Last week, Gov. Katie Hobbs signed House Bill 4001, a measure described as the state’s “first step” toward the regulation of alternative nicotine products like vapes and e-cigarettes. 

The bill features new enforcement mechanisms from the Arizona Department of Liquor Licenses and Control and a ramping penalty system for entities selling to minors. 

Still, many say it doesn’t go far enough. 

In a recent interview with the Arizona Capitol Times, the Arizona director for the American Cancer Society Action Network, Brian Hummell, discussed the bill and what his organization hopes to see change for the vape industry next session. 

The questions and answers have been edited lightly for style and clarity.

Tell me what the Cancer Action Network does and how did you get involved?

About 25 years ago, the American Cancer Society decided to set up a separate entity, the Cancer Action Network, so that there would be no question that we could lobby on any issue without jeopardizing the 501c3 status of the American Cancer Society. By mandate of our board, we are 100% nonpartisan. We don’t have a PAC. We don’t endorse candidates. In terms of how I got involved, I’ve been in Arizona for 20 years now, and I’ve been with ACSCAN for over 15 years. Like most people, I have a connection to cancer in my family, so the work speaks to you and it’s pretty easy to be passionate about the mission of ACSCAN. 

Is Arizona late in addressing vapes?

There’s not a lot of states that you would consider to necessarily be up to speed. In our opinion, the best way to do this is to treat all of these products, e-cigarettes, alternative nicotine, vapes, whatever it is you want to call it — anything that has nicotine in it, you should treat it as a tobacco product. And they should be regulated because it’s a dangerous and addictive product. Arizona is one of 10 states that does not have a tobacco retail license. 

Why do we need a tobacco retail license?

It’s really important, although it’s incredibly boring, to define these products properly. We have not had a great definition. We also have not had a great definition in the past in so-called vapor products. That was not defined as a tobacco product but it had the penalties, and that seems to be the hang up for a lot of people. We want to make sure people are punished. I truly want to make sure that these products don’t get in the hands of young people because they’re addictive and that doesn’t mean that we should only focus on e-cigarettes. Conventional tobacco is still a real thing. There are still things like flavored cigars and chew that are still attractive to some demographics of young people. We still don’t know all the retailers who sell tobacco in Arizona and we’re not even trying. So let’s start there. Let’s make a proper definition of what a tobacco product is. 

How do you feel about the penalty structure written in the bill?

You’re starting to talk about a decent chunk of money, but the problem is, there’s no additional money for the enforcement of the penalty structure. The Attorney General’s Office does about 2,000 of these compliance checks a year. There’s a public website that lists their inspections and shows active entities they view as tobacco retailers, but nobody is required to tell them they’re selling tobacco. They estimate there’s somewhere between 5,500 and 8,000 entities. So between 5,500 to 8,000 entities and 2,000 inspections a year, I mean you can do the math there. About every three years, on average, somebody’s going to get one inspection. We like the phase structure of the penalty system, but they have to be done in a condensed time frame. HB4001 is written to be over a 24-month period so you have to rack up five violations in two years to hit the highest penalty. How is that ever going to happen? If you had a tobacco retail license, you could charge the fee that would establish annual compliance checks.

Some legislators from both sides of the aisle describe this as a good first step. Is it?

Let’s talk again in 12 months and see what the next version of the Arizona Legislature does around tobacco control. If we look at the history, we can see it’s not much. We’ve had 50 years since the beginning of tobacco regulation at the state level. We still don’t have a tobacco retail license. Everybody knows it’s the right thing to do. We should regulate a business that sells a dangerous and addictive product. If you want to tell me this is the lead up to next year with a tobacco retail license with good definitions and proper enforcement while not prohibiting local jurisdictions from doing more regulation on tobacco if they choose to do so, I’m in. But history would tell you, that is an incredibly unlikely scenario, and this is going to be something that’s revisited in maybe five, six or seven years. And then somebody will go, oh, there’s another new tobacco product that’s attractive to kids that should have been included in the definitions written in 4001. In the tobacco space, incrementalism is just not something that works. I have every expectation that the Attorney General’s Office will do what they can do with the limited resources they have in compliance checks, but let’s do something that actually shuts down somebody who is habitually selling to kids. So, we accept the invitation to do more and we hope to work with many lawmakers who want to do this the right way.

Lawmakers have been reluctant to tax alternative nicotine products and HB4001 doesn’t do that. Would you support a tax?

Again, there’s a right way to do this. We think about this issue for its public health impact. If we raise prices by a certain amount, people will quit. That’s a big win for that individual and it’s a big win for the state. With all the health concerns that can come about as a result of using tobacco, there’s a big benefit to Medicaid and a big benefit to productivity if more people are quitting. A tobacco tax should apply to all tobacco products, not just e-cigarettes. We haven’t increased the conventional tobacco tax in Arizona in 20 years — the same time as the smoke-free law. Our suggestion is to do a conventional tobacco tax, because we don’t want product shifting where people transition to another product or go back to conventional tobacco. People are going to the cheapest alternative to get their nicotine addiction and we don’t want that to happen in this space. 

So 40% of Arizona’s conventional tobacco tax goes to the early childhood education agency First Things First and their revenue is down compared to 2006 since conventional tobacco isn’t as popular as it used to be. Tell me about the other 60%.

Those recipients are suffering the same fate. They have also seen their revenues go down dramatically. Medicaid gets some of the tobacco tax, so if we’re making this adjustment for First Things First, shouldn’t we also be looking at these other accounts? We certainly think Medicaid is pretty important. Tobacco prevention programs are funded by that tax. Some of the money goes into corrections and a small amount goes into transportation. If we do a broad tobacco and nicotine tax, we need to make all of these accounts whole.