May 27, 2021 4:10 a.m. 

On Wednesday, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum applauded the Oregon legislature for passing legislation which she says will close a loophole that allows underage Oregonians to purchase vaping products over the internet.

Under HB2261, all nicotine vaping devices and components will no longer be able to be sold online.

A release from the AG’s office, said the bill had previously passed out of the Oregon House with near-unanimous approval. It is now headed to Governor Kate Brown’s desk for her signature.

Rosenblum said, “There is no effective way to verify an age or stop minors from purchasing these products over the internet”. She said that in Oregon, cigarettes cannot be purchased online, and “…there is no good reason to be able to buy vape products online either”. Rosenblum said despite steep declines in the rate of underage cigarette smoking, increasing e-cigarette use among teenagers is threatening years of public health progress. She said, “If we want to make real progress in lowering rates of teenage vaping, we need to close this online sales loophole”.

The release said that in 2019, one in four high school students and one in ten middle school students in the United States reported that they had vaped with an electronic cigarette in the past thirty days.

Rosenblum said among other ingredients, the vapor in these products includes heavy metals, cancer-causing chemicals, volatile organic compounds, flavoring linked to serious health disease and nicotine – which she said is especially toxic to adolescents with developing brains.