By Dave Dahl

SPRINGFIELD – When the Illinois General Assembly resumes its fall veto session the second week of November, it’s possible lawmakers will get around to voting on vaping. They are laying the groundwork, though, with a committee having heard both pro and con on a ban on not only flavored vapes, but flavored tobacco, too.

Ruby Johnson, who says her teenage daughter got terribly sick from vaping, told senators, “Some of the e-cigarette products favored most by youth are designed to be hidden from parents and teachers, and they accomplish that well with quickly disappearing smells and vapor and looking like flash drives, pens, and Apple watches. It would seem we are fighting a losing battle.”

Tony Abboud, executive director of the Vapor Technology Association, says the products his members sell are not the bad actors here.

“Ninety percent of the cases, according to the CDC,” he said, “that have involved illness or death have involved THC products. These are not the traditional regulated vapor industry products that our clients and our members sell.”

Abboud says what’s more, e-cigarette users are likely to try to make their own vapes or just go to the black market if a ban indeed passes.

So far, the only vaping bill that’s moved this fall is one holding e-cigarettes to the same standards as Smoke Free Illinois.

Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected]