At City Hall Monday, referendum backers turned in an estimated 34,000 signatures calling for repeal, well above the 19,000 signatures the measure needed to qualify for the ballot. The city clerk has 30 days to verify signatures. If backers meet the threshold, supervisors will decide whether to repeal the law; schedule a special election; or hold an election in June 2018, the date of the next regularly scheduled vote. The latter course is most likely.

Although backed by the tobacco industry, the repeal effort focuses primarily on issues of tobacco “harm reduction.” That’s the idea that health officials ought to promote policies designed to reduce the harmful effects of tobacco and other addictions, rather than insist on a more idealistic, yet less potentially successful, abstinence-based approach. In other words, it might help people if they switch from dangerous behaviors to less-dangerous ones, even if the less-dangerous ones aren’t totally safe.

There’s no debate about the dangers of traditional cigarette smoking and, perhaps to a lesser extent, other combustible tobacco products such as cigarillos and cigars. But the wide-ranging city ban also defines electronic cigarettes as tobacco. Vaping liquids are not actually a tobacco product, but most contain nicotine. All of these liquids are flavored.

Under the new ordinance, retailers will no longer be allowed to sell vaping liquids, which will make it more difficult for cigarette smokers to switch to them. Public Health England, Great Britain’s main public-health agency, deems vaping to be 95 percent safer than smoking. For that reason, the vaping industry, well represented at a Monday news conference on the City Hall steps, depicted the city’s ban as a threat to the public’s health.

As they explain it, under the new law, cigarettes (although not menthol ones, or fruity cigars) can still be sold legally in the city. But less harmful tobacco-related products such as snus (spitless Swedish-style tobacco that is placed under one’s upper lip) and vaping will be outlawed. Those addicted to nicotine will find it easier to just grab a pack of traditional cigarettes, given that these safer alternatives will be off store shelves.

During the debate, city officials rebuffed such harm-reduction arguments. “We’re focusing on flavored products because they are widely considered to be a starter product for future smokers,” said Supervisor Malia Cohen, who introduced the unanimously passed ordinance. She argued that tobacco companies target poor, young and minority communities with flavored products to hook them on a lifetime of nicotine additions.

Ordinance backers depicted vaping as another tool in Big Tobacco’s arsenal. Yet a news story this week from San Francisco’s public-radio station KQED seemed to confirm at least some of the points the vaping supporters were making. “Electronic cigarettes may be a helpful tool for those who are looking to quit smoking, according to a recent study,” noted the report by Anna Kusmer. “This complicates the public health narrative around this new tobacco product, which have grown in popularity in the U.S. over the past decade.” Complicate, it does indeed.

And a new survey from Chris Russell and Neil McKeganey from the Centre for Substance Use Research in Glasgow, Scotland has rebutted the idea of vaping as a gateway to traditional cigarette smoking. The researchers found that: “More than 75 percent of American adult frequent (electronic vaping product, or EVP) users surveyed were cigarette smokers when they began using e-cigarettes and have now successfully quit smoking.” Yet less than “5 percent of current EVP users were non-smokers before beginning e-cigarette use.”

Referendum supporters also pointed to the economic impact of shutting down such a large portion of the city’s convenience-store industry. For instance, possession and use of menthol cigarettes and vaping products will still be legal in San Francisco, but consumers will have to travel to other localities or order the products online. The city’s Office of Small Business opposed the ban because, in part, of the ease of buying products other places.

CNN also reported on some recent data: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that tobacco use among high-school and middle-school students remained unchanged from 2011 to 2016, but that from 2015 to 2016, there were decreases in use of any tobacco product, e-cigarettes and hookahs among high school students. For middle-schoolers, rates of e-cigarette use dropped slightly as well. E-cigarette advocates say that’s evidence vaping is not becoming the teen epidemic that its proponents suggest.

However, California’s Tobacco Education and Research Oversight Committee, which oversees spending from the state’s recently enacted $2 a pack cigarette-tax increase, seems to view vaping as just another form of smoking. That’s a prevalent view among state and local health officials, who focus on vaping’s potential health concerns, rather than on the lower risks it creates in comparison to traditional cigarette smoking. They promote the use of medically approved tobacco-cessation devices instead, despite their low rates of success.

The new law’s backers also point to studies that suggest potentially bad health effects from the use of e-cigarettes. But referendum supporters note the irony that San Francisco, a city that has long pioneered harm-reduction policies when it comes to sexual behavior and drug use (safe sex programs and needle exchanges for heroin users), is instead taking a Prohibition-oriented approach when it comes to tobacco products, especially as the state legalizes the once-prohibited marijuana.

The scientific and public-policy debates aren’t going away. But this much is certain. The coming San Francisco referendum will show whether vaping’s supporters will be able to halt the wave of flavored-tobacco bans. If they don’t succeed, there will be little to stop Bay Area and other California localities from moving forward with similar bans.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

Advocates for these types of investments often argue that it’s good business to focus more on “socially responsible” companies or to divest from others, but an ongoing debate at CalPERS suggests that isn’t always necessarily true. For months, CalPERS’ top investment officials have been setting the stage for a vote in the investment committee on Monday. They proposed ending CalPERS’ 16-year policy of divesting from tobacco stocks – a decision that analysts say has cost the underfunded system as much as $3 billion over the years as tobacco stocks have soared.

But in a 9-3 vote, the investment committee decided not only to maintain its current ban on tobacco investments, but to expand it further. As the Sacramento Bee reported, the committee’s vote is final because it includes all members of the governing board.

CalPERS depicted its original divestment decision as a financial rather than social one and committee members made the same point on Monday.

In 2000, tobacco companies were facing lawsuits. But as the Wall Street Journal reported in April, “The MSCI World Tobacco index returned more than 309 percent in total returns over the decade from 2005 to 2015, compared with 172 percent total returns for the broader MSCI World consumer staples index, according to FactSet.” And on Monday the committee also argued that tobacco investments still have long-term risks, despite the recent tobacco-stock performance.

Yet despite the financial justifications, there’s always been a strong social element about the divestment strategy. The latest remarks from top state officials and editorial boards makes clear that the tobacco-divestment issue is a social matter as much as a financial-performance-related one.

“Not only is this a predatory out-of-state industry whose child-baiting marketing tactics are disgraceful, but its product is responsible for more than $13 billion in annual health care costs,” said Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, in a statement after CalPERS announced a reconsideration of its policy. “Taxpayers will be forced to pick up part of that tab, including CalPERS’ own retiree health benefits. We cannot sell our soul for profit. Investing in death for a return is inexcusable.”

Treasurer John Chiang argued that CalPERS never totally divested from tobacco stocks, anyway. “It is time to end the charade that somehow CalPERS stopped investing in tobacco companies more than a decade ago. Our external managers currently have plowed a sizable $547 million in tobacco-related funds, according to the latest CalPERS staff estimates,” he said. Chiang called for CalPERS to divest from its indirect tobacco-related investments, too.

And the Los Angeles Times editorial board on Monday made clear just how much this fight is about social issues rather than financial ones: “Divestment is a difficult call for governmental pension funds. They have a clear fiduciary duty to maximize the returns on their members’ investments. But in our view, these public agencies also have a responsibility not to support evil, corrupt or destructive forces whose ill effects far outweigh any good they may do. That can take the form of products, like tobacco and firearms, or regimes.”

Those who testified at the committee also made similar social-oriented points. They won the day, as the committee voted to divest of its remaining $547 million in tobacco-related investments – ones invested by outside managers.

Not surprisingly, it’s been CalPERS’ investment staff that has focused more on financial returns. The committee’s investment agenda for its Monday meeting detailed three options. It could have removed all tobacco-investment restrictions. It could have expanded the divestment beyond the current restrictions – i.e., also restrict tobacco investments from externally managed portfolios. Or it could have left the current approach of divestment from internally managed portfolios. It chose option two.

