Virginia General Assembly cracks down on vaping
The General Assembly is cracking down on vaping, with bills imposing stiff penalties for underage sales and a registry system aimed at barring sales of e-cigarettes that are avoiding U.S. Food and Drug Administration oversight.
The legislature also revised tax treatment of another alternative to cigarettes — heated tobacco sticks. Philip Morris International argued that move will delay introduction of its product planned for this spring and put it at a competitive disadvantage as it and Henrico County-based Altria Group move into reduced risk tobacco products.
Senate Bill 582 and House Bill 790 would add nicotine vapor products to the list of tobacco products that can’t be sold to people under 21. They impose stiff new penalties for the sales, including a $10,000 fine and revocation of a distributor’s license or retailer’s tax registration for a fourth offense.
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“This is the single best way to deal with underage sales,” said Del. Patrick Hope, D-Arlington, one of the House members who negotiated the compromise between House and Senate versions of the crackdown.
He said a state test of retailers’ practices found about 20% of sales were made to underage individuals.
Separately, the House and Senate passed bills, House Bill 1069 and Senate Bill 550, that call for a fine of $1,000 a day for each vaping product sold that the FDA has not cleared to be marketed in the U.S. These typically have fruit or candy-like flavors that public health advocates say are intended to hook young users.
The attorney general would maintain a list of vaping covered by an FDA marketing authorization order, or is exempt from that because it was sold in the U.S. before 2016 or subject to a premarket tobacco product application dating from before 2020.
Under federal law, only those products may be legally sold in the U.S., but that law is widely flouted. Products not listed in the attorney general’s directory could not be legally sold in Virginia.
The heated tobacco tax bill said heated tobacco sticks — which are small, paper wrapped tubes of tobacco — should be considered as cigarettes for tax purposes, but sets a lower tax on them: 2.25 cents per stick versus 3 cents on a cigarette.
Packages would have to have stamp taxes, as cigarettes do, so payments to the state under the 25-year-old Master Settlement Agreement with major U.S. cigarette firms could be calculated and paid.
Without that definition, cigarette firms that are participating in the master settlement, like Altria but not like Philip Morris International, could argue that the state is out of compliance and withhold settlement payments, which are based on the number of cigarettes sold.
That could cost the state $140 million a year, said the bill’s sponsor, Del. Terry Kilgore, R-Scott.
The House and Senate also passed a bill, HB 947, that allows localities to regulate where stores selling tobacco or vaping products can be located.
Another measure, HB 1018, says Office of Attorney General investigators can seize cigarettes that are unlawfully sold, transported or distributed and that they can join with police and special agents of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board in enforcement actions involving counterfeit or unstamped cigarettes.
