According to Los Angeles school police, the number of students who are vaping in school has spiked since 2016 and thanks to clever packaging, it is harder and harder to spot these devices. They are often disguised as ordinary items such as lipsticks and pens. Los Angeles product liability attorneys know that the high levels of nicotine and the fact that these devices can be used for vaping pot are a concern for parents when it comes to their children, but they also commonly contain defects that allow the devices to spontaneously explode causing serious injuries and sometimes death.
Vape marketing
Vaporizers and e-cigarettes were originally marketed as the safe alternative to smoking because it is like cigarettes without tobacco or smoke. And whether or not vape manufacturers and sellers admit it, selling these devices that can be disguised as ordinary items contributes to children sneaking these devices in, right under their parents’ and teachers’ noses, who do not even recognize them for what they really are.
Health concerns
The health concerns when it comes to vaping are twofold, what they do to a person internally due to inhaling toxic chemicals and what they do to a person from the outside when they explode.
- Doctors have issued warnings about the dangers of inhaling toxic chemicals when vaping. The U.S. Surgeon has issued a warning calling vaping a dangerous epidemic and courts have sided with the FDA in classifying these products along with tobacco products, permitting the imposition of stricter regulations related to age limits and marketing.
- Vape pens and e-cigarettes are also known to sometimes explode causing serious injuries and even death to people nearby. Most of these explosions have occurred during charging, but they have also exploded while they have been in users’ possession causing serious injuries. Common explosion causes relate to product defects such as inadequate warnings and instructions, defective design of lithium-ion batteries, and manufacturing defects.
Vape products are considered to be such a health risk that insurance companies have created specific insurance policies for sellers of vape pens and e-cigarettes. The Department of Transportation has even banned them completely from commercial airline flights.
California crackdown on vape products
California Senate Bills 38 and 39 and Assembly Bill 131 have bipartisan support to put stricter regulations in place. Together these bills would take the following actions:
- Ban the sale of flavored tobacco and e-cigarette products in California. Unflavored tobacco and e-cigarette products would not be affected, however.
- The products would have to be packaged inconspicuously marked containers.
- Sellers would have to obtain signatures from people 21-year-old and older at the time of sales.
- Marketing restrictions would prohibit e-cigarette manufacturers from marketing their products to children.
It has already been established that vape products are dangerous and if you have been injured by a defective vape product, legal remedies may be available to you. Contact a Los Angeles product liability attorney at JML Law to discuss your case and the extent of injuries sustained.