“Divestment, as an active investment decision, represents a form of active risk taking that must be considered, first and foremost, within the context of the CalPERS Board of Administration’s fiduciary duty,” according to the staff report’s executive summary. “As a mature, cash-flow negative system, CalPERS is obligated to seek out and implement the portfolio construction methods that best serve our mission – the sustainable delivery of promised benefits. In efficient markets, however, limiting the opportunity set for investments has generally been shown to have a detrimental effect on performance, and CalPERS’ experience with its tobacco investment restrictions over the past 15 years has been no exception to the general rule.”

As CalPERS investment officials explained in public presentations to its board last month, as a public pension fund managing the assets of the state’s government employees, the agency’s prime responsibility to assure that it makes the best-possible investments to assure that it fulfills its pension promises to current and future retirees.

It’s worth reviewing the basics of how these pension funds operate. Typically in the private sector, employees receive defined-contribution plans, such as 401(k)s. The employee has some money deducted from the paycheck and invested in mutual funds. Sometimes the employer also contributes a portion. If the investments do well, the employee retires with more money. If they don’t the employee has to make do with less.

By contrast, government employees at the state and municipal level typically receive a defined-benefit plan, in which the government agency promises a set pension benefit based on a formula. The government employer pays a large share, with the employee also typically having money deducted to go toward the benefit. The pension fund invests those dollars. No matter what, the employee still receives the promised amount. If investments go sour, the size of the unfunded liabilities, or debt, grows and taxpayers are required to pick up the slack.

Given the potential impact on government budgets, these investment issues take on a highly political tone. CalPERS’ investment returns have been dismal in the past year, which creates pressure for reducing pension benefits or hiking investment returns. With the former a nonstarter in the current political environment, the latter becomes the subject of intense scrutiny. That’s what we’re seeing with the current debate in the CalPERS investment committee.

CalPERS staff had been leading the charge to a) further lower expected rates of return based on those disappointing recent results and predictions of a continued tough road ahead; and b) try to boost return rates by allowing staff to reinvest in soaring tobacco stocks. But the state Legislature apparently hasn’t gotten this message.

New legislation would call for CalPERS and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System to divest any holdings from a North Dakota oil pipeline that has been the source of protest by Native Americans and environmental activists. Certainly, any such divestments would mean little in an investment portfolio (in both funds) valued at $450 billion. But the Legislature is showing its desire to continue a push for more investment based on social concerns rather than strictly financial ones.

That’s always a risk in publicly controlled systems. That’s a tension that will continue, although Monday’s vote shows that CalPERS isn’t likely to soon abandon its current approach even in the face of mounting fiscal problems.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. He is based in Sacramento. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

Tobacco tax one of the most heated ballot measures

Good morning! Happy hump day. We’re talking about ballot measures first this morning. 

There’s broad agreement that the 17 initiatives on the statewide ballot on November 8 cover some of the most significant public-policy issues to come before voters in more than a decade.

For instance, voters will have a chance to legalize marijuana, outlaw the death penalty, put an end to the state’s virtual ban on bilingual education, approve a broad gun-control package and reduce prison sentences for some non-violent felons.

But two months before the election, one of the highest-visibility measures also is fairly narrow in scope. Proposition 56 would raise California’s relatively low tobacco tax (relative to other states) by $2 a cigarette pack – and increase taxes by an equivalent amount on all other tobacco products (cigars, chewing tobacco, etc.).

It also would significantly increase taxes on electronic cigarettes and vaping products. It has high visibility right now because of a series of advertisements opponents are running on radio stations across the state.

CalWatchdog has more.  

In other news:

• “Orange County plans to open a temporary homeless shelter in a former Santa Ana bus terminal within 30 days in an effort to address mounting pressure to reduce a large homeless encampment that has engulfed nearby government offices, causing health and safety problems. The action came just hours before the Santa Ana City Council approved a resolution declaring ‘a public health and safety homeless crisis.’” The Orange County Register has more. 

• “California voters face two capital punishment choices on the November ballot: End the death penalty or speed the way for execution. On death row, inmates are conflicted on the prospects of one-shot appeals, mandated lawyer assignments and simplified execution rules meant to rekindle a capital punishment system that hasn’t executed anyone in a decade, or the simple alternative, throw out the death penalty in favor of life without parole.” The Los Angeles Times has more. 

