Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: Okay. Welcome back folks. House Human Services, we're continuing our testimony on S one ninety eight. Tina, thank you for your flexibility this Of course. Rosemary, thank you for being on. We will get to you right after we speak with Tina. Great. Thank you.

[Tina Zukan, Government Relations Director, American Heart Association]: Thanks for having me, most of you know that I'm Tina Zukan, I'm the government relations director for the American Heart Association. And I brought some, I'll pass this around if you want, but I just want to kind of forewarn you. So these are some baking products that were taken from schools in Vermont, from kids in Vermont. Anne B. Brewer, who represents Franklin County Community Coalition Organizer, works with kids, loaned these to me. And so feel free to look at them, because you were talking about the attractive colors and stuff that kids might like, and the fruity smells and all that. But if you handle them, do use your hand sanitizer afterwards. They are technically considered hazardous waste and have to be disposed of as such because they do have lithium batteries and they do have nicotine. But I do welcome you. It is kind of interesting to look at them because they really are designed to target kids. You can have mango, have lemon, and you can adjust what you taste and the nicotine levels. We don't have any in here that have video games, don't think, but they're cool. Switching their, you know, they're geared towards kids, if you'd like to pass them around.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: It's awesome. It's It's a lot

[Tina Zukan, Government Relations Director, American Heart Association]: of help. But

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Brian, it is.

[Tina Zukan, Government Relations Director, American Heart Association]: And they're disposable. That's a part of the problem too, is they're possible. See them around the road with yourself. I'm going to skip through some of this just because you've heard a lot of this from Jill, the American Heart Association supports this bill, but we feel it could be made stronger with some changes, and I'll mention a couple of those to you. The important cornerstone of the spill, as Matt Menier mentioned, is the provision that prevents the sale of the tobacco products that look like video games, toys, candy, and school supplies. I think you're going to see from Rose Kennedy, think, Chair, you asked about this question, too. Some of them look like inhalers, even. It's not sinister. Some look like the string on your footy, and so they are able to be retrieved pretty easily. None of those are the ones who are passing around, and think those are pretty bad games amongst themselves. But we have some that look like video games now, and they have 'puff to play', so the more you puff, the better you do in the game. That's not readily targeted to an adult. And unfortunately, they hook kids for a lifetime, because they aren't just games. They have nicotine from them. A long time ago, talked to a principal, I think he was at Montpelier High School, who was talking about this kid in the Pokemon games and how it's the newest, latest and greatest thing. But when he was done, he was done with them. With these who aren't done with them, because they have the nicotine that makes sure that they stay with you for a while, unfortunately. The bill currently eliminates penalties against youth for possessing or using tobacco, as we realize many youth in Vermont and elsewhere suffer from nicotine addiction after being aggressively marketed by the industries, it's the products that we're passing around. And if there's any doubt that the industry's tactics and design of these products are meant to lure kids, we only have to look to the comment that was made by the House Commerce Committee member after smelling these absolutely the same products and looking at them and said, Oh my God, I want Skittles now. And youth penalties are not effective public health prevention. They distract from efforts that are much more effective enforcement measures. They make kids, many of whom we talked about earlier, who are addicted to the victim, and they prevent youth from seeking counseling or cessation resources for fear of the youth spying. And maybe most importantly, they're not a proven measure for reducing the smoking. They don't work. Taking away these penalties will encourage addicted youth to come forward to get the help they need, that we've talked about here in this committee this year and many years. We believe the Senate reached a good compromise in this bill and that it penalized only the youth who misrepresent their age with a fake ID when purchasing tobacco. However, regarding that same section of the bill, it's on page nine, we would urge the committee to offer youth the option of cessation services. Jill mentioned the fine had increased, but we would urge the committee to offer youth the option of cessation services, really realizing that they might be addicted to nicotine and tobacco. It's here in my testimony that you can see, basically working with the health department to get some kind of cessation services in place of perhaps supplying would be their choice. S-one 198 takes the focus away from penalizing kids and instead puts the onus on retailers who should not be selling to anyone underage. It's a fair bill that tells Vermont retailers we're concerned about the potential impact of tobacco on kids while modernizing the tobacco retailer environment. We support the escalating monetary compliance check penalties, compliance check failure penalties paid by the retailer, with a consecutive day license suspension. Currently, it's not consecutive. If you get a fifteen day suspension, the overtime is still designated with that, which we like. There would be relocation by the fifth offense. And by this time, you've had five failures. Something's wrong. And we do appreciate very much the support of the retailers on this section of the bill. They have supported it, and we're grateful. We would prefer that the now increased fine of $150 for the first offense of selling to a youth on page nine, line 10, is directed back to a person. They changed it to an individual. We want it back to a person in the language because the clerk oftentimes is a youth and we would rather not have the youth fined and we'd rather have the owner fined. We would also appreciate the committee reinserting language, as Jill mentioned, as well the original version of the bill that created a new investigative position in the Department of Liquor and Lotteries that would largely enforce online violations for tobacco sales. And the original version also had a tax stamp on tobacco substitutes like these as a better way of limiting. They are taxed, but if you have the tax on the actual products, it would be easier for us to know if they have been taxed, if they're sold legally, and would limit some of the Wild West of the products out there. And then just lastly, considering the economic health of the state, it must include the impact of escalating health care costs and ways to reduce those. You might recall just a few years ago when we were in this committee, the annual cost of treating illnesses caused by tobacco use was $348,000,000 Not like that was a bargain, but it's now risen to $4.00 $4,000,000 annually to treat tobacco cause diseases in Vermont, and 93,700,000 of that is direct Medicaid expenditure. So we're all paying for the profits of the tobacco industry. Garofano, Testimony before the Senate Economic Development Committee from UVMMC cardiologists and heart association advocacy chair, Doctor. Golrang who believe this committee has heard before. I'm going to just quote a little bit from him. Tobacco related illnesses are a significant driver of healthcare costs in Vermont and contribute to cost shifting towards privately insured Vermonters. Tobacco use remains disproportionately high among individuals of lower socioeconomic status, and tobacco related illnesses have a long lead time, with many of the most expensive consequences occurring in late adulthood. Combined, these factors result in a disproportionate number of patients with tobacco related illnesses relying on federal and state insurance programs. For example, the majority of the patients treated at the hospital each year for heart attack are insured by Medicare as their average age is 68 to 72. About fifty percent of those patients had tobacco use disorder as part of their profile risk in 2024, despite a general population risk of, or rate rather, of twenty percent. Medicare reimbursement for a single hospital admission ranges from $15,000 to $25,000 and in many cases, this doesn't cover the full cost of care. And this shortfall leads Vermont hospitals to seek higher reimbursement from private insurance. Last year, UVMMC treated almost eight hundred patients at their hospital for heart attacks requiring expensive procedures, the majority considered preventable due to untreated cardiovascular risk, including tobacco use disorder. That's one hospital, just one. And with over sixteen percent of high school students and twenty seven point three percent of young adults reporting vagus, these costs will only continue to grow. It's not in my testimony, but I do want to point out, I think it was like a year ago, the Coalition for Tobacco Cleaning.

[Speaker 0]: Sorry, Tina. We just have a little more.

[Tina Zukan, Government Relations Director, American Heart Association]: Oh, but then you just listed on it.

[Speaker 0]: It's all good. Let's just try to ignore it as best we can, unless it lands on you. Or the redness. Yeah, it's okay. He's not really interested in us. So what I wanted to point out, that's funny, sorry, as well

[Tina Zukan, Government Relations Director, American Heart Association]: as the cardiovascular disease and the treatment we do at hospitals for the tobacco use, including cigarettes. The vaping products are kind of this newer thing that we don't really know a lot of the long term health effects. Our coalition held a kind of a community forum just to talk to people about the impacts impacts of vaping, etcetera, a year ago or so in Essex. And we had two dental hygienists who came who said, when you get your teeth cleaned, you go every six months. So she was seeing YouTube come with no problems, rather teeth, but no problem in general. And then had blisters at the back of their throats, right, from vaping. And so, whatever healthcare costs that we're seeing now, whatever they are, they will go up if we don't do more, and we see use escalating. As Jill said, Vermont youth and government agencies report it's very easy to get tobacco products, and we do need to do more to ensure that they can't. We urge you to support this legislation as it will strengthen Vermont's tobacco laws to ensure dangerous tobacco products are not sold in Vermont. And it also sends a message that the health of Vermont's youth is a priority to us in the state, and selling illegal tobacco products to them won't be tolerated. Happy to answer any questions, but I appreciate your time, and I hope you had a chance to look at some of those.

[Speaker 0]: And smell it, unfortunately. Yeah. Well, and that's part of it too.

[Tina Zukan, Government Relations Director, American Heart Association]: Think it was Matt who during the flavor campaign talked about that was a little bit of the lure too, right? When you're baking, you can smell it. So he would be like, Oh, what size is that cotton candy? Because smells yummy in the same way like I would be like, Oh, that coffee smells great, but got nicotine in there. The health department has done a great job, at least with the tobacco advocates. Talking about some of the research that's done on these, the majority of these have been found by researchers to also have lead in them. So it's not just nicotine that we're talking about.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah, lead, and I can remember a SAT that's got metal and things that people are ingesting through these products are pretty scary. And I think I'll be interested to hear more about, since we've heard from several witnesses now about how easy it is for youth to gain access to this. And we had heard previously it was older siblings or older friends who were over 18. Is it 18 or 21? 21. Yeah, about 21. Yeah, I said 18. But I guess I'm gonna be interested in the enforcement actions that DLL is taking, which I know that they are, but it seems insufficient right now, I guess I would say, or that we couldn't do better.

[Tina Zukan, Government Relations Director, American Heart Association]: Well, I don't have it in front of me. I might be on one of Jill's slides, but DLL does have good enforcement numbers just in terms of, I think it's at least 90% compliance. But I think we have like 700 and something retailers who sell tobacco. Even with 90% compliant, that's 10% who are. And are we okay with that? So that's like 70 stores who

[Speaker 0]: Well, was over 640,000 or something like that in fines.

[Tina Zukan, Government Relations Director, American Heart Association]: And that's online, so it's both brick and mortar. And the majority are doing a good job of the ones that have But compliance that's one check a

[Esme Cole (Member)]: year. So

[Tina Zukan, Government Relations Director, American Heart Association]: there is the rest of the year.

[Speaker 0]: I guess I would say that's a point in time. I guess, I wondered if

[Unidentified Committee Member]: they were serial murders, so you can see where they came from.

[Tina Zukan, Government Relations Director, American Heart Association]: I don't think so.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Just water.

[Tina Zukan, Government Relations Director, American Heart Association]: And they didn't Yeah, I think the question to Jill was whether or not there was warning or something that nicotine Not is in any of these have that. I don't know if, like, however they're packaged has to have that. Yeah. I'm doubtful any use, like, is looking at that to see. I I don't really know, perhaps. But they aren't once they're out of whatever packaging. Mhmm. It's not been on the best test.

[Speaker 0]: Well, it's it's just interesting just in the couple of years since it's been when we worked on s a team that how much more advanced that the industry has gotten. It's clearly profitable industry for the people making and selling this. And it seems pretty clear it's being targeted to youth for the long term impacts of the addiction that happens. And one of the things that you were talking about in hearing your recommendation is about offering an opportunity for the youth instead of a fine to have access to cessation services. But then we just heard Matt talk about that they don't really have those resources, or they haven't really it felt like they could be doing a better job of that. And so you have any idea what kind of resources it would take to be able to We can't just offer something if it's not I don't wanna put something in statute if it's not really gonna be implementable.

[Tina Zukan, Government Relations Director, American Heart Association]: That's probably a question for the health department. When we talk to them a little bit, there is, and Doctor. Golrang Rey mentioned this too, My Life Might Quit, that's geared more towards youth. Tech based, and that is popular, but works. You have to be, I believe, 18 to get actual nicotine replacement therapy. So you have to get that as a prescription from your doctor. But, you know, I talked to one of our volunteers, had her testifying here too, Kelly Landwehr, a school nurse from the Appleton County area. That was Jubilee. But she talks about how when the student is found with a vaping device, they really try to kind of wrap their arms around the student in terms of getting them care and resources. And some of that is people like Matt, who talked to them first, and talking to the school nurse, and then getting a visit with their pediatrician so they can get those resources and offering them the My Life, My Quit. And I think not on tobacco is this one as well. But that would be a good question for the health department. Is a little bit different in that some of them are true adults yet. Makes it a little bit trickier, but for sure, better than fine to start them down that road of let's help people.

[Speaker 0]: Of course, that's what we'd love to do, right? Yeah. Okay. Other questions for Tina? Thank you for your continued work in this space. Thank you. I appreciate that. Okay. Rose. Yes. Morning. Thank you for sticking with us and listening to the testimony this morning.

[Rose Kennedy, Assistant Attorney General (Vermont)]: Thank you. Let me just make sure my camera's on. Whoops.

[Speaker 0]: Not quite.

[Rose Kennedy, Assistant Attorney General (Vermont)]: What is happening? Sorry. Give me one second.

[Esme Cole (Member)]: Hot water.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. And now a freaking ice cold.

[Rose Kennedy, Assistant Attorney General (Vermont)]: How's that?

[Speaker 0]: Okay. You can see me now? Yeah, we can. Alright.

