In Oklahoma, a retail store has to have a license to sell tobacco, but not to sell vape products - and that has made it difficult to track the sale of those vapes to minors.

[Hear the KRMG In-Depth report on the new vaping registry HERE]

Two lawmakers, Rep. Rhonda Baker (R-Yukon), Chair of the House Committee on Common Education, and Rep. Cindy Roe (R-Lindsay), Chair of the House Committee on Public Health, contacted KRMG this week to discuss recent legislation which they hope will at least begin to address the growing problem.

And it is growing, rapidly, according to Roe.

“Smoking is actually down,” she told KRMG, “but vaping is up almost 500 percent in these kids in the last six or seven years.”

Moreover, the practice of vaping appears to be growing most rapidly among younger children, in middle schools and junior highs across the state, they said.

Manufacturers, many based outside the U.S. and specifically in China, are smuggling their products into the country, which bypasses any oversight by the FDA.

They’re often disguised as common school supplies, an apparent attempt to help kids escape detection both at school, and at home.

Baker said even parents who closely monitor their children’s activities might miss these devices.

“They go through their child’s backpack, and you know, they pull out the folder to see what the teacher has sent home, and so forth, and when they’re thumbing through that and they see a highlighter, just as you mentioned, they’re not thinking anything about that. You know, they see that, and they think ‘okay, yeah, that’s part of their school supplies.’”

“Some of these other products that are coming into the country illegally, you don’t know what’s in them,” Roe said, adding that in some cases, THC has reportedly been found - the active ingredient in cannabis.

They told KRMG the solution, or the first step toward a solution, is a registry which is now mandated by state law.

It was passed by the legislature as House Bill 2165 in April, and signed by the governor in May, updating a previous version (HB 2511) which was passed in 2021.

The Oklahoma ABLE Commission, which enforces laws on alcohol and tobacco, will maintain the registry, now codified as part of Title 10a in the Oklahoma Statutes.

“Retailers can go to a registry and can view a list of manufacturers that are selling illegal vaping products, and they can utilize that to make sure that they’re not, you know, selling those manufacturers’ products in their stores,” Baker explained. “But additionally, what the registry will do, is it will allow law enforcement to put on this registry any retail shops that are known for selling these illegal products to minors.”

While it’s something of a stopgap measure, Baker said it’s a step in the right direction.

“Let’s see how big of a problem we have,” she told KRMG. “Let’s make retailers take responsibility themselves.”