Tag: Utah

Vape Shop Owners Vow to Challenge Utah Flavor Ban

Credit: Jovannig
A new Utah law that will prohibit the sale of flavored e-cigarettes has supporters of the law arguing that flavored e-cigarettes are making children addicted to nicotine. However, implementing the law won’t only have a severe impact on Utah’s almost 200 vape shops; it will devastate them, according to an industry representative who has expressed their intention to challenge the law in court.
The sponsor of that law, pediatrician and Salt Lake Democratic Sen. Jen Plumb, said she has seen kids in the emergency room going through withdrawal because they can’t vape in the hospital and friends whose children are anxious about going without their nicotine on long flights, according to media reports.
Plumb’s bill, signed into law last month by Gov. Spencer Cox, goes further than just banning flavors — aside from tobacco or menthol. It also bans the sale of any vape product with a nicotine concentration above 4 percent. And it only allows the sale of products that have either been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or have submitted an application for approval prior to September 2020.
Nobody knows how many products will have to be removed from shelves. To date, there are only 17 FDA-approved products from three manufacturers that meet the criteria, and an FDA spokeswoman said they don’t know how many pre-2020 applications are still pending.
According to Beau Maxon, vice president of the Utah Vapor Business Association and owner of Park City Vapor Company, one thing is certain: It will be a death sentence for many vape shop owners.
“There’s no question about it,” Maxon said in an interview, “it is going to put the retail tobacco specialty industry in jeopardy and you’re going to see a lot of them not able to stay open.”
That’s because in a vape shop like his, Maxon said, 99.9 percent of the products they sell are flavored — not because they’re targeting kids, but because it’s what his adult customers want.
Without other options, shop owners will challenge the law in court over the businesses that will be forced to close, the creation of a monopoly for convenience stores and Big Tobacco products, and potentially other grounds.
“There’s no question about it,” Maxon said. “We will be litigating it.”
April 19, 2024
Utah Flavor Ban, Vape Registry to Begin Jan. 1, 2025
Credit: Tyler Moore
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed a bill Wednesday banning the sale of flavored vape products in the state.
Senate Bill 61 outlaws the sale of flavored e-cigarette cartridges and disposable devices, specifically targeting flavors such as fruit, candy, dessert, alcoholic beverages, spice, or mint.

Menthol and tobacco flavors will still be allowed. The ban will take effect on Jan. 1, 2025.
According to media reports, the Utah bill bans flavored vapes and outlaws the sale of any vape that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not authorized.
Initially, the bill allowed mint as a flavor, but lawmakers later removed it in a late-session agreement.
Last month, protesters gathered in the capitol rotunda to stand against the bill. Many were adults who said they enjoy using flavored vape products, and some noted that vaping has helped wean them off more damaging cigarettes.
March 21, 2024
Utah Moves Forward With Flavor Ban Legislation
Credit: Christopher Boswell
After this legislative session, the sale of flavored nicotine products may be banned in Utah.
SB61, the Electronic Cigarette Amendments, sponsored by Senate Minority Assistant Whip Jen Plumb, forbids the sale of flavored electronic cigarette products and “electronic cigarette products that have not received market authorization from the federal Food and Drug Administration.”
The Senate voted 20-3 to pass the bill, which now goes to the House for consideration, according to media reports.
The ban would exclude the flavors of tobacco, mint, and menthol for e-cigarettes.
States like California, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York have also approved flavor sales bans.
February 15, 2024
Monday Deadline for Utah Nicotine Increase Comments

