Utah’s Electronic Cigarettes Amendments bill, which was signed into law last March, can finally be enacted after U.S. District Judge David Barlow’s ruling. One of the main questions in the litigation centered around the state’s inspection programs, which Barlow said were not central to the case.
The bill bans the sale of tobacco products the Food and Drug Administration has not approved or is still pending approval. It also bans all sales of flavored e-cigarettes. After it passed, the Utah Vapor Business Association and The Smoke House filed a joint lawsuit against the state, seeking an injunction on the legislation. But, in his ruling Barlow said the bill could still achieve its purpose without keeping the inspection program. Under the bill, the inspection program would have allowed state health departments to review at random.
Barlow said the bill “says nothing about the frequency of any such inspections. It does not say that they are to occur on a temporal basis, like annually or quarterly. It does not even say that they are to occur regularly. It simply says they ‘may’ occur. In short, the inspection program seemingly leaves it in inspectors’ hands entirely as to whether any inspections occur.” The judge further said the Legislature would have passed the bill regardless of whether an inspection program was in place, adding that “these provisions are operable without the inspection program, as they provide a comprehensive program for regulating electronic cigarettes and punishing retailers that sell banned products.”