Gov. Charlie Baker has been both applauded and threatened with legal action in the days since rolling out the first-in-the-nation ban on all vaping products, but on Thursday the governor said he had no regrets.
"Once we had met with all the medical experts, to do nothing was just not a viable option," Baker told reporters on Thursday after an event in Everett where he talked up his housing legislation.
Baker on Tuesday announced that he would ban all flavored and non-flavored vaping products for four months while the medical community and federal health inspectors try to determine what has caused a spate of severe vape-related lung disease.
The ban, which was approved by the Public Health Council, made Massachusetts the first state in the country to include tobacco flavored vaping products and both medical and non-medical marijuana in a ban on retail sales.
While many state doctors and medical groups cheered the move, the vaping industry and others have asserted that the ban will encourage the growth of a black market and the sale of counterfeit products whose ingredients are unknown.
Read more: State Cannabis Regulator Says She Is Concerned Vaping Ban Will Push People To The Black Market
Asked about concerns that the ban might foster a black market, Baker did not acknowledge a difference in the threat to public health between illicit and legal vaping products.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has said that it does "not yet know the specific cause of these lung injuries," and whether they're definitively linked to illicit or legally sold products.
"Vaping is the fundamental issue here. It's not about anything else. It's not about nicotine. It’s not about marijuana. It’s about vaping,” Baker said.
Other critics have said the ban will push people who used vaping products to quit smoking to pick up cigarettes again.
"Gov. Baker is not a king. He was elected to sign or veto laws, not unilaterally ban consumer products based on flimsy evidence," said Gregory Conley, president of American Vaping Association, a non-profit that advocates for "sensible" vaping regulation.
Read more: Cannabis Control Commission Chair Concerned Vaping Ban Could Impact Medical Patients
Conley told the News Service he anticipates a legal challenge to be filed "in the coming days," and Baker said he was prepared for that possibility.
"If people choose to pursue the courts, that's an available option to them, but we believe we’re doing the right thing,” he said.
A number of small business owners who invested their savings in vape shops and are now facing the loss of their livelihood have also spoken out in the days since Baker announced the ban.
Read more: Local Merchant Files Injunction Against Gov. Baker's Vape Ban
The governor said it was "not an easy decision," to move ahead with the ban, and said his administration considered the "economic dislocation" it might cause.
"I totally get that there's disruption associated with this but compared to the rising number of people who are perfectly healthy but have this terrible debilitating injury to their lungs, who are in fact on the verge of dying, it seemed like the right choice and I stand by it," he said.
Asked if his administration was considering some type of small business assistance for vape shop owners, Baker did not directly answer the question.
"The big issue for us in the short term is to do something to put in place a ban that makes it more difficult for people to access these products and sends a message to the market and to the people of the commonwealth that these products have been deemed potentially dangerous by federal agencies and by medical experts here in Massachusetts," he said.
For medical marijuana users who use vaping devices as their primary tool to ingest THC and are not allowed to smoke marijuana flower where they live, Baker said there are "many alternative uses available to people."
