City mulls underage e-cigarette ban

Electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, are “products often shaped like cigarettes, cigars or pipes that are designed to deliver nicotine or other substances to a user in the form of a vapor,” according to the Tobacco Control Legal Consortium.
“Typically, e-cigarettes consist of battery-powered heating elements and replaceable cartridges that contain nicotine or other chemicals, and an atomizer that, when heated, converts the contents of the cartridge into a vapor that a user inhales.”
The state already has laws banning the sale of e-cigarettes to people under the age of 18.
But by adding the proposed ordinance to city code, fines collected from violators would flow into city coffers, rather than to the state, city attorney Dan White said.
White added, “That’s the principle reason for having this as a violation under city code, because it’s a city fine and would then become part of the (city’s) budget.”
The Legislature voted earlier this year to amend the state’s smoking laws to include e-cigarettes on its list of regulated tobacco products, placing them alongside items like cigarettes, cigars and snuff.
The city has not yet done so.
Councilwoman Georgia Broyles, the sponsor of the proposed ordinance, said she introduced it to increase awareness of the dangers of e-cigarette use, especially in minors.
“I believe they are poisonous,” Broyles said. “I don’t see any good in them at all.”
A secondary goal of the ordinance is to bring city code in line with state law and improve uniformity, she said.
Lisa Ammons with the Prevention Management Organization of Wyoming told the council’s Public Services Committee on Tuesday that while e-cigarettes have been around since the 1960s, they have exploded in popularity recently.
The percentage of sixth- through 12th-graders in Wyoming who have tried e-cigarettes more than doubled between 2011 and 2012, Ammons said.
Electronic cigarette manufacturers have marketed their products, especially flavored e-cigarettes, toward minors, Ammons said.
“No one really buys an e-cigarette in bubble gum flavor as an adult,” she said.
Part of the reason for the increased popularity is the nationwide spread of smoke-free laws that ban smoking in places like bars and restaurants, Ammons said.
Electronic cigarettes are often not included in these bans, which allows smokers to use them inside bars and restaurants.
“E-cigarettes aren’t usually addressed (in smoking bans) because they are so new,” Broyles said.
Broyles’ proposed ordinance only addresses the sale of e-cigarettes to minors, not whether they can be used indoors.
But Broyles said she is “certainly open to looking at (adding an indoor e-cigarette smoking ban) as an amendment” to Cheyenne’s citywide ban on smoking indoors in public buildings.
While the proposed ordinance was recommended unanimously by the committee, several of its members expressed some skepticism about its necessity.
That skepticism was based on the redundancy of the ordinance, which mirrors the state law already on the books.
Councilman Bryan Cook said while he understands the problem of e-cigarette use by minors, he needs some more information before he can “really stand behind this (ordinance).”
“I’m still on the fence with the need, and maybe the push, for this,” Cook said.
Councilman Sean Allen expressed a similar sentiment.
“I just don’t know if it is necessary if (selling electronic cigarettes to minors) is already illegal by state statute,” Allen said.
The proposed ordinance goes to the full council for second reading next Monday night, then back to committee and back to the council again for a third reading and final vote.
http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2013/10/10/news/01top_10-10-13.txt