of New Mexico (UNM) in the U.S. are leading a project that would allow vapers to reap the benefits of electronic nicotine-delivery system (ENDS) products without the potential health risks.

    Nathan Jackson, an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, is one of the principal investigators on the project called “Droplet and Metal Particle Analysis of ENDS,” which has been selected for a pilot award through the UNM Comprehensive Cancer Center.

    Jackson said that current vaping tools operate by heating liquid to high levels in order to vaporize it, which creates a chemical reaction that generates potentially toxic products such as formaldehyde and acrolein that have well-known long-term health risks for cardiovascular or respiratory diseases.

    “Every vaping tool functions by heating the liquid to greater than 200 degrees celsius, which creates toxic byproducts, which then enter the aerosol droplets that are inhaled,” he said. “Our technology uses a different mechanism to create the aerosol that does not require heating, so it could potentially eliminate the harmful byproducts.”

    Jackson is the inventor of an atomization technology based on silicon microfabrication called silicon-vibrating mesh atomizer (Si-VMA) that uses significantly lower heat, has the potential to eliminate ultrafine particles by producing low-span and high-efficiency uniform droplet distribution, and can potentially eliminate metal particles in the aerosol since it uses a silicon-based membrane instead of a metallic one, according to a press release.

    “Our technology uses a silicon substrate, where no metal is in contact with the liquid and it uses less heat, so potentially we can reduce the health risks associated with vaping,” Jackson said. “Also, our technology can generate micro-scale droplets instead of the nano-scale droplets found in current vaping tools, so that means that droplets are less likely to enter the blood stream and cluster together, which could also result in safer aerosols.”

    Co-principal investigators on the project, which is funded through June 2023, involve two researchers from the UNM Health Sciences Center: Pavan Muttil from the School of Pharmacy and Katie Zychowski from the College of Nursing.

    Jackson said the market for this type of solution for a safer vaping tool is enormous, for both medical uses and recreational uses, and a safer technology could reduce potential health costs associated with vaping in the future.

    Jackson said the short-duration pilot study is designed to assess the feasibility of developing safer vaping technology in the future. After the results of this study are reported, he said the group plans to pursue larger funded projects that would enable them to develop improved technology with the option of later commercialization.

  • New Mexico Legalizes Marijuana, Expunges Records

    New Mexico Legalizes Marijuana, Expunges Records

    The governor of New Mexico on Monday signed a bill to legalize marijuana in the state, as well as a separate measure to expunge records for people with prior, low-level cannabis convictions.

    Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) gave final approval to the legislation, a key accomplishment for her administration after she listed legalization as a 2021 priority, according to Marijuana Moment. Although lawmakers failed to pass a legalization bill before the regular session’s end last month, the governor convened a special session to ensure they got the job done.

    “The legalization of adult-use cannabis paves the way for the creation of a new economic driver in our state with the promise of creating thousands of good paying jobs for years to come,” the governor said in a press release. “We are going to increase consumer safety by creating a bona fide industry. We’re going to start righting past wrongs of this country’s failed war on drugs. And we’re going to break new ground in an industry that may well transform New Mexico’s economic future for the better.”

    “As we look to rebound from the economic downturn caused by the pandemic,” she said, “entrepreneurs will benefit from this great opportunity to create lucrative new enterprises, the state and local governments will benefit from the added revenue and, importantly, workers will benefit from the chance to land new types of jobs and build careers.”

    Provisions of the legalization bill and expungements legislation were initially included together in the same package that passed the House during the regular session but later stalled on the Senate floor. When the special session started, however, supporters split up the legislation to win favor from Republicans and moderate Democrats who expressed opposition to the scope of the original proposal.

    With Lujan Grisham’s action, New Mexico is the third state to formally end cannabis prohibition within the span of days. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) signed a marijuana legalization bill into law late last month, just hours after lawmakers sent it to his desk. In Virginia, lawmakers last week accepted amendments to a legal cannabis bill that were suggested by Gov. Ralph Northam (D), giving final passage to the bill that they had initially approved in February.