Credit: Adobe
The proposed settlement between the Utah Department of Health and the Utah Vapor Business Association, which represents vaping manufacturers and wholesalers, would allow Utah retailers to sell vape pens with a higher nicotine concentration than is currently legal.
Current regulations were designed to safeguard the health of Utah’s youth and reduce the risk of nicotine addiction, KPCW reports.
Two years ago, Utah set a limit of 3 percent nicotine by weight per container. If the proposed settlement goes through, that could increase to 5 percent by weight.
Newspaper reports state the U.S. Food and Drug Administration limits the amount of nicotine to 5 percent by weight. The FDA has not set a maximum nicotine level, according to the FDA.
But opponents want to prevent the increase. Gayle Ruzika, who serves as president of the Eagle Forum, a conservative lobbying organization, as well as Drug Safe Utah, says this is a non-partisan issue.
If the state doesn’t settle, Ruzika says the issue would go back to court, which she believes would be worth it.
The Department of Health and Human Services is accepting public comment on the proposed settlement. The deadline to submit comments is Monday, July 17, the day of the public hearing. Concerned individuals can email the Utah Department of Health and Human Services at comments@utah.gov.
The virtual public hearing agenda has been posted on the Utah Public Notice Website. The hearing starts at 10 a.m. July 17.
July 16, 2023
Utah Schools Join Juul Labs Class Action Suit
Credit: Steheap
Nearly every school district in the state of Utah joined a mass tort lawsuit against Juul Labs. Park City Schools is the only Utah school district not participating in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit claims Juul Labs was deliberately using youthful marketing strategies. The lawsuit also claims the company misrepresents and fails to mention that its e-cigarettes are “more potent or addictive” than cigarettes, according to KUTV.
Juul Labs removed all flavors other than tobacco, mint and menthol from their offerings in 2019 after federal regulators accused the vape maker of using the flavors to lure minors to vape. That same year, the company announced it was suspending its print, broadcast and online advertising in the United States.
The Frantz Law Group of California has filed the mass tort lawsuit on behalf of 700 school districts across the country. Salt Lake City law firm Kirton McConkie will head up the Utah portion of the lawsuit. Attorney Jim Frantz and William Shinoff say Juul Labs directly marketed to minors, “because we’re dealing directly with minors, and undermining them and addicting them and that’s really as low as you can go,” says Frantz.
May 3, 2022
Greenhut: Utah Nicotine Limits Bad for Harm Reduction
When it comes to government regulation, it’s sometimes hard to get the details right, according to Steven Greenhut in an opinion hew wrote for InsideSources. He says that the Utah Department of Public Health’s proposed new rules that would reduce the amount of nicotine that sellers and manufacturers can include in their “closed-system” electronic cigarettes derail harm reduction efforts.
Two years ago, the agency adopted a compromise that capped the amount of nicotine in closed vaping products at 5 percent. That 2019 rule attempted to protect consumers from the over-consumption of nicotine. But the 5 percent cap still enabled vape users to consume a sufficient amount of nicotine to satisfy their cravings. However, the newly proposed regulation would reduce the nicotine cap to 3 percent.
Greenhut states that the proposed rules could make consumers vape more than they do now, switch to open systems that allow the use of higher-nicotine liquids or even mix their own e-liquid recipes, raising a host of troubling health concerns. Some might even return to cigarette smoking.
“Regulators, at the behest of anti-smoking activists, are missing the forest for the trees—or at least overlooking the 7,000 carcinogenic chemicals that make traditional cigarette smoking so detrimental while focusing on one highly addictive but not particularly dangerous substance,” he states. “Many public-health advocates take a zero-tolerance approach toward anything tobacco or nicotine-related. They seek to ban—or overly regulate—e-cigarettes as a means to reduce availability. Their goal is abstinence, although they often support the use of Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved smoking-cessation products, such as patches and gum, that contain some nicotine.”
In their zeal to quash the use of vape and other lower-risk nicotine products, health advocates are endangering public health, explains Greenhut. “One needn’t be a health expert to realize that if nicotine-addicted people can’t get enough nicotine to fulfill their needs, they will try alternatives,” he states. “Utah already adopted a defensible approach to nicotine regulation. Maybe now, the best approach is to leave well enough alone.”
Steven Greenhut is Western Region director for the R Street Institute.
July 22, 2021
U.S. Senator Romney Calls for Federal Flavor Ban
Utah Sen. Mitt Romney on Thursday pushed for flavored vaping products to be pulled from shelves across the United States. Romney introduced legislation in Sept. 2019 that would have banned the sale of all flavored vape products except tobacco flavors, but it was never taken up for a vote.
Credit: Office of Mitt Romney
Romney’s comments during the confirmation hearing for President Joe Biden’s nominee for surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, echo similar statements the senator has made in the past, according to kutv.com.
“The analysis shows that nearly one fourth of high school kids are vaping on a regular basis — tobacco products — and in many cases marijuana, as well,” Romney said, adding that the government needs to do everything it can to stop the sale of flavored vaping products and implement a robust public education campaign to warn kids about the dangers of vaping.
In Oct. 2019, the Utah Department of Health issued an emergency order banning the sale of flavored vape products in Utah, which was met swiftly with a lawsuit from tobacco retailers. The products remain available for sale today.
In 2019, the legal age to purchase tobacco products in the U.S. was raised from 18 to 21.
February 26, 2021
Utah Lawmakers Want Control of Nicotine Limits
The a new bill in the U.S. state of Utah seeks to un-do some vaping restrictions in the state. S.B. 134 would raise the standard of 24 mg/ml to 65 mg/ml if passed. Senator Curtis Bramble, the lawmaker behind the bill, says that the current standard bars 70 to 80 percent of all vape products on the market.
Credit: Tyler Moore
“We’ve done everything prudent to limit access of these products to youth; the question is if these are legal products in the US, should it be by administrative rule that they are prohibited or should it by an affirmative vote of the legislature that we limit the market?” Senator Bramble asked during a senate committee.
Over the last few years, Utah’s state legislature has given the Utah Department of Health (UDH) the power to limit nicotine sales and quantities in Utah. Beginning in 2020, UDH set a standard of 24 mg/mL of nicotine in vaping products sold in the state.
Beyond raising the nicotine standards, the law would also strip UDH of the ability to create these kinds of limits. Opponents to S.B. 134 say the more limits to nicotine the better, no matter where those limits are coming from.
“We have a youth addiction problem with nicotine; we have 30,000 youth in Utah vaping. Why on earth would the legislature want to increase the amount of nicotine?” asked Walter Plumb, the president of Drug Safe Utah, said, according to a story on abc4.com.
The bill has passed in a Senate committee and is waiting for a vote by the full Senate.
February 22, 2021