Juneau lawmaker’s bill to raise purchasing age, impose state tax on e-cigs sees mixed support
The minimum purchasing age for e-cigarette or vape products in the state could go from 19 to 21 years old and products could be taxed an additional 25%.
At a House Labor and Commerce Committee meeting on Monday, members of the public weighed in on a bill introduced by Rep. Sara Hannan, D-Juneau. Versions of this bill have come before lawmakers multiple times in the past few years and public testimony was divided.
Leena Edais graduated from Anchorage’s Dimond High School in May. She’s co-president of Youth Encouraging Alaskans’ Health, or YEAH, a tobacco prevention and education coalition. She supports the bill.
“Whether it was in the halls, the classrooms, or anywhere in schools, you would see students taking a hit of their vape,” Edais said. “At my high school, it got to a point where so many people were using these products in bathrooms that every single bathroom door in the high school had to be opened for like half of the school year.”
Edais said she worries that the prevalence of vape products among high school students is negatively impacting their overall health and academic success.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaping and nicotine addiction can harm adolescent brain development and lead to increased stress or anxiety. In 2023, 17.3% of Alaska high schoolers reported vaping over the prior 30 days.
Roey Armstrong, co-president of YEAH and another recent high school graduate, said the additional tax included in the bill could help prevent students from becoming addicted in the first place.
“Once you’re addicted to a substance, it’s very hard to quit, and you will do a lot to get the substance that you’re addicted to,” Armstrong said. “These price increases are going to stop more youth from starting because of their budget constraints.”
Not everyone is on board with the bill. Shaun D’Sylva, owner of Fatboy Vapors Alaska, argued vapes are a safer alternative to cigarettes, and the additional tax on products could push more people to take up cigarettes instead.
Anchorage resident Mark Sundquist told the committee on Monday that the tax would drive people away from purchasing products from local retailers and that patrons would instead get them illegally.
“While the intention may be to discourage the use of e-vapor products, these tax rates would inadvertently make legal and regulated products more expensive,” Sundquist said. “This, in turn, would create a price advantage for illicit products on the black market.”
Hannan said the sales tax is the point — they’ve been proven to reduce youth tobacco use — and she’d like to align state law with federal law. In 2019, a federal law raised the national legal age for purchasing, selling or distributing tobacco products to 21 years old.
“I certainly think that we want to make sure that we are regulating as best we can products that are legally for sale,” she said.
Sen. Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, filed a similar version of the bill in the Senate. He’s been a proponent of raising the minimum age for the past decade.
On Monday members of the House Labor and Commerce Committee voted 4-2 to advance the bill. It will next be considered by the House Finance Committee.