[Rose Kennedy, Assistant Attorney General (Vermont)]: So first of all, good morning. My name is Rose Kennedy. I'm an Assistant Attorney General. I'm sorry, I'm not with you in person. Would like to have been there. Normally, testify in person, but I wasn't feeling particularly great this week and didn't want to expose anybody. So bear with me. So I joined the Attorney General's office in 2022. And since 2024, I've been doing tobacco enforcement. Primarily that involves making sure that Vermont follows the MSA, you probably are familiar with the Master Settlement Agreement. It's the agreement between 46 states and territories and big tobacco that was resolved in 1998. And it basically provides rules around manufacturing, production, sale and marketing of combustible tobacco, which is largely cigarettes. And just this last week, we received from the tobacco industry, our annual MSA payment, it was 20, approximately $22,000,000 and we will receive that in perpetuity. So it just gives you as long as tobacco products are being sold, it gives you an idea of how first of all how profitable this industry is, and how much we've deemed it to be of risk to our community and our citizens. Vermont gets one of the smaller pavement payments amongst the states, as you can imagine. So we're talking a lot of money that's being made by big tobacco and others in industry. And at this point, I like to show you the MSA. It's kind of hard to do over video. But it's a pretty detailed document between the states and Big Tobacco about all the rules regulating sale of combustible cigarettes and other tobacco products. And most of my year is spent working with DLL and the Department of Tax to make sure that we are monitoring literally every cigarette that gets sold in our state. So I tell you all that as background, because when we turn to this market of vapes, and nicotine products, there really is no equivalent of, you know, a blueprint that is dealing with this industry. And some people have described it as the Wild West. It's a pretty chaotic market. Forgive me if I get your names wrong. I can't really read your plates. But I think, Representative Bishop, you were talking about the Fed's role in this. And so, you know, the MSA was signed in 1998. These products started to appear in the marketplace around 2006. And when that happened, the US Congress put the regulation and enforcement piece of these products in the federal government under the FDA around 2016. And I know that there was a question about sort of what that looked like. Well, and Jill sort of alluded to it, when these products first started to emerge, they were very popular very quickly. And the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration received something like 6,500,000 applications to put different products on the market. So they were easily overwhelmed. Each application is 1000s of documents of scientific data. Supposedly, we don't actually have access to that, because the FDA has authority over it. But they quickly were inundated. And so they developed this policy that allowed certain products to remain in the market, even without FDA authorization, basically using their prosecutorial discretion not to go out of these after these products. But what you need to understand is that since that time period, there has only been 41 e cigarettes and 26 nicotine vapes or nicotine pouches that have actually received FDA authorization and so are legal to sell in The United States. Everything else that you see on Vermont shelves is technically illegal. So that's why we're here. We really want some state laws to sort of fill in the gaps that we see in enforcement in this marketplace. You know, the problem is everyone has sort of talked about already is that this is a market that is geared towards the youth and getting them addicted for the next generation. So while we've made some big gains, with, you know, an older generation of, you know, not finding cigarettes necessarily that appealing, the younger generation is hooked and don't see quite the same health problems or don't understand what potential health problems are lurking with nicotine products. And I always like to sort of point out that rolled cigarettes were first mass produced in around 1880s. And it wasn't until 1964, with the Surgeon General's report that we knew that they were carcinogenic. So you know, if you think about these products hitting the market around 2006, there's still a lot we don't know about them. And the health complications will probably not be known for many years to come. And as you've alluded to already, recent studies have determined that when the nicotine, the liquid nicotine is heated, it releases metals. So there's a lot we're still learning. And while we thought when they first came on the market, that they might actually help adult smokers quit smoking, you should understand that not any of these products have been authorized as cessation or medical devices or products. So I'd like to share my screen if I could.

[Speaker 0]: In your way.

[Rose Kennedy, Assistant Attorney General (Vermont)]: Okay. And I think it was also

[Speaker 0]: We have it in our on our web page as well. Yes.

[Rose Kennedy, Assistant Attorney General (Vermont)]: Okay. And can you see it on the screen? Yes. Alright. So there was a question about, know, sort of how stealthy these products are. And that's what this bill is really trying to go after the devices that focus, you know, unarguably towards kids, and are designed to sort of mask themselves so that adults who are looking at these products wouldn't even know that they are a vape. So the first one is a toy that is a vape. There's cameras.

[Speaker 0]: Oh, those are cameras.

[Rose Kennedy, Assistant Attorney General (Vermont)]: Yeah. Sorry if I'm going too fast.

[Speaker 0]: No, no, no. I saw them on the on your presentation. I didn't realize they were cameras, though.

[Rose Kennedy, Assistant Attorney General (Vermont)]: There's hoodies, you know, the little drawstring.