• Lynwood is the first city in Los Angeles County to approve marijuana cultivation, reports LA Weekly.

• “The mighty grizzly bear ruled California’s valleys, forests and coasts with fierce claws and jaws until people shot the last ones nearly a century ago. Now an environmental group is asking the state to consider bringing it back,” reports The San Jose Mercury News, which is showing off its flashy new website this morning.
• Quote of the day: “Reintroducing grizzly bears to California would be idiotic,” said Pete Margiotta, a Walnut Creek resident and longtime hunter. “Somebody is going to get killed.” 

Legislature: 

• Gone ’til December.

Gov. Brown:

• Speaking at 12:30 p.m. at the California Independent System Operator’s eighth annual stakeholder symposium in Sacramento.

Tips: matt@calwatchdog.com

Follow us: @calwatchdog @mflemingterp

New follower: @_RDeLaRosa

Last week, the Los Angeles Times reported that the First 5 committee, which received funding from a previous cigarette tax increase, was concerned that fewer smokers would mean less revenue. The First 5 group, which focuses on improving early years of children’s lives, is attempting to rally the Legislature to add revenue from any new cigarette tax to include First 5 in those groups that receive new revenue.

But the cycle will certainly continue for First 5 and any agency that receives cigarette money. A tax increase will likely once again reduce the number of smokers and cigarette purchases and at some point reduce the revenue agencies expect to receive.

The cigarette tax revenue for First 5 has dropped about 17 percent, to $460 million, over a five-year span.

According to the article, First 5 is looking at an alternative for additional revenue by examining the promotion of a marijuana initiative and the tax revenue such an action would bring in to help fund their organization.

Others groups undoubtedly will also have their eyes on marijuana tax money despite the recent report from Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s committee studying marijuana legalization that declared tax revenue should be low priority in considering legalizing marijuana.

TBEC Review / flickr

A surprise switch to a bill that would tightly regulate vaping has caused its sponsor to repudiate the legislation.

State Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, had advanced SB140 confidently, riding a wave of anti-smoking activism that sought to treat vapes, or e-cigs, the same way as traditional tobacco cigarettes in the eyes of the law. But Leno had to renounce his own bill after it transformed in committee. As the Los Angeles Times reported, the Assembly Governmental Organization Committee ensured its language “no longer treated the vapor devices as tobacco products that would face the same restrictions.”

“The proposal would have banned electronic cigarettes in workplaces, restaurants and other public places where smoking is prohibited. It would also have allowed sting operations against businesses that sell the vaping devices to minors. Leno said removing the designation of e-cigarettes as tobacco products allows manufacturers of vaping devices to continue marketing their products to minors.”

Tempers flare

It was a shocking defeat for anti-smoking advocates, who had not anticipated that the vape industry would be able to secure the amended language it sought. “No committee member moved to take up the modified bill, which was then held in the committee,” the Associated Press reported.

Leno’s public remarks reflected his frustration. “We all walk away. It is no longer our bill,” AP quoted him as saying.

“Leno angrily told the committee that he and the bill’s co-sponsors, which include the American Cancer Society, American Lung Association and American Heart Association, would not take part in advancing the diluted bill.”

“I no longer believe in it. I disassociate myself from it. It’s a very dangerous bill now,” said Leno, according to Business Insider. According to Leno, because nicotine comes from tobacco, and e-cigs utilize a liquid that contains nicotine, they ought to be classified as tobacco products. “It’s no small difference of opinion whether these are tobacco products or not,” he argued, according to the Sacramento Bee, “because if they’re not tobacco products, Big Tobacco can continue to market their ‘non-tobacco product’ to our children.” Although nicotine is traditionally taken from the tobacco plant, it is also naturally found in trace amounts within the tomato, potato and eggplant.

