The governor of the U.S. state of Washington has signed a bill into law that will protect workers from facing employment discrimination during the hiring process over their lawful use of marijuana.
At a signing ceremony on Tuesday, Gov. Jay Inslee gave final approval to the legislation, enacting the bill into law about three weeks after it cleared the legislature, according to Marijuana Moments.
The reform is limited to job applicants. As Inslee noted before signing the measure, employers would still be able to maintain drug-free workplaces, or prohibit the use of cannabis by workers after they are hired.
SB 5123 “seeks to protect applicants from hiring discrimination if they use legal cannabis outside of work,” the governor explained, adding that “there are exceptions” for certain industries.
Juul Labs has reached another settlement in its youth marketing lawsuits. The vaping manufacturer has agreed to pay $22.5 million in a settlement with Washington state over claims that it unlawfully targeted underage consumers with deceptive advertisements.
“Juul put profits before people,” Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson said Wednesday in a statement. “The company fueled a staggering rise in vaping among teens.”
The settlement comes after North Carolina last year struck a $40 million deal with Juul over how it markets products to underage users. The e-cigarette maker agreed to stop all marketing aimed at young people as part of that deal announced in June.
Juul didn’t clearly state that its products contained nicotine and for more than 20 months, from August 2016 until April 2018, “unlawfully sold hundreds of thousands of vaping products to Washington consumers,” according to Washington’s lawsuit filed in 2020, according to Bloomberg.
The company committed to reforms including stopping all its advertising that appeals to youth and ending most social media promotion in the settlement, according to the statement. Juul must also check Washington stores 25 times a month with secret shoppers to keep its products away from youth.
Juul said the settlement terms are consistent with its present practices and past agreements to help combat underage use.
“This settlement is another step in our ongoing effort to reset our company and resolve issues from the past,” the company said in a statement. “We support the Washington State Attorney General’s plan to deploy resources to address underage use, such as future monitoring and enforcement.”
Juul Labs continues to face similar suits from several states, including New York and California.
Internet vape shop sales are facing fines as the U.S. state of Washington investigates online e-cigarette retailers. Washington’s Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced the results of a dragnet that caught five companies caught violating Washington’s age verification law, yesterday. Those fines amount to a total of $132,000 to the Attorney General’s Office, which will go toward continued enforcement of the law, according to a press release.
The five companies also entered into legally binding agreements with the agency to change their advertising and online sales practices to comply with Washington’s youth access law. The Attorney General’s Office says it “has or will” file lawsuits against two more companies for the same issues.
Credit: Free-Photos
For the investigation, the agency assembled a list of 148 online vapor product retailers. Investigators then posed as minors or used false identifying information and attempted to make purchases of nicotine-containing vapor products. “Washington’s law requires stringent age verification for online sales of vapor products. For example, vapor product sellers must verify the buyer’s age using a third-party service to crosscheck and confirm the buyer’s identity,” the release states. “Seven of the 148 targets illegally sold products to the investigators without verifying the ages of the purchasers, including one that completed the sale even when the investigator indicated they were 17 years old.”
The sting caught two additional companies that failed to cooperate with the investigation, according to the release.
In order to sell vapor products to Washington residents, retailers must do the following:
Clearly state Washington’s minimum legal age of purchase on their website;
Use a third-party verification service to confirm the purchaser’s name, age, and residential address;
The retailer then needs to verify the credit card information, and it has to match the information the purchaser provides;
Then they have to get a signed certification from the purchaser, saying they are who they say they are, and they are of legal age to purchase vapor products;
When the package ships, the shipping documents need to clearly state the package contains vapor products;
And the package needs to contain information about Washington law regarding the purchase of vapor products by minors.
Many sites used an “age gate,” requiring visitors to either confirm they were of “legal smoking age,” or enter their birth date to confirm their age, according to the release. Investigators tried to enter a birth date for a 17-year-old into the age gate on each site. All but one rejected that attempted purchase.
If the investigators got rejected by the age gate, they entered a fake birth date indicating they were of legal age, and used fake identifying information to make their purchase. If a company was following Washington State law, this information “was impossible to verify, and they were not allowed to make a purchase,” according to the release.
A public hearing on a proposed county ordinance prohibiting vaping at indoor public places, places of work and certain youth-oriented outdoor spaces has been scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 13.
The meeting will be hosted at 5 p.m. in Thurston County Courthouse, Building 1, Room 280. Members may attend in person or call in at 360-252-9020.
“We are committed to putting police in place to support the health of our community, with a strong focus on the health of our youth,” Thurston County Board of Health Chair Tye Menser said in a statement in a county news release. “The use of vaping products among Thurston County youth is rising at an alarming rate.”
According to a news release from the county, the draft ordinance includes local adoption of the statewide Smoking in Public Places law.
“It would apply the same 25-feet rule from doors and other air intakes for indoor spaces for vaping as is true for smoking,” the news release reads. “It would also require signage about the rule at public places and places of employment. It employs the standard approach to enforcement, specifying what constitutes a civil infraction and penalties. The draft includes a rebuttal process for reducing the 25-feet rule.”
Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a suit against vapor manufacturer Juul Labs last week, alleging the company designed its products to appeal to underage consumers, and was deceptive in the addictiveness of its product.
Ferguson alleges that by “pushing unfair and deceptive marketing strategies appealing to youth,” Juul’s e-cigarettes fueled a “staggering rise in vaping among teens,” according to a story on komonews.com.
“Upon the launch of the device, the company flooded social media with colorful ads of young-looking models and pushed fruit and dessert flavored products,” Ferguson wrote in the filing. “At the same time, Juul vehemently denied it marketed to underage users — echoing unlawful strategies used by major cigarette corporations in decades past.”
Ferguson also claimed Juul mislead consumers by avoiding mentioning that their cigarette pods contained nicotine in their initial marketing, only complying in 2018 when the federal government required disclosure. His office quotes a survey from 2018 indicating 63 percent of Juul users from between 15-24 years old didn’t know their products contained nicotine.
In addition, the state alleges Juul failed to meet the state’s vapor product licensing requirements meaning every sale of a Juul device from August 2016 through 2018 is considered illegal.
Ferguson didn’t say what specific damages he was seeking.