[Tina Zukan, Government Relations Director, American Heart Association]: Someone

[Rose Kennedy, Assistant Attorney General (Vermont)]: else talked about the games that the more you puff, the more points you get. So the more a youth could become addicted. There's some that look like smartwatches. So a teacher wouldn't know that that's not something that shouldn't be in school. Inhalers, and then markers, and other school supplies. And I've been at, you know, presentations with adults, and they've been asked to sort of look in a kid's bedroom and find the vape, and oftentimes they can't. It's not very clear. So this bill would seek to make those outright illegal in Vermont. And the AGO is asking for the authority to go after those who would produce or sell or market those in Vermont the same way we do online sales of tobacco products. Currently, we have a specific online sales ban, which carries with it a civil penalty of $5,000 per sale, as well as the Consumer Protection Act, which allows us to go after these as deceptive trade practices. So we're asking for similar language in the bill to give us that authority so that we can try to make sure that those products don't land in our state. They have been found in our state already, but we want to make sure that they are illegal. Rose, one the

[Speaker 0]: things that rep Bishop asked about earlier was, what has the sort of history shown on the enforcement side of things? So once a company is fined and they pay the fine, does this just become, I think the term you use, the cost of doing business? Or has there Do you find them having repeated fines and repeated with the stuff that you're able to do right now?

[Rose Kennedy, Assistant Attorney General (Vermont)]: Specific to online sales, correct?

[Speaker 0]: Yeah.

[Rose Kennedy, Assistant Attorney General (Vermont)]: So that's a really good question. I've been doing the enforcement on online sales for about a year and a half. I think first of all, it's a wide web. So trying to capture who always selling the products into Vermont is not particularly easy. And when we do find websites that have sold into our state, it's it can be difficult to locate them. And sometimes they are located actually out of the country. So that's kind of hard to find. Or they if you go on on some of these websites, you cannot figure out where they're located. They don't provide any address or email, their contact information is vague. So trying to track them down has not been easy. When we do, are able to find, you know, as a CEO or an executive or someone who owns it, we use our subpoena powers to get more information about how much they've sold into our state. Sometimes it's one or two sales, sometimes it's in the hundreds. In the last year and a half, you know, I think we've closed businesses, we of course, will monitor to see if they open up under a different name. We find, you know, I think appropriately based on the number of sales and their cooperation, But it is an ongoing process. I think like, a couple years ago, our big settlement was with Amazon, because they were not paying attention to some of their, you know, sellers who were selling these products. You know, I can say that I think Amazon has done a lot to really repair the problem. And there's, you know, they are required under the agreement to give us an updated report every year for the next four years, I think. So in the last report that they gave us, it seemed like there was a drastic decline in these sales. So I think it helps. And I but I do think that it's very hard to capture everything that's helping on the happening on the website. And like I know when I go on these sites, even the very first questions often, know, are you over the age of 21? And I will just say yes, and then I'm in. Now, I don't I haven't personally tried to order. So I don't know if they become more strict as I tried to, you know, purchase something, but getting on the website, even if they say they have an age gate doesn't really seem to work. So and I will say that DOL and my office, I think work pretty well together sort of trying to strategize how we go about online sales. But it is an ongoing issue. I hope that answers your question.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah, good.

