“This bill is saying that the small guy, the little business owner … can sell a legal product licensed by the state of Montana,” Marshall said on the House floor last Friday, “Have a business license with the town, have a product that’s geared toward adults who are trying to get away from combustible tobacco.”
According to the Helena Independent Record, HB 137 will redefine state law prohibiting local governments from regulating alternative nicotine and vapor products like traditional tobacco products. Similar to legislation proposed and implemented in states across the US, such as Arizona, HB 137 would retroactively strip local governments’ regulations on tobacco products by redefining this alternative, tobacco-free product category as away from the state’s overall definition of “tobacco.”
By doing so, vapor products cannot be taxed or regulated like cigarettes. The legislation is expected to pass through Senate with ease, despite a promised organized opposition from state and local-based tobacco control organizations that wrongfully consider vaping products as more or as equally as harmful as cigarettes.