(REASON) — Today Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, announced that she is unilaterally imposing a statewide ban on the sale of flavored e-cigarettes, based on the public health “emergency” allegedly posed by the “vaping crisis among youth.” Whitmer’s order, which will make Michigan the first state to impose such a ban, raises two obvious questions: Can she do that, and does it make sense? The answers are maybe and definitely not.
“We are not contesting the governor’s authority,” Amber McCann, a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R–Clarklake) told The Detroit News. At the same time, McCann called the ban, which takes effect as soon as the rules are formally issued and lasts up to a year, “very premature,” noting that “no discussion on that topic has taken place.”
State Rep. Matt Maddock (R–Milford), chairman of the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, described the ban, which applies to online as well as in-person sales, as an “Orwellian” edict aimed at “dismantling a legal industry.” He added that Whitmer is “essentially usurping the rulemaking process defined by the state Constitution,” since “there is no state emergency,” and “the governor can’t just outlaw bad habits just because she doesn’t like them.”