[Rose Kennedy, Assistant Attorney General (Vermont)]: So along those lines, you know, and I know DLL is going to testify, we are going to make a pitch to bring back the DLL position. I don't think we necessarily think it has to be specific to only online sales enforcement. We are under this under this new framework of enforcement asking DLL to take on, you know, retail audits, to make sure vapes are tax compliant. So that brings with it some extra work. And so we think that the extra resource makes sense. But of course, you're going to hear from the commissioner herself later on, I think. So I'll leave that to you. This bill attempts to decouple the license between alcohol and tobacco products. Vermont had a system where if a retailer wanted to sell alcohol, the tobacco license was thrown in basically for free. And then if they wanted to sell vaping and nicotine products, it was an extra $50 We've tried to increase the licensing fee for those and to separate them. We want it to be a more intentional act of selling these products, given the addictiveness of them, and the marketing to youth. I'm also going to make a pitch to bring back the tax stamp for vapes and nicotine products in the Senate that was converted to a study. And let me explain that process. So under the MSA, every single cigarette in a cigarette package or carton has a tax stamp on it. So when DLL goes into a brick and mortar store, they just look on the shelves. And if something doesn't have a tax stamp on it, they know it's not in compliance with the law. There is no equivalent for vapes and nicotine pouches. So while Vermont, I think rightly assess the tax at 92%, The monitoring of that payment is at the wholesale level, and not at the retail level. So there is no system in place to actually make sure that the tax that was paid at the wholesale level is the same product that's on the shelves in the store. So worst case scenario, and we're not saying that retailers are doing this, but it's possible that you could buy these products online, and then put them in your store and the tax wouldn't be collected. And so we thought that it made sense to mandate a tax stamp for these products as well. So that it's very easy for DOL to go into a store and make sure that the tax has actually been collected. We've met with industry and wholesalers and we understand that these products are not as uniform as cigarettes or a pack of cigarettes. But, you know, we do think that there's technology available, that they should be able to figure this out. And we've asked for like a late implementation date so that this gets worked out sooner rather than later, and that Vermont doesn't miss out on the 92% tax that it should be collecting. The other part of that, just to be clear, is we asked to make some changes to the online sales ban. So currently, the language was such that it a wholesale dealer would could receive them or a retailer and we've asked to strike that so that these products come from a licensed wholesale dealer to a licensed retail dealer, retailer, we want to make it very clear, you know, the chain of production to sale, so that we can monitor exactly where these products are coming from. There was, there still is in the study portion of the bill, some discussion about, you know, we're seeing an increase in nicotine concentration. And so how do we deal with that? I do think that that might still be appropriate for study on whether or not we want to tax. We had talked about if something was like five milligrams per milliliter of nicotine, that it should be taxed at a higher rate. And so you are going to see increasing levels of nicotine. And so we may need to address how we want to handle those. And so I do think that's appropriate to remain in the study. But the you know, 2% tax is already assessed by Vermont. So making sure we're collecting it seems like something we should do immediately. Lastly, I'll just talk about the PUP laws. You've heard a little bit about that from the other witnesses. Our office is in support of getting rid of the penalties and fines associated with possession. We did negotiate to keep some language around using fake IDs. We don't have an objection. If the committee wants to amend the fine back to what it was, I think it was 50 and it got bumped up to maybe 100 or 150. I don't remember. But, we have no objection to the proposal that was made today of reducing that. We also feel very strongly that, youth 21 should not be allowed to possess these products. And we want the ability for reasonable and you know, adults with authority to confiscate them. So I think Todd DeLos from my office sent over some language that we talked about yesterday as a group, and I'm happy to discuss that more. But that's where we've landed, so that we can make sure that, you know, if a 12 year old is walking down the street with packed cigarettes, you know, we don't have to just let them keep walking, we can actually go over and try to take the cigarettes away, again, without any penalties or fine associated with it, just confiscating it. So I think I've covered everything. Oh, I know, representative Cole, you talked about the graphic warnings, you should know that as far as the cigarettes are concerned, there's about 10 warnings that have already been produced that are very graphic in nature. And we are literally just waiting for the FDA to tell us to put them on the path or you know, to tell industry to put them on the package. It's been something that's been negotiated with the states and I guess the FDA and everybody for a long time. But again, the MSA controls combustible cigarettes, nothing is the same with vapes. I think Tina was talking about the packaging, the packaging of the vapes usually does have, you know, a warning that nicotine is addictive. That's the extent of it. And like she said, once someone opens up the box and gets the vape outside, usually it's not inside.

[Speaker 0]: Rose, we do have the language that Todd sent over, around the fines, etcetera. But I'm just you've also made some specific suggestions around some other things. So we don't have any language about the other things that you're suggesting. Are you sending something over?

[Rose Kennedy, Assistant Attorney General (Vermont)]: So the language about penalties for these products, that's in the current, so you should have that. And we could probably for this converting this study back to language that gets implemented a little bit later for stamps, we could send you that.

[Speaker 0]: Or at least if we could have a memo from you saying that these are things that the Attorney General's office would be interested in a change of language, would be helpful.

[Rose Kennedy, Assistant Attorney General (Vermont)]: It was in the original version, so I can get that to you soon.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah, that would be great. Great. Okay, questions for dates of this year?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Go ahead. I just had a question on the tax stamps. Do they have serial numbers on them so you know where the products came from?

[Rose Kennedy, Assistant Attorney General (Vermont)]: Oh, that's a question probably for DOL. I'm not a 100% sure.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Thanks.

[Speaker 0]: Any other questions? Okay. Thank you very much, Rose. I appreciate you being here and thank you for your testimony.

[Rose Kennedy, Assistant Attorney General (Vermont)]: Thank you for your consideration of this bill. Thank you.

[Esme Cole (Member)]: Thank you. Okay,

[Speaker 0]: folks, that actually wraps up our morning on testimony, but why don't we take a few minutes to just chat about what people's impressions are so far on S-one 198 in terms of the language that's been proposed, concept of utilizing the fines that are collected to fund an additional enforcement position at DLL. Anything And else people have on their minds about this bill? Anybody have any initial thoughts?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I like removing the kind of punitive aspect of it, for kids, know, our testimony that that's not effective, and I would like to see better sports, especially in schools, or a way where a referral can be made to an organization like Journey to Recovery who has testified in our, that is super effective. So that's something I think would be worthwhile for us either now or at a later point to figure out can some of the settlement money be used to kind of scale up some of those, because I agree, I think if we add the, there must be a choice or something offered for treatment. We need to make sure that that's available. Right, so

[Speaker 0]: we'll hear from the health department about that,

[Unidentified Committee Member]: for sure. And also along that lines, what is their success rate? I know it's hard to track kids once they're out of school, but if somebody is referred to tobacco sensation, what's the follow-up on that and what are the outcomes? Is there a way to track if that worked? And like I said, I know it's hard to track kids when they leave school, but do you find that that student changed behavior because of having that access?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah, no, I agree. And not just that like whether it worked or not is obviously, this would be even harder, but why not? Was it

[Esme Cole (Member)]: because

[Unidentified Committee Member]: we didn't put enough resources or is it because this method doesn't work? But I did, I was going back and kind of looking at the testimony from last biennium because it is something we talked about a lot and took some really good testimony on. And it's still I don't know, a value I kind of uphold, but agree that we do need to figure out some sort of mechanism to make sure it's actually offered. Then to no matter where you are in this state. Yeah.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I definitely like the idea of not allowing stuff that looks like toys or looks like something else, just like, they shouldn't even be selling stuff. Tell them no.

[Speaker 0]: The markers, like really? The mat? Inhalers? Was very sad.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: What's mind boggling to all this is that vapes and vape products, it wasn't the original concept, but the concept behind it was like harm reduction and sensation for tobacco use. And this is what it escalated to. That is absolutely mind boggling. It

[Speaker 0]: did, it actually

[Unidentified Committee Member]: set up for people. Using combustible tobacco and to say, hey, look, I don't wanna use this

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Stop product using it. Harm reduction and

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Not just how quick, like how much it's escalated, but like how quickly. It's really just I mean, what we've to the current what we're seeing here,

[Speaker 0]: We did not see what we're seeing here two years or three years ago. Yeah. We were doing the same was the same thing. Yeah. That was markers. We didn't see games. We didn't you know, I I'm just like, and then the, you know, and then they're making them bigger and bigger so they can, you know, give them more and more. Yeah.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I found fascinating the testimony that college age kids are turning to, like, cigarettes because these are for kids. That is just startling. Yeah.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: That's mind boggling. Yeah. That's a new word. This is all mind boggling. Oh yeah, I'm trying to At the very beginning, whack a mole is what it feels like.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah, every time change the law, they figure out some other way around. I mean, this is total about revenue enhancement for the tobacco and diversification for tobacco companies.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Talk about investments that they're making into their futures. But I guess I'm curious where these are coming from.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Are they coming from tobacco companies or are they

[Speaker 0]: Some of them are. Not all of them. Some of them are standalone companies.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah. Remember seeing some graphs of the market projections for some of these back when we did the other bill. And I wondered if those held true.

[Speaker 0]: Oh, no, they probably But they were showing like a

[Unidentified Committee Member]: pretty steep increase in their market projections. And I just wonder if that's actually what happened.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: We had testimony last biennium from a scientist who walked us through the brain chemistry. And I just remember then thinking about, and we were beginning to be able to see some of that, like the difference between a vape, and that was based on Juul. And difference, like menthol was a big conversation then, which I'm not getting into. But now I'm just wondering about that same kind of information and thinking about these devices that hold like 20 packets worth of cigarettes and nicotine in them. It's just

[Speaker 0]: Yeah, it's pretty, I agree with you, Eric, it's pretty mind boggling, what's happening and how kids are getting access to this stuff pretty easily. And I think it's, we've done quite a bit, but it's very clear that we have not kept pace with what the industry is doing. We always, I don't know, for I've seen a few of these bills come through now and that we've worked on over the years. And it feels like we are just like on this never ending treadmill trying to keep up with the innovation, I use in quotes, that the industry comes up with and the marketing is so clear. I mean, it's even clearer now. I mean, I thought it was clear last biennium and it is like, you know, double or triple clear now. And this is just being marketed to youth and it's wacky. Were you gonna

