By July 31, 2015

Lee Black of Cullman drove six hours to the Arthur R. Outlaw Mobile Convention Center on Friday to learn about new products while networking among the dozens of vendors inside the cloudy South Exhibit Hall.

But it’s a lingering dark cloud that could await Alabama’s e-cigarette industry when the attention at the first-ever “Vaping the Coast” conference shifts toward pending legislation in Montgomery that some fear will destroy the emerging industry.

It’s an industry that supporters claim helps move its users from tradition and harmful cigarette smoking into a safer alternative.

“If they pass that tax in Alabama, it will shut all the vape shops down,” said Black, who intends on relocating his five North Alabama shops to Florida if a proposed $0.25 per milliliter tax is enacted on the liquid product that delivers nicotine to its user as a vapor.

“We just paid $100,000 in sales taxes to Alabama and if they do this tax, all it will do is decrease revenues and we’ll have to leave the state,” he added. “They’ll ultimately lose. It’s going to have an exact opposite effect.”

The proposal, back by Gov. Robert Bentley, is included in a tax plan to raise money to help patch a $200 billion budget deficit. State lawmakers resume their budget deliberations in Montgomery next week.

“This is on all the minds of the vendors who are here,” Joe Barnett, director of the Vaping Militia, an advocacy group aimed at protecting vaping rights in all 50 states. “You are talking about increasing the price at the counter, which drives sales down and you have to let employees go. This is a new and emerging industry employing a ton of people and … to let them, go? That’s a problem.”

States look to regulate

Government intervention into the industry has evolved into legislative action since 2008, which is around the time that e-cigarettes were introduced into the U.S.

While the Food and Drug Administration is weighing its own restrictions, states have taken aim with new taxes and regulations.

In Indiana, manufacturers of e-liquids have warned of forced shutdowns if legislation is approved implementing strict labeling and security measures on bottles. In Arkansas, small business owners claimed legislation restricting where vape shops can purchase juices and vaping devices would put them at a competitive disadvantage.

And in California, owners and employees of vaping businesses celebrated the defeat of legislation that would have lumped e-cigarettes into the same regulatory category of traditional cigarettes.

“It’s an industry a lot of people have made assumptions about that are not grounded in facts,” Barnett said.

The biggest assumption? “It’s still smoking. It sounds like a simple statement, but so many people don’t understand that it’s not smoking.”

Government regulators disagree, and so does Bentley’s office. In California, the Department of Public Health campaigned to warn about the hazards that occur when flavored nicotine water is heated and inhaled as a vapor.

Much of the recent public health concerns have focused on teen usage where current e-cigarette use among middle and high school students tripled from 2013-2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At the same time, the CDC revealed there was no decline in overall tobacco use among high school students from 2011-2014.

Alabama proposal criticized

Alabama’s proposed law would lump e-cigarettes and other vaping products in with tobacco products like cigarettes, snuff and cigars.

Bentley spokeswoman Jennifer Ardis said that items that do not contain nicotine will not be taxed.

“We’re not smokers,” said Zack Carpenter, co-owner of Cyclops Vapor in Daphne and sponsors of Vaping the Coast. “We are ex-smokers who found something we could use to get away from that nasty habit.”

Carpenter, who was once a two-pack-a-day cigarette smoker for 18 years before he began vaping six years ago, said the state’s proposal is also unfair. Right now, e-cigarettes and other vaping products are not levied a tobacco tax – purchasers only have to pay sales tax – and that the proposed $0.25 milliliter tax equates to an extra $7 on the average price of a bottle of nicotine liquid.

The state’s tax on cigarettes is proposed to increase by 25 cents a pack under Bentley’s plan. The tobacco tax and vapor cigarette increases would raise an estimated $70 million a year.

“We’re not against regulations, but the 25-cent-a-milliliter tax is disproportionate than what they are taxing the other tobacco products,” Carpenter said. “It will put the smaller shops out of business.”

Carpenter estimates that there are 17 vape shops in Mobile and six in Baldwin County. Two years ago, Carpenter said, there were only two shops.

“We don’t need to be labeled into these smash campaigns with cigarettes,” he said.

Getting out the message

Advocates of vaping will spend the weekend getting their message out. Breathe Easier Alliance of Alabama is gathering signatures throughout the weekend opposing the tax legislation and the petition will be distributed to state lawmakers next week.

Jason Camp of Birmingham said that the popularity of vaping among many conference attendees is due to it being researched as a healthier alternative to smoking cigarettes, which contain more than 60 carcinogens through smoke. Some studies have shown that vaping helps smokers outright quit.

Safety aside, the industry employs upward to 2,000 people in Alabama.

The industry doesn’t appear to be slowing down. There are more than 8,500 vape shops in the U.S., and manufacturers of the dizzying number of liquid products on the market are taking creative measures to stand out.

Jordan Ast, who sports a Mohawk and operates Punk Vapors from south California, sells a product that contains his likeness on its label.

Other products on display at the Convention Center include some creative brand names such as I Love the 80’s e-juice and Mojo Vapor.

Cyclops Vapor’s products are inspired by Carpenter’s blindness in his left eye. The company markets products with Greek mythical inspirations: Artemis (a berry cobbler taste), Hades (roasted coffee) and Athena (green apples).

A unique weekend ahead

The conference, believed to be the first in Alabama, will also draw some interesting activities once the public is allowed to attend from 4 p.m. Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday.

On Sunday, some of the attendees will participate in a competition to see who can blow the largest cloud. The winner will get $10,000 with second place earning $5,000.

The cost to attend the conference is $18 for a two-day pass or $10 for a daily admittance.

“There will be people packed in here,” said Matthew Canceleno of Elberta, whose family is involved in the e-cigarette and vaping business. “They want to come and see what’s new and see what is coming out without paying a ridiculous amount of money.”

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