Changing rules on vape sales: Down in Alabama
Legal agreement on vape sales
An agreement between the state and plaintiffs in a lawsuit reached an agreement that will already tweak Alabama’s new vape-sale regulations, reports AL.com’s Heather Gann.
The law says that convenience stores are allowed to sell 34 specific tobacco and menthol-flavored e-cigarette products that have been approved by the FDA. Other flavors could be sold only in vape shops that admit only customers who are at least 21 years old.
Supporters of the restrictions said they were intended to make the products less available to younger people.
The Petroleum and Convenience Marketers of Alabama filed a lawsuit claiming the law is unconstitutional because the 21-and-over retailers restriction is preempted by federal law.
The agreement reached allows the convenient stores and non-age-restricted establishments to sell the 34 approved products plus those on the FDA’s “pending” list and the state’s “Electronic Nicotine Delivery System ENDS Directory.”
Air-dropped contraband
The business of sneaking contraband into prisons has always been crafty.
Yes, there were actual cases of hacksaws, files and ammunition snuck in through hollowed-out bread or even baked into cakes.
There has been body-cavity smuggling of items.
(You can keep those cigarettes, thanks.)
And now, it’s drone drop-offs.
AL.com’s Carol Robinson reports that a man and a woman from Huntsville have been arrested and accused of using a drone to drop off two backpacks full of drugs at Easterling Correctional Facility in Clio. They’re now in the Barbour County Jail.
From the backpacks, authorities confiscated 686 grams of meth, 166 grams of synthetic cathinones, 150 grams of suboxone, 38 grams of fentanyl and 850 grams of marijuana (or 30 lids, for those needing the metric-to-1975 conversion.)
The library is open
A library that was built in 1928 and closed during the pandemic has reopened, reports AL.com’s Greg Garrison.
The historic East Lake Library is in Birmingham but not downtown, as most similar buildings are. It sits on Oporto-Madrid Boulevard in East Lake.
An effort was made to reopen the library in 2021, but the heating and air-conditioning system needed to be replaced. And that replacement required a custom-built unit.
The library is open 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Quoting
“It’s time for a governor who isn’t part of the establishment, who doesn’t wear $3,000 suits or have a Florida tan paid for by insider trading and living outside Alabama.”
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Born on This Date
In 1958, actress Julie Gholson of Birmingham. Gholson’s Hollywood career was brief — she has only one credit on IMDB — but she was nominated for New Star of the Year by the Golden Globes for her work in “Where the Lilies Bloom.”
The podcast