Controversial anti-vaping legislation carried over in the Alabama Senate

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[Photo Credit: Lindsay Fox | EcigaretteReviewed.com]

The Alabama Legislature passed dozens of bills on Thursday, with time running out on the 2023 Alabama Regular Legislative Session. Controversial anti-vaping legislation was not one of them. That bill was carried over in the Senate after widespread opposition lobbied Senators not to pass the bill.

House Bill 319 (HB319) is sponsored by State Representative Barbara Drummond (D-Mobile). It is being carried in the Alabama Senate by State Senator Garlan Gudger (R-Cullman).

Sen. Gudger said, “We do have a few amendments.”

State Senator Tim Melson (R-Florence) said that the Alabama Cancer Action Network is opposing this bill.

“This isn’t a quack organization,” Melson said. “They and the heart association and the lung people are against this bill.”

Gudger said, “They want all tobacco and nicotine in existence eliminated.”

“I don’t know how you are going to move it,” Melson said. “I can’t support this if they are against it.”

Sen. Rodger Smitherman (D-Birmingham) said, “I think it is a crying shame that instead of doing something, they would rather do nothing. Doing nothing here is going to continue to allow these kids to continue vaping.”

“They are going to continue vaping like I don’t know what,” Smitherman said. “They want to yank us around like a yoyo. Look at the impact if you don’t do anything.”

Smitherman compared the Senator’s unwillingness to pass health legislation not supported by health associations to the failure of his plan to require a formal due process for school discipline decisions because it was universally opposed by the Alabama state school superintendents.

“You care more about these little folks that call you, like the superintendents, than you do the little children,” Smitherman said.

Smitherman said that Drummond had a negotiated bill.

“She negotiated with them, and they agreed with what that bill was,” Smitherman said. “That’s not right.”

“I am not going to stop fighting for the kids,” Smitherman said. “If you don’t pass this bill, they are going to vape for a whole year.”

HB319 creates a registry of vape sellers and assigns that and enforcement of the bill to the Alcohol and Beverage Control Board. It also limits vaping to people 21 and above and fines underage persons who vape.

“For the sake of the children, take out the due process,” Smitherman told Gudger.

Sen. Shay Shelnutt (R-Trussville) told Gudger to “carry this over at the call of the chair.”

Gudger finally asked that the bill be carried over at the call of the chair. It never came back that day.

Gudger later told reporters, “(Health groups) want all tobacco eliminated, and we can’t do that. They want their way or nothing.”

Groups like the Alabama Heart Association have opposed this legislation because they object to young people who vape being fined by the state and claim that it does not go far enough in regulating tobacco companies.

Jada Shaffer is the senior regional lead of governmental affairs for the American Heart Association.

“As the mother of a son who started using chewing tobacco at 14 and purchased it at our local gas station, I know this is a problem all too well,” said Shaffer. “I am pleading with lawmakers to take bold steps in ensuring that no child is exposed again to these deadly products and that the retailers in Alabama are held accountable if they sell to minors. Big tobacco targeted kids with fruity flavors and successfully addicted a whole new generation of kids to nicotine. And now they are shifting the blame to kids and penalizing them. HB319/SB271 further victimizes Alabama’s children all over again.”

House Bill 319 could be brought back on Tuesday. If it does not pass the Senate – and then the House of Representatives approves any changes made by the Senate by the end of the legislative day on Tuesday, the legislation will die as Tuesday is Day 30 of the legislative session – the legislature is limited to a maximum of thirty days by the Alabama Constitution.

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