Jake Browning
reporter@thefranklinpress.com
As more and more states start to crack down on vaping, vape sellers in Macon County say their businesses have taken a hit.
At Franklin Tobacco and Vape, business was very good for vapor-based smoking in the first half of the year.
However, that uptick in business came to a halt in August when an Illinois patient became the first person determined to have died of lung disease connected to vaping. More deaths were recorded in the months that followed, prompting calls for stricter regulations of the practice.
Cashier Lotfi Daouadi said vaping has helped many of his customers quit smoking cigarettes.
While there’s no medical consensus on the safety of vaping, Daouadi said vaping makes the process of quitting smoking much easier.
“There’s no tar in vapor that can get into your lungs, and people like the flavors,” Daouadi said. “A lot of older people were switching.”
President Donald Trump said he would pursue a ban on flavors in vapors to help deter children from vaping, though the administration backed off on that policy this week.
The greatest opposition to vaping has taken place at the state level. Massachusetts banned vaping entirely in September, while six other states have banned the sale of flavored nicotine.
State Rep. Kevin Corbin said the General Assembly is not currently moving to ban vaping, although he does see enough support among legislators that it could happen in the future.
“There’s no legislation on the floor and I haven’t heard talk of anything, but that sentiment does exist here,” Corbin said. “I believe it’s something that we could move towards.”
More than one in four high school students use e-cigarettes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Franklin High School adopted an anti-vaping policy in December 2018. Under the policy, the school can permanently confiscate e-cigarettes and other vaping paraphernalia and suspend students caught using them for up to two days.
Local vape sellers said legislators who seek widespread bans are missing the point.
Jessica Webb, owner of Smoky Mountain Vapors, said the practice itself isn’t the problem, but the distribution model is. The cases that have legislators around the country worried, she said, are tied to products one might get in a gas station or from a friend, not at a typical tobacco store.
“JUUL is so popular among kids because they’re being sold in gas stations, so they’re pocketing them or buying them without being carded,” Webb said.
Local sellers are optimistic about the future. Trump announced last week that he would meet with industry representatives and medical professionals “to come up with an acceptable solution to the vaping and e-cigarette dilemma.”
Webb thinks this means that more people are doing their research on vaping and forming their own opinions, while politicians are realizing just how many of their voters support vaping.
“This industry is a lot bigger than people first realized,” Webb said. “I think things are heading in the right direction.”