AUGUSTA, Maine — Julia Tyler, a senior at Bonny Eagle High School, said she sees a vape cloud every time she walks into the bathroom.
"Why are we doing that in the school bathroom?" she said.
This is why she supports LD 1215, which would ban flavored tobacco statewide, and testified at the State House on Tuesday because she thinks her voice will carry more weight.
"There's only so much an adult can say about this. They're not 17 years old. They're not in the high school seeing this problem arise," she said.
But not everyone supports the measure, including stores that currently sell the products. They told the Legislature's health and human services committee about a similar ban in another New England state.
"We have seen in Massachusetts where our office is based that this policy has been an unmitigated disaster," Peter Brennan, executive director of the New England Convenience Store and Energy Marketers Association said.
He added that he saw stores struggle when Massachusetts became the first state in the nation to ban the sale of flavored tobacco three years ago.
Tax records show that Massachusetts lost close to 24 percent of cigarette sales since that ban.
"It just means that those corner stops, those mom-and-pop shops, those gas stations are going to struggle to survive," VJ Mayor with the Northeast Wholesalers Association said.
He added that it will affect border towns the most.
Studies show that tobacco sales make up about 35 percent of convenience store and gas station sales. NEWS CENTER Maine interviewed the manager of a smoke shop in Bangor when the city was considering banning the sale of flavored tobacco there. He said if that happened, the store would move over the bridge to Brewer. And it did.
Right now, you must be 21 or older to purchase tobacco products in Maine, but teens are still getting their hands on flavored products.
"They have come back with new products designed to hook young people on smoking," a student speaker said during Tuesday's press conference.
While it's not clear where people younger than 21 are getting these products, the bill's sponsor, Senator Jill Duson, D-Cumberland, said the best way to stop it is to stop all sales.
"I think the timing of this makes sense because what we don't want is to have a different set of rules from one city to the next," she said.
Many argue that the health risk for kids and teens is more important than the financial risk. Tyler said that she has already seen the impact vaping has on her classmates.
"I can just see how it's going to affect everybody's lives in the future. I can already see how it's affecting their school work, affecting their motivation, affecting their sports life," Tyler said.
This bill passed last session, but when it got to the appropriations committee, it was never funded. Duson said she hopes to get over that hurdle this session.