Ballot certified

The Department of Elections in San Francisco, California, USA, certified a ballot measure on July 10 seeking to overturn the city’s sales ban on vapor products, reports The San Francisco Examiner.

The measure was placed on the ballot through a signature campaign by the Coalition for Reasonable Vaping Regulations, funded by Juul. The group collected more than double the approximately 9,400 signatures needed to qualify for the ballot and submitted them to the department for certification last week.

“This initiative will bring the strongest regulation for an age-restricted product in the city—more than alcohol and other tobacco products,” Nate Allbee, spokesperson for the Coalition for Reasonable Vaping Regulation, said in a statement.

“We are confident voters do not want to ban the best mechanism for quitting smoking while leaving cigarettes, the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S., on the shelves. These regulations are the best way to stop youth vaping.”

“Juul will continue to work hard to deliberately deliver misguided messages to the residents here in San Francisco,” responded city supervisor Shamann Walton. “I am excited that we have a voting populace that will see right through their messaging and know that their ballot measure focuses on regulations that are already in place.”

Juul reported spending $1.5 million on the campaign.