Cascade effect

The about-face on SB140 appeared to augur a broader defeat for the anti-smoking lobby, which had helped build momentum for another sweeping and high-profile piece of legislation. SB151, introduced by state Sen. Ed Hernandez, D-Azusa, was also pulled by its own sponsor.

That bill, which would raise the statewide legal age for purchasing tobacco products to 21, was shelved by Hernandez before a planned hearing, as the Bee reported. “Big Tobacco is following their usual playbook and trying to kill this bill quietly in a committee,” he said, according to the Bee, “though his office said he planned to continue pursuing the measure.”

Federal hurdles

Although the tobacco industry has favored federal over state-by-state rules on the availability of their products, the vape industry has had bigger concerns than the state of play in Sacramento. As the Wall Street Journal reported, the federal Food and Drug Administration has been expected this summer “to complete rules that would require federal approval for nearly all flavored liquid nicotine juices and e-cig devices sold in vape shops,” imposing potentially prohibitive costs on nervous businesses.

“The approval process could cost anywhere from $2 million to $10 million to collect data and put forward an application for each item, according to the regulatory consulting company SciLucent LLC.”

That alone could put a substantial dent in the Golden State’s smaller vape companies — with the much larger tobacco companies moving in instead. Rodney Jerabek, CEO of the California-based liquid nicotine business Five Pawns, told the Journal the expenses were daunting. “This could mean the end for a lot of small companies,” he said.

On Wednesday, legislation that would classify e-cigarettes as tobacco products was amended and held in the Assembly Governmental Organization Committee.

Senate Bill 140 author Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, dropped his support for the bill after committee amendments struck out portions of the legislation that would have redefined tobacco products and smoking to include electronic devices and vapors emitted from those devices.

Sen. Leno said during the hearing that, by federal definition, products that contain nicotine are technically derived from tobacco. Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia, D-Coachella, also mentioned during the hearing that the FDA “is moving in the direction of classifying” e-cigarettes and similar products as tobacco products.

‘Tobacco products’

Existing law, under the Stop Tobacco Access to Kids Enforcement Act, prohibits selling or furnishing tobacco products to minors, as well as selling without a state license. California’s Smoke Free Act also prohibits smoking in any “enclosed space at a place of employment” – which includes schools, offices, daycares, bars, restaurants and many other venues.

Since the definition of tobacco products and smoking, under SB140’s original text, would expand to include electronic devices and vapors emitted from those devices, the bill would subject e-cigarettes to the same regulations under California’s STAKE Act and Smoke Free Act.

“A growing number of Californians are becoming increasingly concerned about the public’s exposure to e-cigarettes, as is evidenced by the fact that nearly 180 cities and counties have already passed ordinances that restrict e-cigarette smoking,” Sen. Leno said in a prepared statement. “These tobacco products are addicting a new generation of smokers to toxic nicotine, which we already know is highly addictive and contains harmful chemicals. SB140 puts common sense regulations into place statewide in order to protect young people, non-smokers and smokers alike.”

“Recent studies show that e-cigarettes pose potentially serious health risks to users and those who inhale their secondhand emissions. In 2009, the Food and Drug Administration found cancer-causing chemicals, including an ingredient used in antifreeze, in two leading brands of e-cigarettes. The same study also discovered that e-cigarettes labeled as “nicotine-free” had traceable levels of nicotine. In addition, a 2015 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found high levels of formaldehyde, a known carcinogen, in e-cigarette emissions.”

Opposition to the bill

But Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association, says these measures are mere “hype and conjecture designed to scare” people away from “switching to a potentially lifesaving product.”

“Vapor products are not tobacco products and it makes no sense to regulate them as such. These products do not create harmful secondhand smoke and have been repeatedly shown to be effective in helping smokers kick the habit. California’s 3.6 million adult smokers deserve truthful information about the risks of these smoke-free products. …

 

“The vapor industry does not oppose sensible regulations designed to prevent youth access to these adult products, including beefing up California’s existing ban on sales to minors. However, SB140 goes far beyond what is necessary to achieve this goal. If this bill is passed, over 1,400 California businesses will be left to deal with the unintended consequences of this rushed regulatory plan.”

Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Francisco have already enacted bans on e-cigarette use in public places. “The e-cigarette industry is almost completely unregulated, and statewide laws are essential to providing uniform protections for the health and wellbeing of all California children and our communities,” said San Francisco Supervisor Eric Mar.

But proponents of the electronic smoking devices say that this kind of fear-mongering propaganda ultimately protects cigarettes and threatens the lives of vapers and smokers. Bill Goodshall, executive director of Smokefree Pennsylvania, said of a similar Pennsylvania bill to ban e-cigs, “Public health benefits every time a smoker vapes instead of smoking a cigarette. The proposed vaping ban … would deceive the public to inaccurately believe that vaping is just as hazardous as cigarette smoking.”

In the Senate, the legislation passed on a 25-12 vote. But once the Assembly Governance Committee approved amendments that would no longer classify e-cigarettes as tobacco products, Sen. Leno immediately dropped his support of the bill, stating it would be “dead on arrival in the Senate” and that he could no longer “associate [himself] with it.”

Assemblyman Ken Cooley, D-Rancho Cordova, also said he would “not support the bill in this form.” He addressed the “rising cost of health care” and how it was the task of policymakers to “cut down discrete sources of costs” — such as potential health problems acquired through vaping. “To deal with costs in the health-care system,” he said, “we have to look at where the cost drivers are and chase them down.”

After passage of the amendments, the bill was held in committee.

Photo credit: www.vaping360.com

“Records show that the approximately 6,500 sq. foot home boasts 6 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms, a large pool house, 6 fireplaces, wood framed french doors, and carved stone detailing throughout.”

And that was his fourth luxury home.

Gore’s “carbon footprint,” how much energy he uses and how much CO2 he spews into the atmosphere, must be larger than entire provinces of Bangladesh.

Yet after he recently jetted to Hawaii, the Honolulu Civil Beat reported:

“The ‘barriers’ to doing something about climate change are business and political interests that profit off of fossil fuels — ‘dirty energy that causes dirty weather.’ He compared fake science from polluters stating that humans are not to blame for the climate to tobacco companies that used to hire actors to play doctors who denied cigarettes were dangerous.

” ‘That’s immoral, unethical and despicable,’ he said of both.”

That’s funny. Because in his political campaigns, Gore used to profit from both tobacco and being anti-tobacco. As Joan Beck reported in 1996, after Gore told a heart-wrenching story at the Democratic National Conventiion of his sister dying of lung cancer:

“He and his family made money by raising tobacco on their Tennessee farm for years — profiting from a product that killed lots of other people’s sisters and husbands and parents and brothers and friends in a particularly vicious and cruel way.

“They didn’t stop when the surgeon general issued his sharp warning linking tobacco with illness and death in 1964, not until Nancy’s tragic battle with lung cancer.

As late as 1988, Al Gore was bragging in a speech to tobacco farmers in North Carolina, ”Throughout most of my life, I raised tobacco. I want you to know that with my own hands, all of my life, I put it in the plant beds and transferred it. I’ve hoed it. I’ve dug in it. I’ve sprayed it, I’ve chopped it, I’ve shredded it, spiked it, put it in the barn and stripped it and sold it.” And made money growing a carcinogen that killed other people’s loved ones. Gore made this speech, remember, four years after his sister’s death. And 24 years after the surgeon general’s report.

Now, of course, Gore has become vastly wealthier trading in on the global warming/climate change political fad, even as he enjoys the lifestyles of the rich and famous and high carbon-footprinted and hypocritical.

In the latest report casting “vapes” in a negative light, the New York Times called the nicotine solution found in e-cigs “poison by the barrel.” That has producers and retailers in a “defensive crouch,” according to the Riverside Press-Enterprise. The most sensational danger posed by nicotine “juice” is its potential to kill children who consume even a teaspoon.

That alarming piece of data presupposes a nicotine concentration level that not all vials of juice contain. For anti-vape advocates, however, the Times report is an aid in turning public opinion firmly against permissive e-cig laws.

