SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) – The debate over vaping is ramping up this legislative session with a bill trying to un-do some vaping restrictions in Utah.
Over the last few years, the state legislature has given the Utah Department of Health the power to limit nicotine sales and quantities in Utah; now a lawmaker wants to take that power back with S.B. 134.
As of 2020, the Utah Department of Health set a standard of 24 mg/mL of nicotine in vaping products sold in Utah. Senator Curtis Bramble, the lawmaker behind SB 134, says that standard will bar 70 to 80% of all vape products on the market, which would certainly have a tax implication here in Utah. S.B. 134 proposes raising the standard from 24 to 65mg/mL of nicotine in a vape product and strip the Health Department of the ability to create these kinds of limits.
Senator Bramble said in committee, “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?”
Opponents to S.B. 134 say the more limits to nicotine the better, no matter where those limits are coming from.
Walter Plumb is the president of Drug Safe Utah; he said, “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?”
Drug Safe Utah is actively campaigning against S.B. 134.
The bill has passed in a Senate committee and is waiting for a vote by the full Senate.
Read the full text of the bill below:
