Anthony Huber, Belmont Law, Class of 2021
On September 24, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker ordered a four-month ban on the sale of all vaping products in the state. The ban was approved by the Public Health Council and took immediate effect. “The purpose of this public health emergency is to temporarily pause all sales of vaping products so that we can work with our medical experts to identify what is making people sick and how to better regulate these products to protect the health of our residents,” Baker explained in a statement released on September 24.
As of September 24, 2019, the CDC announced that “805 confirmed and probable patient cases of lung injury associated with e-cigarette product use, or vaping were reported by 46 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands.” The CDC also estimated that 27% of teenagers have used e-cigarettes, double the amount who have tried regular cigarettes.
The Massachusetts ban follows on the heels of recent decisions made by New York and Michigan. New York was the first state to ban flavored e-cigarettes on September 17, 2019. In support of the ban, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo stated: “New York is not waiting for the federal government to act, and by banning flavored e-cigarettes we are safeguarding the public health and helping prevent countless young people from forming costly, unhealthy and potentially deadly life-long habits.”
Michigan banned the sale of flavored e-cigarettes on September 18, 2019. The ban went into effect immediately and is set to remain until January 2020. Retailers and online sellers were given two weeks to comply with the ban. On September 28, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer stated: “For too long, companies have gotten our kids hooked on nicotine by marketing candy-flavored vaping products as safe. That ends today.”
No doubt, these recent developments have set the table for a flurry of litigation disputes. In fact, a number of retailers have already filed civil suits arguing that there is no justification for using an emergency rule instead of proceeding through a process such as the Administrative Procedures Act. Retailers argue that their businesses will suffer irreparable harm, and that the states should not enact an emergency ban when there is still plenty of speculation toward what exactly is causing these deaths and lung injuries.
Retailers and critics of the vaping bans claim that states do not have the authority to ban vaping products by these emergency rules. They argue that the emergency bans are arbitrary and capricious, and that the states should have given them sufficient notice and an opportunity to be heard through a public hearing. As a result, the retailers argue that the emergency bans disregard the legislative process by not allowing the business to have a voice.