Hawai‘i will prohibit the sale of “99.9%” of all e-cigarette products in the state starting next year, per Gov. Josh Green, who signed a pair of bills into law Tuesday.
House Bill 1573 and Senate Bill 2175 establish heavy regulations, or outright prohibitions, on the sale of electronic smoking devices in the state, with Green promising Tuesday that more regulations will continue in the years to come.
Green’s vehement support of the measures emphasized the negative health impacts to keiki caused by vaping.
“Vaping is bad, period,” Green said. “It leads to young people getting addicted to nicotine and it affects their physiology and development. And they get hooked on cigarettes later.”
SB 2175 will prohibit the sale or distribution of any disposable e-cigarette devices beginning Jan. 1, 2027. Any violation of the law will incur a $100 fine per day per product.
While Green discussed SB 2175 Tuesday largely from a health perspective, he added that disposable vapes have increasingly been identified as an environmental problem: not only are they common litter, but the lithium batteries within them can cause fires or release toxic metals into the environment.
HB 1573 is more extensive, requiring that the only e-cigarette and vape liquid products allowed to be sold in Hawai‘i be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Rep. Scot Matayoshi, a co-introducer of the bill, said Tuesday that limits the number of products to only 45, most of which do not have the sweet flavorings that have made vapes attractive to young people.
However, Matayoshi acknowledged that the most recent vape products approved by the FDA include two fruit-flavored vape pods. Nonetheless, he said the vast majority of fruit- or candy-flavored vape products are not FDA-approved and will be much harder and more expensive for children to access.
In any case, Green said “market forces alone” will likely strongly discourage manufacturers from attempting to gain a foothold in Hawai‘i.
“It’s very difficult for anyone to be in the industry in a market where, let’s be honest, we don’t want them here in Hawai‘i,” Green said.
As written, HB 1573 requires that, beginning Oct. 1, all vape manufacturers attempting to distribute products in the state must submit proof of their compliance with state and federal laws, proof of an FDA marketing granted order and a $1,000 payment for each product line certified with the state.
Then, beginning Jan. 1, 2027, the state Department of the Attorney General, will publish an updated directory of all brand names, products and manufacturers certified in the state. Attempting to sell any product not included on that list will incur a $500 fine for each individual product for sale for a first violation, and increasing incrementally up to $2,000 per product for a fourth violation.
Should the manufacturer itself be found to be offering non-approved products for sale in the state, the manufacturer could be fined up to $10,000 for each product, and could be found guilty of a misdemeanor.
Kalaheo High School student Maya Butts said vaping continues to plague Hawai‘i schools, saying that her school’s bathrooms no longer feel like functioning restrooms, but instead are just “places to vape.”
“I’ve watched my smart, athletic friends completely lose their motivation,” Butts said. “They got hooked on these devices that taste like candy, move on to other substances, then lose their spark altogether.”
Although vapes and e-cigarettes have been used to help wean tobacco smokers off of normal cigarettes, Green said he is skeptical that such a use case outweighs their harm.
“The biggest problem has been getting an entire generation … innumerable middle schoolers and high schoolers hooked,” Green said. “Society has found ways to quit traditional cigarettes through medical means, through behavioral techniques; we should lean on those.”
Lola Irvin, administrator of the state Department of Health’s Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Division, said adults who have concurrently used traditional cigarettes and e-cigarettes are less likely to successfully quit smoking, while young people who begin using e-cigarettes are more likely to transition to smoking traditional cigarettes.
Furthermore, Irvin said that e-cigarette use has been linked to increased risk of lung and oral cancers, and concluded “it is not a safe product to use for quitting.”
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