INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved an ordinance today that prohibits the sale of e-cigarettes within the city
If signed into law, the new legislation would amend the city health code, making it illegal for stores to sell vaping products or for online
retailers to ship them to San Francisco addresses, which means it would become the first city to enact such a ban.
San Francisco City
Attorney Dennis Herrera, who co-sponsored the ban on sales, told Bloomberg that products will be allowed to be sold in the city again if
they receive approval from the Food and Drug Administration
The FDA oversees e-cigarettes, but will not require vape companies to submit for approval until 2022.
The ordinance is now waiting to be
signed by Mayor London Breed, who has 10 days to review the legislation
If she signs it, the ban goes into place in seven months
Juul, the San Francisco-based company that captured 75 percent of the e-cigarette market last year, according to Nielsen, is already
The company, which has been blamed for lowering the barrier to nicotine addiction for underage users, told Bloomberg that it has already
collected enough signatures to add a ballot measure that would allow San Francisco stores to keep selling e-cigarettes to customers over 21
if it passed by voters in November.
The ordinance passed today cites the increase in vaping among underage users as a key reason for the ban
&According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (&CDC&), the number of middle and high school students who reported being
current users of tobacco products increased 36%—from 3.6 million to 4.9 million students—between 2017 and 2018,& the proposal said
&This dramatic increase, which has erased past progress in reducing youth tobacco use, is directly attributable to a nationwide surge in
e-cigarette use by adolescents.&
Though it markets itself as a device to help adult smokers who want to stop using cigarettes, Juul has been
blamed for getting more teens hooked on nicotine because its discreet e-cigarettes are carried in many retail stores, including convenience
Juul pods all contain nicotine, unlike other vaping companies that make liquids with lower levels of nicotine or none at all
As cigarette sales in the U.S
are decreasing, cigarette makers have turned to vaping, creating their own products or investing in e-cigarette companies
Altria Group, the tobacco products conglomerate that includes Philip Morris, bought a 35 percent stake in Juul last year, giving the company
a valuation of $38 billion.
On Tuesday, San Francisco also passed a separate ordinance that would ban the sale, manufacturing and
distribution of e-cigarettes on city property
Though the ordinance does not mention Juul by name, the company headquarters are at Pier 70 in office space leased from the city
Juul would be able to stay in Pier 70 if the ordinance passes, since the ordinance would not apply retroactively, but it has already
purchased its own office tower in downtown San Francisco.
A Juul spokesperson told Bloomberg that it is committed to preventing the sale of
its products to customers under 21, but that &this full prohibition will drive former adult smokers who successfully switched to vapor
products back to deadly cigarettes, deny the opportunity to switch for current adult smokers and create a thriving black market instead of
addressing the actual causes of underage access and use.&
Juul is not the only business that will be affected by the ban, with many stores
in San Francisco worrying about the ordinance impact on their sales if it is passed
Moe Mohomed, who works at a smoke shop in the Mission District, told Mission Local that last year ban on flavored e-cigarettes caused
profits to fall by about 30 to 50 percent
According to the news site, 800 businesses in San Francisco sell e-cigarettes.
