Hawai'i health and youth advocates say vaping among middle and high school students is a crisis -- and they're calling on lawmakers to ban all flavored e-cigarettes and tobacco products.

While naysayers say the problem is overblown, teachers say they deal with it every day.

After passing a ban on flavored vaping products last year, lawmakers were expected to pass substantive legislation, but it was rejected due to flaws.

Meanwhile, teachers say kids battling nicotine addiction are disrupting classrooms.

Laverne Moore, a special education teacher at McKinley High School, has been lobbying for the teachers' union HSTA.

She is particularly concerned about teen vaping after seeing kids who start vaping in middle and high school struggle with their addiction.

"We have a real crisis in our high schools," Moore said. "Addicts have a hard time finding work; their attention spans are so short, you don't know when they're going to blow up."

Bills before lawmakers would tax vaping products, such as taxing tobacco (HB 537) and ban all flavored products (HB 551). Health officials said in testimony that surveys showed 31 percent of high school students were regular users.

But Lindsey Stroud and the consumer-centered Taxpayer Defense League, which opposes regulation, dispute that.

"It's all about the so-called teenage vaping epidemic," Stroud said.

She and other industry advocates say federal surveys show youth vaping is declining, but health officials say the data has been distorted by the pandemic. Supporters of the freedom to smoke also say the ban is unfair to legal adult users trying to kick the habit.

"There's data showing that these products do help smokers quit, and taste is important for that," Stroud said.

But Moore says adults can sacrifice the candy-like taste.

"You don't need it for the sake of the baby," she said. "Not allowed to sell during our state."

Critics of the ban say it will only push kids and adults into the unregulated black market, where the products can be more dangerous.

The House Finance Committee is expected to approve both bills on Wednesday and send them to the full House, which is expected to pass them on to the Senate.

Many other bills also remain in effect.

But no matter what lawmakers do, it's uncertain that any solution will actually eliminate teen vaping, given the magnitude of the problem and the difficulty of spotting delivery devices.

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