Vaping Wars Move to State Court

The vaping industry's First Amendment challenge to FDA e-cigarette marketing rules remains pending in the DC Circuit, where it awaits decision following oral arguments this past September. But federal officials aren't the only ones trying to regulate the industry's practices: States also regulate vape shops operating within their jurisdictions. And last week, state regulations also came in for a "free-speech" challenge in court. Specifically, Oregon, which bans vape shops from packaging vaping products in a manner likely to be appealing to minors, now faces a state-court lawsuit challenging that law and its implementing regulations, filed by attorneys from the Goldwater Institute on behalf of an individual shop owner and his company. Interesting, the lawsuit is based solely on the Oregon Constitution's free-speech clause, which has been held in at least some settings to provide stronger protections than the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.