Vaping won a victory in St. Joseph, Missouri when the city council legally separated vaping from tobacco. This means vaping will no longer be included in St. Joseph's tobacco ban.
Council member Gary Roach tried to delay the vote but was unsuccessful. He said he wanted to leave the issue for another four weeks and vote at a later date. One council member was absent during the vote, leaving the remaining eight members to decide. The vote to remove vaping from tobacco laws passed by a vote of 5-3.
5 out of 8 Missouri city council members agree to lift vape ban
Roach voted to keep vaping in the ban. He said he was concerned about the lack of “evidence of health effects” from vaping. The ban, which included vaping, was initially unenforceable because of recent changes to Missouri state law. The new law prevented nicotine replacement products and vapes from being regulated like tobacco products.
So at that point, including vaping in the city's tobacco ban needed to be addressed.
City voters also voted to write a separate ordinance to regulate vaping, and there was some vote to include vaping in the tobacco ban. But with the new regulations in place, the October city council meeting presented three options: repeal the vaping ban, leave it in place but not enforce it, or create a separate ordinance specifically for vaping. A majority of council members present voted to repeal the vaping ban, and that was the final vote.
A member who voted to remove vaping from the tobacco category said that in the two years that the vaping and tobacco ban has been in effect, there has not been a single complaint about vaping. Businesses can either ban vaping in their area or not.
The vote is a victory for vaping, which many experts have said is safer than smoking. While scientists have backed the claim that vaping is safer , many lawmakers and advocacy groups remain skeptical and continue to insist that vaping should still be classified as a tobacco product. Vaping does not contain tobacco, nor does it contain the same harmful chemicals that tobacco does. Still, the FDA considers e-cigarettes to be tobacco products, while some states, including Missouri, do not.
Article posted on churnmag by Jimmy Hafrey
