The Wisconsin Department of Health Services will award grants to address youth and adult vaping.
They will award 13 grants worth more than $830,000 to community organizations over the next two years.
The funding comes from a settlement from the vape company Juul Labs, according to media reports.
Organizations getting this grant can use the money for anti-vaping initiatives.
Leaders in the U.S. city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, debated a proposal for an ordinance Tuesday that would prevent some electronic cigarette sales across the city in the future.
“The explosion of vape shops, particularly when concentrated in a small geographic area, may have harmful impacts on the public health, safety, and welfare of our residents,” said Milwaukee’s District 3 Alderman Jonathan Brostoff, according to CBS58.
Part of the Milwaukee Zoning, Neighborhoods & Development Committee meeting Tuesday morning discussed a plan to prevent new vape shops from doing business in the city.
The proposal would prevent new shops from selling e-cigarettes for six months.
During this trial period, officials would also prevent other businesses from opening if they plan on selling e-cigs.
“Part of the goal of this is going to be, ultimately, to look at both concentration and location–for example, proximity to schools, things of that nature,” added an Alderman.
Neighborhood Services Commissioner Erica Roberts said this request would be complicated for a number of reasons.
“There are many different types of uses that would sell this type of product, everything from grocery stores to gas stations, convenience stores…” Roberts expressed.
A bill that would bring the state of Wisconsin into compliance with federal law and raise the minimum age for purchasing tobacco and vaping products from 18 to 21 has passed the Wisconsin Assembly.
Federal law changed in 2019 and Wisconsin retailers have been enforcing the higher age limit, according to the Associated Press.
Because of that, the change in state law will have a minimal effect on how much tax revenue comes into the state, according to Wisconsin revenue officials.
The Assembly passed the bill on a voice vote and it now heads to the Senate.
If it passes there, it would head to Gov. Tony Evers for his consideration.
Milwaukee Public Schools has voted to join a nationwide lawsuit against Juul Labs.
Keller Rohrback and MWH Law Group filed the class-action lawsuit against Juul Labs Inc., alleging that the e-cigarette company’s advertising and product design deliberately targeted minors, and that Altria Group, a part owner of Juul, knowingly supported targeting minors.
A Juul company spokesman said the company has halted advertising, eliminated flavored products other than menthol and submitted documents to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration outlining the products’ “harm reduction potential” and measures to address underage use, according to a story on milwaukeenns.com. A federal judge recently denied the company’s request to halt the class action.
Milwaukee City Attorney Tearman Spencer said the e-cigarette company has done irreparable damage to the progress the city had made in curbing tobacco use before e-cigarettes arrived.
“It took years to get to the relatively low level of youth tobacco use we had in 2017 before this, at great cost to the city,” Spencer said. “It is not fair for MPS or the city to bear the entire cost of undoing what these companies did.”
The Common Council will also vote on whether to join the suit. Spencer said he’s unsure about the timing of the lawsuit, but that if “we are super lucky,” it’ll take a couple of years.
The number of lung disease cases in Wisconsin has seen a dramatic decline. Only eight vaping-related injuries have been reported as of May 31. Last year, there were 103 cases, according to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, which tracks vaping-related injuries.
State health officials said they don’t know the reasons for the decline but suggest it could be due to the changes in the formulation of THC vaping products and fewer people using them, according to an article on wkow.com.
In 2019, CDC identified Vitamin E Acetate as the potential culprit behind thousands of vaping illnesses that sent several Wisconsin teens to the hospital resulting in significant lung damage.
“People producing these THC products have learned from this and have really improved their manufacturing standards and are doing a better job of keeping out the Vitamin E Acetate out of the products,” said Megan Piper, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin Tobacco Research Center.
Last year a DHS investigation found 89 percent of the 27 cases that reported lung disease due to vaping was tied to THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.
Another reason for the decline could be due to a flavor ban on Juul products and raising the tobacco age to 21 in Wisconsin, according to Piper.
“If your source for vaping products was informal, meaning you got it from someone from school, you no longer have those connections and your supply may have gone away,” said Piper.