Councilman Greenlee proposes bill prohibiting e-cigarette sales to minors

Where former City Councilman Bill Green's move to ban the indoor use of electronic cigarettes is a preemptive step in the wrong direction, Councilman Bill Greenlee's latest proposal, in contrast, is logical. Sort of.

Councilman Greenlee has introduced legislation into City Council that would ban the sale of e-cigarettes to minors throughout Philadelphia—an act against which there is currently no law. However, despite that fact, most vape shops in the city do enforce their own 18+ sales rules, so opposition against this one doesn't stand to be very large.

"We think, at least when it comes to kids, when there's a question, we should err on the side of limiting — or not allowing sales to them — until such studies are more definitive," Greenlee said.

Now, to be fair, Greenlee's opinion as far as the quote goes seems to run very closely to Green's in that it's a "guilty until proven innocent" take (probably because he was a co-author of that same bill). However, where Green's bill wants to ban indoor use for everyone, Greenlee is looking at regulating who can have access to the devices. Naturally, the idea is to remove the ability for underage people to intake nicotine—just as with age laws for cigarettes and the like.

Noble, but the problem is that the nicotine liquid inside e-cigarettes is something Greenlee also wants to want to regulate—not just the devices themselves. E-liquid is widely and seperately available from e-cigarettes, and, in fact, comes in a variety of nicotine concentrations—including zero percent, which likely wouldn't fall under regulation since there's no drug in it.

Coincidentally, nicotine concentrates are available online and do not require an ID to obtain in many cases, meaning that mixing zero-nicotine juices with concentrated nicotine to make your own blend is not only possible, but relatively easy. In that sense, a local prohibition of sales to minors only seems to solve part of the problem.

Greenlee says he'd like to see both his own and Green's plans move into law, but the latter has not yet been debated in committee. Which, for vapers generally speaking, is good news—at least for now. Underage members of that set, however, appear to have been put on notice.

[CBS]