With youth vaping a growing health crisis, a series of bills to counter it passed both Assembly and Senate committees Thursday.

The bills in both houses are aimed at curtailing access to young people by banning the sale of flavored vaping products and imposing strict regulations of vape shops, as well as by prohibiting the sale of menthol cigarettes and increasing penalties for underage sales of vaping and tobacco products.

A-3178, A-5922, and A-5923—all sponsored by Assemblyman Herb Conaway, D-Burlington—passed the Assembly Health and Senior Services Committee, which Conway chairs, on Thursday.

Likewise, their identical counterparts in the Senate, S-3265, S-1947 and S-4223, passed the Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee.

A fourth bill, S-4224, which increases the penalties to retailers who are caught selling tobacco and vaping products to anyone under age 21, including doubled fines, also passed.

Sen. Joseph Vitale, D-Middlesex, who chairs the Senate committee, sponsored three of the four Senate bills.

Senate President Steve Sweeney, D-Gloucester, sponsored S-4223, which passed the committee by six "yes" votes to one "no" vote, with two abstentions. That bill would strengthen regulations of vape shops, including requiring a license for any business that sells electronic smoking devices or liquid nicotine, and maintaining a tracking database of all vapor products made available for sale in New Jersey.

Vitale said the time was right to move on the issue.

"Today, one in five high school students use vaping products." Vitale said in his opening remarks before the Senate committee got underway. "That is both astronomical and unacceptable. There is no place on our shelves for any flavored tobacco products that lure our youth into a lifetime of addiction, including menthol."

Vitale said his "age and access" bill, S-4224, would help protect young people by increasing penalties for retailers who are caught selling tobacco and vaping products to anyone below 21 and doubling the fines those businesses must pay. It would also require electronic age verification for the sale of vapor and tobacco products. Any vaping products sold would have to be registered with the Food and Drug Administration.

S-4224 was passed by the Senate committee with seven "yes" votes, one "no" vote and one abstention.

The accompanying vaping bills would restrict access to vaping products and impose penalties for those who sell the products.

A-3178/S-3265 would prohibit the sale, offer for sale, and distribution of electronic smoking devices, cartridges, or other components of the devices or other related products, including liquid nicotine, that have a "characterizing flavor." It passed the Senate committee by a vote of 8-1.

A-5922/S-1947 would ban the sale and distribution of menthol cigarettes in New Jersey by adding menthol and clove cigarettes to the current prohibition against flavored cigarettes. The measure would update current state law to reflect the federal ban on clove-flavored cigarettes, and prohibit the sale of menthol-flavored cigarettes. It received a 7-2 vote out of committee.

The A-3178 measure was amended to mirror the Senate bill by including the sale of all menthol products.

Lawmakers, including Conaway, alluded to the cooling agent in menthol cigarettes: The menthol that's found in mint plants, which he said masks the harshness of cigarette smoke, making the product more appealing to first-time smokers or young adults.

Lawmakers also pointed to findings from federal authorities. FDA data indicates that menthol in cigarettes increases addiction, and the harm is more acute for African Americans. They also pointed to findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Tobacco Control Legal Consortium.

But there were those on the opposing end of the debate.

"These [vaping] flavors helped me to stop smoking two packs a day," said Cheryl Agro, an adult user of the products who said the bills go too far in restricting choice for adults. "Vaping truly saved my life. I don't want to go back to cigarettes. This bill—A-3178—does not stop the teen epidemic. It eliminates choice for the adult user."

Jiles Ship of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, said prohibitions have had a history of detrimental effects in communities of color, and that banning the sale of  menthol to the African American community will have the same result.

"Research shows that of African American adults who choose to smoke, more than 80% prefer menthol cigarettes," Ship told the Assembly committee. "To pass a ban only against products preferred by people of color is unjust and insensitive at a time in our country when we are struggling with improving police and community relations."

But few lawmakers in either chamber were swayed.

"The increase in the use of tobacco products by adolescents, teenagers and young adults has been fueled by e-cigarettes and other vaping products," Sweeney said in a statement after all four Senate vaping bills passed. "We have an immediate responsibility to control, restrict and even ban these products that create a serious risk to the health and safety of their users, especially our youth."

A-5922 and A-5923 draw on recommendations made by the Electronic Smoking Device Task Force report released in October, which suggested ways to efficiently monitor vaping products and mitigate potential risks to consumers.

Conaway said the legislation would require retailers to use an electronic age-verification system, and apply the same laws regarding taxation and age verification for online cigarette sales to any online e-cigarette sales. In addition, the bills would prohibit the sale of any electronic smoking device disguised to look like another object, such as pens, USB flash drives, hoodies or watches.

A-5922 passed the committee by 11 "yes" votes and zero "no" votes, with two members abstaining.

A-5923 passed with 7 "yes" votes, four "no" votes, with two members not voting.

Olivia Browndorf, 17, a senior at West Windsor Plainsboro High School North, testified with schoolmates before the Assembly committee and said vaping products were hurting her peers. Her testimony was part of the "Flavors Hook Campaign" in New Jersey sponsored by the organization called The Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids.

"Save our generation and watch the addictions subside," said Browndorf, who also testified before the Senate committee later in the day. "Watch as our generation begins to blossom again. We are still the generation of change. The generation to end smoking."

The Assembly committee then voted on A-3178 and passed it by a 11-0 vote, with two members not voting and two abstentions.