Bill to stop kids from buying e-cigs includes huge tax hike


18 photos
Save Story
Leer en español

Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

SALT LAKE CITY — A bill is making its way through the House aimed at preventing underage kids from buying electronic cigarettes. Electronic cigarettes, or e-cigs, are devices that help many stop smoking. But if HB372 were to pass as-is, it would include a tax hike on the cartridges, even on some that don't contain nicotine.

The heart of the debate over HB372 is whether electronic cigarettes are tobacco products or if they are not. The bill moved out of committee Wednesday with some amendments, but not everyone is happy.

"It is certainly progress, it's a step in the right direction, but it's the first step of about 20 that need to be taken," said Aaron Frazier.

Frazier quit smoking cigarettes because of e-cigs. He agrees with some aspects of the bill that would make it harder for teens to get their hands on them.

But others say the bill will not only prevent teens from buying them, but adults as well, because of an 86 percent tax hike on e-cigarette cartridges.

"Taxing it to the point that people are going out of business, but also taxing it to point either they are going to start smoking again or they are going to find other means of getting it," said Suzanne Anderson. "That's not a solution."

And a solution is what Anderson wants, not a tax increase. She's five months pregnant and says there's no way Utah legislators can classify e-cigs as tobacco.

"I'm on zero-nicotine, so there's no nicotine whatsoever, it's just flavor and the water vapor. There's no harm done to my baby. And my doctors agreed," Anderson said.

Sponsor of the bill, Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clearfield, seeks to include language in the bill that would make e-cigarettes and associated products the same as tobacco cigarettes. The debate became speculative because no studies about e-cigs and their origins were produced.

"First off, I don't agree with a lot of it. Second, it isn't proven whatever he said, third, some of it was just untrue," said Missy Bexell.

People are in agreement to make it harder for teens to buy the e-cigarettes, but they don't want to increase the taxes. The debate now heads to the House.

Photos

Related stories

Most recent Utah stories

Related topics

Utah
Andrew Wittenberg

    STAY IN THE KNOW

    Get informative articles and interesting stories delivered to your inbox weekly. Subscribe to the KSL.com Trending 5.
    By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

    KSL Weather Forecast