Vaping bans are expanding across Oklahoma. Enforcement, however, remains minimal in OKC

SPENCER — The park bench is no longer a legal place to vape in this small community just east of Oklahoma City, or in a growing number of cities across the country.

Amid contradictory reports on the safety of vaping and whether the practice is an effective alternative to cigarette smoking, Spencer's elected leaders recently joined towns and counties in the state and across the nation that have banned vaping on publicly owned and operated property.

In a unanimous vote March 17, the Spencer City Council approved an emergency ordinance adding vaping to its ban on smoking tobacco and marijuana products on all municipal property, including indoors, parks and recreational areas.

Councilwoman Tonni Canaday told The Oklahoman she is not anti-vaping but still has questions about its safety.

“They can vape anything they want, but there is a general health concern,” she said.

With the emergency ordinance, this city of about 4,000 people has joined the likes of Oklahoma City, Tulsa and other local jurisdictions throughout the United States, from Pleasant Hill, Iowa, to Buncombe County, North Carolina, in enacting municipal property vape bans.

Just two weeks after Spencer approved a ban, elected leaders in Houston added vaping to the city’s prohibition against smoking in municipal spaces.

Such bans often are rewarded with grant money to promote healthy living and fund walking trails, community gardens and other wellness projects.

How are vaping bans enforced?

But enforcement is often minimal. Oklahoma City, for example, has issued just two citations since implementing its own ban in early 2020, according to records obtained by The Oklahoman.

The Oklahoma Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust, which focuses on tobacco cessation and prevention programs, awards its Healthy Incentive Grants for Communities for smoke-free ordinances, in addition to worksite wellness measures and community action.

TSET’s grants also are based on population size. For example, from grant years 2012 to 2021, Muskogee, McAlester and Shawnee received $120,000. Hobart, Lindsay and Perkins each received $2,000.

“We think that tobacco-free ordinances, which include vaping, is the best way to protect the public from secondhand vape smoke, and it also promotes health in the community as a whole,” said Thomas Larson, director of public information and outreach for TSET.

Spencer has not yet received a TSET healthy incentive grant, Larson confirmed.

Safety debate surrounding e-cigarettes

Vaporizers use battery-operated heaters to form a vapor containing nicotine, flavorings and other chemicals inhaled by the user. They also can deliver marijuana or other substances.

Advocates say attempts to ban vaping are misguided at best.

“Lumping vapor products with combustible cigarettes, first of all, it’s not backed up by science, and second it creates confusion by consumers and everyday people,” said Alex Clark, CEO of the nonprofit Consumer Advocates for Smoke-Free Alternatives Association. “They are wildly different in terms of safety. Vaping is safer.”

The safety of vaping has been debated since its inception, with researchers on both sides, often funded by advocates on both sides, producing papers that either champion the practice or warn against it.

During a surge of vaping-related deaths reported in 2019, USA Today published a point-counterpoint article featuring researchers debating the chemical amounts in vapes, whether vaping causes disease and to what extent it helps people quit cigarettes.

In September, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 11% of high school students and fewer than 3% of middle school students nationwide said they were recent users of vaping products and e-cigarettes.

The numbers marked about a 40% drop from 2020, which some attribute to tougher laws against sales to minors, and the lack of access during the COVID-19 pandemic when millions of students were shut in and forced to take classes from home.

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Teen vape use tops 2 million in 2021

More than 2 million youths were estimated to be e-cigarette users in 2021.

At the same time, a study published online in January in the the journal Thorax said secondhand vape exposure was associated with increased risk of bronchitic symptoms and shortness of breath in young adults, even after accounting for active smoking and vaping.

The study of nearly 2,100 high school juniors and seniors in southern California showed “secondhand nicotine vape exposure reported at the time of symptom reporting was associated with statistically significant 40% greater odds of bronchitic symptoms and 53% greater odds of shortness of breath.”

In Oklahoma, at least one researcher says vaping is safer than smoking cigarettes, but there are pitfalls.

“With vaping, you're exposed to nicotine, but with smoking you're exposed to 3,000 chemicals, and among those are the ones that cause lung cancer,” said Hal Scofield, a physician and scientist with the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. “Likely, secondhand delivery of nicotine and other products in vaping — much of that is proprietary and you don't know exactly what they are. What they are is probably increasing the risk of bronchitis and asthma."

Schofield cautioned that vaping can be a gateway to cigarette use, saying young people who continue vaping are increasingly doing it daily, which means they have developed an addiction.

“You become addicted to nicotine and that leads to a lot of people using traditional nicotine products which leads to all the serious problems (like COPD) and heart disease,” he said. “Nicotine is a really powerful, addictive substance and very hard to stop. Surveys of middle schoolers and high schoolers (show they) do not know they're using nicotine and becoming addicted to it.”

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Could bars and restaurants be next to ban vaping?

Schofield said vaping bans in public places are likely a precursor to bans in restaurants and bars.

“What got smoking banned in those places was data about secondhand smoke being harmful,” he said. “Now with data about secondhand vaping being harmful, those things will pick up across the country and certainly in places like restaurants and bars.”

Larson, with TSET, said municipal vaping bans are consistent with tobacco-use prohibitions.

“This is updating a lot of the tobacco-free ordinances to include vaping,” he said.

Clark, the pro-vape advocate, said such bans are fruitless.

“These bans on vaping outdoors, in parks and beaches and parking lots owned by the city or county isn’t actually protecting anybody,” he said. “I know they say it de-normalizes the behavior, but young people pick up more from their parents. One of the leading indicators as to whether or not a young person will use tobacco products, drugs or alcohol is whether their parents or guardian uses the product, as well.”

Whether local prohibitions against vaping on public property will be enforced is also up for debate.

Oklahoma City leaders approved a ban in early 2020 that coincided with the adoption of a state law that made vaping and smoking of medical marijuana subject to the same restrictions for tobacco. The city code regulates both smoking and vaping on property owned and operated by the city.

The Oklahoman submitted a public information request to the Municipal Court, seeking copies of all citations for vaping in a prohibited area issued since 2020.

There were two citations for smoking in a prohibited area, but it is unclear whether they were for vaping, or smoking something else.

One citation was issued to a man near Quail Creek Road and N May Avenue, with a fine of $178.

The other was issued near Will Rogers World Airport. The man was listed as a transient from Texas. He refused to sign the citation.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Vaping bans are expanding across Oklahoma