[Esme Cole (Member)]: say something Esme? Yeah. Well, thinking about this, attacking this just suddenly has two layers to it, which one of course is the regulation, what's allowed to exist on the market in the first place, and then the other factor is we just had prevention day a week ago or two weeks ago or something, and really, can't happen without the other. I think both regulation and prevention need to take place. But really, guess I personally wasn't quite sure based on the testimony and I know the focus wasn't nicotine, focus wasn't tobacco necessarily alone. But how successful are the tactics that we've been using for this specific issue? Is the money going to precisely what we think would be? You talked about following up on the rates of cessation and really understanding what's most effective and where we're putting our money with the prevention piece. But of course, not at all discounting regulation must take place. They can't do it on their own. So really taking a critical look at how we're directing those groups as a function.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: And we did hear that some of the products are approved by the

[Speaker 0]: FDA. Yeah, that happened a couple of summers.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So the question is like, maybe those are the products that you can sell. So that kind of keeps up with any new products coming on the market.

[Speaker 0]: Sign me up, I'll sign on to that one.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: But you know what I mean? Like that way, as you were talking, the market's and new stuff's coming on, it's probably not going through the FDA process as quickly as a new product could be brought to market.

[Speaker 0]: No, and I recall the testimony about that whole approval process. And there's this, I can't remember what it's called, but it's a pre approval process that enables them to actually be on the market. And so you'd have to be kind of aware about that.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: And I wonder if any of the ones with the video games built in actually went through that process. No. No. And so this would just keep Vermont in front of by saying, this is all you're allowed to sell here. Because for someone who is trying to quit cigarettes or someone who is, I mean, that's their prerogative, but for marketing to children and really focusing on that is what, obviously, the goal of this is. So you learn the most interesting things in the ladies room.

[Speaker 0]: At break, probably the same in the men's room too, I don't know, or the universal bathrooms. So I learned that England is just putting forth the ban on all products, all nicotine products, I think. I'd have to research the exact article, but for people born after a certain date. They're essentially eliminating the sale of anything.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Oh, and it progresses.

[Speaker 0]: It's on a birthday or something. Yeah, what is

[Unidentified Committee Member]: it exactly? Just one second here. So actually Massachusetts is doing this as well, but it's this, in certain townships, they're adopting it. But it's the idea that there will not be faculty use in the further generations.

[Speaker 0]: Yes, right, yes, it's looking to move out generations, which is a really interesting idea.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: That's interesting. You can have a 50 year old who can't buy the product, but a 51 year old who can.

[Speaker 0]: Who can, mean that's But yeah, I mean, I think it's really important for us, we talk about healthcare crisis and the cost of We talked about that in this building ad nauseam all the time, and it's in the public all the time in every conversation. Well, this is a very high cost adder to healthcare. And so this bill is more narrow in focus. However, for anybody who might be thinking about coming back, if you're voted back, I would be interested in working on this again, a version of a little bit different, maybe a little bit more focused version of s 18. I don't know. I feel like, you know, who's ever governor at the November or January next year, they need to actually sit down and listen to this kinds of presentation to see how these end. Tina, we'll take your bucket with us and have whoever is sitting in that chair smell what is in your bucket and tell me that's not being targeted to kids and just the way it looks. So that argument is stronger than ever now. And I'm sure over the next twelve to twenty four months, it's even going to be gaining momentum. So, and we heard last biennium, the behavioral issues, we hear all the time about the challenges that schools are having with students. There's, We hear a lot about post COVID and I'm like, okay, but I'm going to put my money on the use of vapes by youth in terms of the behavioral challenges that it presents for schools. So anyways, more work to do on it, but let's take a look at what folks are proposing. Me just see, I'm trying to remember if we have any, we have testimony coming from the health department and we have liquor and lottery and we have the Vermont Retail Grocers Association. The Grocers Association and testimony is being moved to Friday. Maggie Lenz had something come up where she wasn't able to come today. And then I think we're gonna be moving to markup on this bill next week. So hopefully get it out of here and back to the Senate with any changes that we make and continue our work on it for anybody who's interested next biennial. Which I didn't say before, did I Jill? When you asked me that question We had S-eighteen PTSD, but see the evidence and you see what's being done. You have to be fired up to do something about it. To find our

[Unidentified Committee Member]: no vapes for munchkins. I know, right?

[Speaker 0]: Oh my gosh, we're all set to have to eat. We'll be back up to your floor. Wait, and just everybody remember, we have two bills on the floor. Esme and Doug will be presenting our bills on the floor. You're good. So, these everybody and let's say they are there's only there's there's a third reading and then it's just our two bills. Don't so please put the floor on time and it'll be