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IVN: This California Disposable Vape Ban Could Devastate The Legal Cannabis Industry Even Further
- Laura Braden
- Jan 13
- 2 min read
EXCERPT:
Good intentions often make for compelling policy. But in practice, consequences rarely fall in line as neatly as the ideas that inspired them.
California’s flavored tobacco ban has been on the books for years. SB 793 passed in 2020, voters doubled down with Proposition 31 in 2022, and lawmakers piled on again with AB 3218 in 2025, creating an Unflavored Tobacco List and tougher penalties on paper.
Yet walk into almost any smoke shop in California today, or even a kiosk sitting out in the open at a shopping mall, and flavored vapes are still available right there behind the counter. This is the reality of a ban without enforcement, where the only businesses actually harmed are the licensed, tax-paying retailers who try to follow the law and lose customers as a result. Consumers do not stop buying. They simply shift to the thousands of black- and gray-market sellers operating in plain sight, with little fear of consequences.
Now, California’s cannabis industry faces another pivotal test on Tuesday, January 13, when Assembly Bill 762 by Assemblymembers Jacqui Irwin and Lori Wilson comes before the Assembly Business and Professions Committee. The measure would prohibit disposable vape products, a proposal that supporters frame as an environmental reform and opponents warn could destabilize an already struggling regulated market.
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At an April 8, 2025, hearing before the Assembly Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee, Amy O’Gorman Jenkins, Executive Director of the California Cannabis Operators Association, said that describing these products as single-use is inaccurate. “A half-gram device delivers around 150 doses, and a full gram provides more than 300. These are used over weeks or months, not discarded after one session,” she wrote in her testimony.
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O’Gorman Jenkins warned that removing regulated vapes from store shelves would push consumers further into the unregulated and unsafe illicit market, which faces none of the legal, environmental, or product safety requirements.
“California’s legal cannabis industry is among the most regulated in the world. In contrast, the illicit market faces none of these requirements,” she said. “The public health risks are real,” Jenkins added, referencing the 2019 EVALI outbreak, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention linked to illicit market vapes. “Removing compliant, tested products does not protect consumers; it exposes them to far greater harm.”
