NY State Assemblyman Proposes Crackdown on Vaping in Schools

Nov 19, 2023

A.10547 amends local regulations so that teens caught vaping may be required to attend a state-created smoking cessation program.

Introduced by Assemblyman Keith Brown, D-Northport, A.10547 amends the current state Public Health Law requiring students caught vaping to attend an Electronic Cigarette or Vapor Product Prevention, Control or Awareness Program. The bill also requires that the parents or guardians of any minors caught vaping are notified.

"Electronic cigarettes are a relatively recent product and manufacturers had previously geared marketing toward non-smoking youth, with a large assortment of sweet flavors of e-liquid and ad campaigns," wrote Brown. "Additionally, certain youth-targeting e-cigarettes were designed to be small and sleek, and refillable with user-friendly pre-filled pods of liquid-making the device easy to conceal from authority figures. A single pod contains as much nicotine as a pack of cigarettes."

Referring to EVALI, Brown inaccurately linked vaping to the lung injury. "The New York State Department of Health has received numerous reports from New York state physicians of severe pulmonary (lung-related) illness among patients ranging from 14 to 71 years of age who were using at least one vape product prior to becoming ill."

Meanwhile back in 2019, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), had confirmed that the outbreak of EVALI, is almost certainly not linked with vaping legal nicotine products. Testing the lung fluids from 29 of the case patients, the agency had found that all 29 contained vitamin E acetate, also known as Tocopheryl acetate.

In line with this, in a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers had emphasized that while in a small percentage of the cases under investigation, the participants claimed to use only nicotine not THC, it is highly likely that for obvious reasons they may have been reluctant to admit to using illegal drugs. Subsequently, the aforementioned CDC report had confirmed just that.

"This is significant because although not all of the case patients admitted to using THC vapes, the finding of vitamin E acetate in their lungs essentially proves that they were indeed vaping THC oils," said tobacco harm reduction expert Dr. Michael Siegel referring to the CDC report. "This does not mean that they were lying; they may simply not have known what was in the product they were vaping, especially since most of these products are purchased off the black market or obtained from friends or dealers."

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