Back in October the Center for Disease Control (CDC) declared a state of emergency from the national outbreak of pulmonary illness linked to vaping. Governor Jay Inslee, The State’s Board of Health, and the State’s Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB) banned flavored vape cartridges from the marijuana industry in accordance with the national outbreak in hopes to save the children. Well guess what folks?! The storm has passed, the children are secure, and we’re getting our flavored vapes back.
The LCB sent out an email yesterday, January 23, briefing the rules going forward and the plan to re-implement flavored vape carts to the industry. The main points of the email are outlined below:
- The State Board of Health emergency rule temporarily banning flavored vapor products remains in effect through February 7, 2020. On February 8, 2020, retailers may legally sell flavored vapor products.
- As of February 8, 2020, you no longer are required to post the warning sign about the severe lung injury.
- The State Board of Health emergency rule temporarily banning vapor products with vitamin E acetate remains in effect until March 19.
- The Board is expected to withdraw all LCB flavored-vapor-product rules that are tied to the State Board of Health rules.
- Marijuana Vapor Product Ingredient Disclosure forms are still required to be submitted by all producer/processor and processor licensees for each vapor product. For more information, see the Links to Required Documents box on our Vapor and Public Health
Now I get to rant about the over regulation of our beloved LCB, and the fallout businesses deal with from them out thinking the room on this issue.
I get it, the CDC declared a state of emergency, and thats a big deal. Instead of looking toward the black market for the issue, our governor put a 4 month halt on legal, regulated businesses. This was a completely unnecessary move that messed with the production line of a lot of companies. For instance, lets take a company like Hellavated, who solely made flavored vapes, and take a closer look at how they were impacted.
Pre-October, Hellavated had a myriad of flavored vapes like strawberry, blueberry, watermelon, mint, yada yada, you get the picture. At any given time in our store we had at least 6 different flavors in disposable vape carts, full gram 510 threaded carts, and the pax pod line. They had flavor specific, color coded packaging, and hardware to go with each flavored product.
On October 9th, our governor deemed their product not safe for consumption. Hellavated then had to halt production and re-market and re-think their whole line of products to tailor to the new rules. I don’t have the specific stats nor do I need them to tell you this was not a cheap task, that could have very well crippled smaller businesses that didn’t have the capital to jump over this hurdle tossed in by the LCB.
Anyways fast forward to yesterday and the LCB abolished all the unnecessary over regulation of flavored vape carts effective February 8th. Vapor blazers everywhere rejoice.