{"id":31668,"date":"2022-02-18T10:39:02","date_gmt":"2022-02-18T16:39:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=31668"},"modified":"2022-02-18T13:28:39","modified_gmt":"2022-02-18T19:28:39","slug":"bill-would-prevent-local-vaping-bans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=31668","title":{"rendered":"Bill would prevent local vaping bans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Political subdivisions in Nebraska would be limited in how they regulate electronic smoking devices under a bill heard Feb. 17 by the Health and Human Services Committee.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Justin Wayne<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LB954, introduced by Omaha Sen. Justin Wayne, would prohibit counties and municipalities from adopting ordinances or resolutions regarding electronic smoking devices that are more restrictive than the provisions of the Nebraska Clean Indoor Air Act. This would include banning certain smoking devices or flavors.<\/p>\n

Wayne said the bill would prevent a \u201cpatchwork\u201d of vaping regulations across the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would make it easier for the industry to provide their services to their customers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Sarah Linden, president of the Nebraska Vape Venders Association, testified in support of the bill. She said the Nebraska Clean Indoor Air Act allows vape shop customers to sample products, but Lincoln and Grand Island have ordinances banning indoor vaping in all circumstances. LB954 would standardize the law across the state and enable customers to try out various products before they purchase them, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing worse than buying something and deciding you don\u2019t like it once you get home,\u201d Linden said.<\/p>\n

Dave Watts, president of the Nebraska Medical Association, spoke in opposition to the bill. He said state law should apply equally to vaping and cigarettes.<\/p>\n

\u201cVaping devices don\u2019t simply emit harmless water vapor \u2026 heating the substances in the chamber of a vaping device creates an aerosol,\u201d Watts said. \u201cUnlike water vapor, that aerosol contains nicotine \u2014 ultra-fine particles that can worsen asthma \u2014 and toxins that are known to cause cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maggie Ballard of Heartland Family Service also testified in opposition to LB954. She said nicotine is a “pilot light” for other addictions and that individuals with substance abuse disorders are better off without it.<\/p>\n

\u201cCommunity members want to see less vaping, not more,\u201d Ballard said.<\/p>\n

Also in opposition was Lash Chaffin of the League of Nebraska Municipalities. He said the bill would take away a municipality\u2019s ability to regulate vaping as it sees fit.<\/p>\n

The committee took no immediate action on LB954.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Political subdivisions in Nebraska would be limited in how they regulate electronic smoking devices under a bill heard Feb. 17 by the Health and Human Services Committee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[191],"class_list":["post-31668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-and-human-services","tag-sen-justin-wayne"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31668"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31677,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31668\/revisions\/31677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}