On April 14, the governor of Arkansas signed Senate Bill No. 252 (SB252) into law, which was codified as Act 590. As a result, Arkansas became the 12th state in the United States to pass an e-cigarette product registration law. The bill also prohibits individuals from possessing and importing non-compliant products. Following Louisiana, Arkansas is the second state to prohibit individuals from possessing illegal e-cigarettes.<\/p>\n
Like all PMTA registry bills, Arkansas\u00a0Act 590<\/u>\u00a0establishes a list (called a directory in this case) of vaping products that can be legally sold in the state. Manufacturers must apply to have products included on the list, pay a fee for each product or family of products, and certify under penalty of perjury that each product submitted meets the requirements for inclusion.<\/p>\n
Requirements for listing in the Arkansas directory are:<\/p>\n
Since no modern disposable vape was on the market in 2016, the law effectively bans all of the hated (and very popular) \"illegal Chinese disposable vapes.\u201d It also bans most products made with synthetic nicotine, since very few had PMTAs submitted by 2020.<\/p>\n
One section of the law appears to exempt bottled e-liquids from the PMTA requirements, and state industry advocates certainly\u00a0believe they are exempted<\/u>. But whether that was the legislature\u2019s intention, it appears to be contradicted by other elements of the law. Ideally, the Director of Arkansas Tobacco Control, which enforces the law, will issue guidance on the question of bottled e-liquids.<\/p>\n
The Arkansas law definitely exempts open-system\u00a0devices<\/i>\u00a0with replaceable batteries that are sold without e-liquid. So manufacturers of traditional vape mods and other devices with removable batteries are not required to register them\u2014but devices with built-in batteries (like refillable pod systems) fall under the PMTA requirements.<\/p>\n
Products must be submitted for inclusion in the directory by Sept. 1, 2025, and sales of non-listed products are not allowed after that date. Enforcement will begin after the directory is published on or after Nov. 1 by the Director of Arkansas Tobacco Control.<\/p>\n
Retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers can face legal penalties for violating any part of the act, including fines and seizure of products. Arkansas Tobacco Control is empowered to inspect facilities, investigate, and charge violators.<\/p>\n
The law also imposes packaging requirements that supposedly outlaw products with \u201cchild-appealing\u201d characteristics. For example, labels and advertising materials cannot contain images or words that replicate those of \u201cbreakfast cereals, cookies, juice drinks, soft drinks, frozen drinks, ice creams, sorbets, sherbets, and frozen pops.\u201d They can\u2019t depict \u201ccharacters or symbols that are known to a reasonable person to appeal primarily to or are commonly associated with children or minors, including without limitation superheroes, cartoons or cartoon characters, anime characters, comic book characters, video game characters, television show characters, movie characters, mythical creatures, or unicorns.\u201d And, of course, any reference to \u201ccandy, cakes, pastries, or pies\u201d is prohibited. Because kids like cakes.<\/p>\n
Act 590 also prohibits personal possession and importation of products that don\u2019t meet state standards if the person in possession knows they are illegal.<\/p>\n
The Arkansas registry law is believed to be just the second vaping law that bans personal possession in the United States. The 2023\u00a0Louisiana PMTA registry law<\/u>\u00a0also prohibits the possession of products not on that state\u2019s registry.<\/p>\n
Vaping product possession bans are almost unheard of in liberal western democracies, which makes the Arkansas law noteworthy. Some countries that\u00a0prohibit personal possession of vaping products<\/u>\u00a0include North Korea, Qatar, Singapore and Venezuela.<\/p>\n
As in Louisiana, there is no mechanism created to enforce the ban on individual possession, but the law provides for fines and seizure of products if confiscated. Local police do not have the power to initiate investigations, but that doesn\u2019t mean they won\u2019t overstep their authority and arrest someone carrying a flashy disposable.<\/p>\n
Legitimate enforcement actions might be triggered, however, if the Director of Arkansas Tobacco Control were to conduct an investigation of illegal online sales.<\/p>\n
So far this year,\u00a0about 20 states have introduced PMTA registry bills<\/u>. The first to pass in 2025 was Mississippi\u2019s law, which was\u00a0signed by the governor<\/u>\u00a0in March.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association (CASAA)<\/u>\u00a0has issued Calls to Action in several states so far this year, providing a simple way for consumers to oppose registry bills in their state. You can\u00a0find all active CASAA Calls to Action here<\/u>.<\/p>\n
Aside from Mississippi and Arkansas, 10 other states have passed registry laws. Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Utah have laws in place. North Carolina\u2019s law takes effect May 1, and the Virginia and Wisconsin registry laws become operational July 1. In Iowa, the law is\u00a0on hold during a court challenge<\/u>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n On April 14, the governor of Arkansas signed Senate Bill No. 252 (SB252) into law, which was codified as Act 590. As a result, Arkansas became the 12th state in the United States to pass an e …<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49749,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}