Whitmer bans flavored vape products in Michigan

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has recently announced her plans to ban all flavored vape products throughout the entire state of Michigan. 

The law is still being processed and it should be finished within the next few weeks. It will be put into place immediately once it is completed. The ban will be temporary and will  be active for six months. It will give all Michigan businesses 30 days to comply with the new ban (detroitfreepress.com). 

According to Whitmer, the policy started with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS). The MDHHS claimed that young vaping was creating a public health emergency. They also recently stated they were currently investigating six lung infections that were linked to vape products (detroitfreepress).

Whitmer states that the ban is to protect the youth of Michigan from the health issues that could be linked from vaping. 

“Youth use of e-cigarettes has become a public health crisis,” Whitmer said.

According to Whitmer the increase of teenage vaping is “fueled by the availability of flavors akin to Fruit Loops, Fanta, and Nilla wafers” (thefedralist).

Whitmer and the MDHHS are not the only ones who feel this way about the flavored vape products. On Sept. 11, the Trump administration also announced its plan to make it illegal to sell flavored vape products all across America (cbsnews).

President Donald Trump believes that the youth should not be exposed to these products due to the health concerns. 

“We may very well have to do something very, very strong about it. We can’t allow people to get sick. People are dying,” said Trump to reporters (cbsnews.com).

Health and Human services along with members of the FDA have attended meetings with Trump. Alex Azar, secretary of Health and Human stated that if this ban goes through, all companies that sell these products would have to completely remove all flavored vaping products for sale (CNN).

“It’ll take several weeks for us to put out the final guidance that will announce all the parameters around the enforcement policy, and then there will likely be about a 30-day delay to effective date, as is customary. At that point all flavored e-cigarettes other than tobacco flavor would have to be removed from the market,” said Azar. (CNN)