California’s robust market for vapes makes the state a critical test case for the advancement of new prohibitions. Relying in large part on health fears surrounding the safety of children, advocates have already made substantial gains on the West Coast.

In Los Angeles, City Council President Herb Wesson delivered an impassioned address during the floor debate, testifying that his desire to “be cool” as a young man led to a lifelong addiction to tobacco cigarettes that would probably end his life.

The city extended its sweeping tobacco cigarette ban to vapes, permitting their use in “vaping lounges,” but rejected an exemption that would permit vaping in bars or nightclubs with a 21-and-over policy.

Crackdown

In the wake of the action by Los Angeles, other California municipalities are considering a crackdown of their own. The Long Beach city council voted to ban vaping even inside places where e-cigs are sold, prompting an outcry from industry business people. One distributor objected that half of the juice sold in South Orange County is actually nicotine-free, the OC Weekly reported.

Frustration is mounting over officials’ tendency to ban now and ask questions later. As the current director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told the Times, “I think the precautionary principle — better safe than sorry — rules here.”

Judging by developments in California, municipalities agree. “If you watch the city council meeting,” the Long Beach vape distributor told the Weekly, “some of the members said they don’t have enough information to make a proper decision, but they decided to go with the original ordinance anyway.”

The precautionary principle may well take hold among some citizens as well.

Elsewhere in the state, the Santa Cruz city council is now set to consider whether to become the 46th California community to add e-cigs to their tobacco smoking ordinances, according to KSBW. While city officials worry that failing to crack down will permit confusion and disorder to take hold, residents find themselves even less informed than would-be regulators. KSBW illustrates the point by citing one restauranteur’s support for a ban “because of the unknown effects of e-cigarettes.”

While local governments often look to Washington, D.C., for strong guidance and information about which substances to ban or regulate, federal data on e-cigarettes is still lacking. That has led lawmakers in at least ten states to treat e-cigs like tobacco cigarettes, or ban their sales to minors, with still others considering industry-specific taxes and tougher regulations for online commerce.

Permissive

The case for more permissive e-cig regulations, meanwhile, now centers on a few key arguments. Proponents point to the absence of harms equivalent to secondhand tobacco smoke, the lack of adverse findings by the Food and Drug Administration, and the inspirational power of e-cigs to draw smokers away from cigarettes’ lethal carcinogens. Nationwide, libertarian organizations are turning their attention to increasing public awareness of these attributes.

New developments suggest that the tide of regulatory opposition is now leading vapers to organize and push back. Confronting an e-cig ban in the San Diego County town of Encinitas, the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-Free Alternatives Association created a tip sheet, complete with talking points and city council contact information.

As the need for a better public image grows clear, a confrontational attitude to e-cig crackdowns is increasingly discouraged. In its recommendations, CASAA urged vapers who attend the Encinitas hearing to refrain from smoking e-cigarettes.

It remains to be seen whether the e-cig movement’s turn to better public relations is enough to keep California vapers in the regulatory clear.

SB 768, by state Sen. Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, would increase the state’s cigarette tax another $2 a pack from the current 87 cents. That would be a 230 percent hike, to $2.87.

I wrote, “The State Board of Equalization has found that California will actually lose hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue if SB 768 passes. Even legislators have become weary of funding programs using tobacco tax revenue because of its instability.”

But the BOE employees who called me said the tax revenues actually will be more than a $300 million net gain through the special fund SB 768 will create.

Yet according to a study by the BOE itself, programs funded by cigarette taxes have experienced a “funding gap” due to cigarette sale decreases. And the revenue raised from the cigarette tax in California has decreased, according to a Federation of Tax Administrators study, “The Tax Burden on Tobacco.”

However, the BOE analysis of the tobacco tax which I linked to in my first story is terribly confusing and also makes it sound as if the state will take a hit.

What’s odd is the two BOE employees who called me were unusually defensive, and would not explain their agency’s analysis. I asked for a quote to explain their study, but instead one of them referred me to an analysis by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

While they are pushing for a correction, they would not give me more information or an official BOE quote for attribution.

Committee analysis