Please click on the CALL TO ACTION banner below or here to make your voice heard. It is crucial that politicians are reminded that vapers vote. The stakes are extremely high. Vaping in Michigan is once again under attack. 

Lawmakers in Michigan are going all in to ban nicotine vapes, with bills 647, 648, and 649.  These bills include everything from a flavor ban and tax hikes to repealing state preemption of local tobacco retailer laws.

Michigan's Problematic Vape Policies

In 2019, the state of Michigan's health officials, answering directly to Governor Whitmer, failed for nearly three months to warn residents that black market cannabis carts were causing an outbreak of lung illness (EVALI).

Instead they used the crisis as an opportunity to ban flavored nicotine vapes under emergency provisions.

Michigan did not ban vitamin E acetate from cannabis products until late November. It is almost like the governor had some vested interest in protecting the cannabis industry. 

The cause of EVALI was known by Labor Day and discussed on other state public health websites such as New York and Utah.

The CDC investigation found that the responsible adulterant, vitamin E acetate, was not found in a single commercially available nicotine product.  Granted, the CDC was not eager to clear the name of nicotine vaping and released their findings on the Friday before Christmas 2019. 

Michigan's problematic approach to adult vaping continues to this day. Youth vaping rates have fallen every year since 2019, but you would never guess this based on the raft of new anti-vaping legislation that has been proposed for the 2024 legislative session. 

Flavor Bans Increase Cigarette Sales

Despite FDA sponsored research showing the flavor bans increase cigarette sales and falling rates of youth vaping, Michigan has decided now is a great time to hammer a final nail in the coffin of the state's independent vaping industry. 

It remains a strange situation when a state seems to have a cannabis dispensary at every exit but adults are being barred from accessing smoke and ash free combustible cigarette alternatives. 

Michigan Senate Bills 647, 648, and 649 would ban the flavors adults prefer, ban popular products, increase the tax burden on vapers, and in general kill entrepreneurship, jobs and eventually perhaps even the vapers funneled back into the waiting arms of Big Tobacco.