State ban on ‘entertainment’ vapes proposed | News, sports, jobs

Pictured are Prue Talbot (left) and Man Wong.

Vaping shouldn’t be fun in New York State.

That’s the core idea of ​​a new law recently introduced by Rep. Linda Rosenthal, D-New York City. A.10713 would amend the state health law to prohibit the sale of what Rosenthal calls recreational vaping products.

Last year, e-cigarettes became the first to be equipped with a digital display that showed how long the battery in the device would last. Within months, the digital screens were equipped with pre-built video games – an addition that caught the attention of two professors at the University of California, Riverside.

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“Our lab continually monitors the electronic cigarette market for new devices, particularly those aimed at teenagers and young adults.” said Man Wong, first author of the paper and assistant in the laboratory of Prue Talbot, a professor in the university’s graduate department. “One of these devices, Craftbox V-Play, can run Pac-Man, Tetris and F22 – classic arcade games. Other devices we found alarming included e-cigarettes with digital games that encourage users to vape, e-cigarettes with animations that change as you puff, e-cigarettes with built-in Bluetooth that can be personalized with personal photos, and e-cigarettes with celebrity endorsements that offer advertising trading cards.”

Talbot and Wong believe the new devices will need to be closely monitored and regulated. They report that unlike previous versions of electronic cigarettes, smart vapes target three potential addictions: nicotine addiction, gaming disorder, and screen time obsession. Talbot and Wong hope their research will encourage the Food and Drug Administration and other government agencies to regulate the sale of these devices.

Because the products are user-friendly and attractive to teenagers, they could link nicotine addiction to gambling disorders, the researchers warn.

Of particular concern to researchers is that linking nicotine to existing youth behaviors such as video gaming and screen time could expand the market for smart electronic cigarettes to youth who have no prior interest in nicotine products, while increasing nicotine addiction among current users .

Rosenthal agrees. The New York congresswoman wants New York State to act quickly and ban the sale of the devices before they gain a significant foothold in New York. The bill could be discussed in next year’s legislative session.

“Big tobacco companies’ latest trick to attract a new generation of customers is to sell”entertainment vapor products,“E-cigarettes that “contain”Fun“and trendy features such as Bluetooth, Internet connectivity, digital screens to display photos and animations, and virtual games that can be played directly on the device.” Rosenthal wrote in her justification for the law. “These products attract users with their features and encourage them to continue. Vaping from “playful” the experience and offering rewards to those who continue to use the product. Just as New York State has banned vaping products that appeal to children through flavor and flashy marketing, it is time to provide the same protection against products that seek to combine vaping with the features of a video game or smartphone. This legislation would ban the sale of recreational vaping products in the state and provide civil penalties for any retailer found in violation.”

The newest form of recreational vaping comes as fewer high school students are smoking than at any time since 2014, according to the latest federal statistics. The latest survey numbers show that e-cigarette use among teens has fallen to under 6% this year, compared to 7 .7% in 2023. More than 1.6 million students reported smoking e-cigarettes in the previous month – about a third of the number in 2019, when underage e-cigarette dating was at its peak and use more discreetly High-nicotine e-cigarettes like Juul, according to the Associated Press.

This year’s decline was largely due to half a million fewer high school students reporting using e-cigarettes in the past month, officials said. Vaping remained unchanged among middle school students, but it remains less common in this group at 3.5% of students.

“This is a monumental victory for public health.” FDA tobacco director Brian King told reporters. “But we cannot rest on our laurels. There is clearly still a lot of work to be done to further reduce youth consumption.”

Officials at the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention attributed the sharp decline in e-cigarette traffic to recent age restrictions and more aggressive enforcement against retailers and manufacturers, including Chinese e-cigarette companies that have been selling their e-cigarettes since Selling illegally in the USA for years.

Use of the most popular e-cigarette among teens, Elf Bar, fell 36% after the FDA sent warning letters to stores and retailers that sell the colorful vapes, which come in flavors such as watermelon ice cream and peach-mango. The brand is part of a wave of cheap disposable e-cigarettes from China that have captured a large portion of the U.S. vaping market. The FDA has tried to block such imports, although Elf Bar and other brands have tried to find workarounds by changing their names, addresses and logos.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.