The Maui County Council is considering a measure to ban the sale of flavored tobacco.
The council passed the measure through its first reading on Friday after a series of mostly supportive testimony.
If passed, retailers would not be allowed to sell or market flavored tobacco, including menthol products. It would also ban sellers for mislabeling e-liquid for vapes as nicotine-free.
Bill 156 is intended to protect Hawaiʻi youth from nicotine use.
Mike Landes, a local high school teacher and the Maui chapter president of the Hawaiʻi State Teachers Association, said that students being hooked on nicotine is already an issue.
“You see kids in class who can't sit still, and they're getting the jitters and they can't do whatever. And then all of a sudden, they magically need to go to the bathroom. And they come back and it smells like they've doused themselves in products from Bath and Body Works — and all of a sudden they're not so jittery anymore,” he said.
The Maui County bill would act as a so-called “trigger ban” that would only go into effect if a state law preempting or nullifying county tobacco rules were suspended or repealed.
Opponents of the state law say county officials are more equipped to regulate tobacco.
County lawmakers have asked the state to give counties back the authority to manage tobacco regulations. Similar trigger bans have been passed in Hawaiʻi and Honolulu counties.
