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North Carolina lawmakers included new vaping-enforcement and youth-access provisions in the state’s more-than-600-page budget passed in July.
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But an advocate says the changes fall short of what’s needed to keep vapes out of kids’ hands.
On the surface, the budget will require certain vape shops to pay a $1,000 tax and verify that customers are at least 21 years old.
It will also give law enforcement agents more ability to enter shops and seize vape products sold in violation of laws.
But the new enforcement authority relies largely on administrative penalties rather than creating new criminal offenses. And officers aren’t allowed to freely search vape shops, a state official said.
That’s different from the alcohol enforcement system, where officers can generally go into licensed businesses and check for violations. If a business is caught selling alcohol without a permit or to someone under 21, it can face fines, lose its license, and sometimes face criminal charges. And if officers find evidence of other crimes — like illegal drug sales — those can lead to further criminal charges as well.
The laws also have staggered effective dates, with many of the provisions not taking effect for months, or years.
“This feels like you have a new puzzle, you’re working it, but you realize that four-fifths of the pieces are missing,” said Meg Molloy, campaign director of the N.C. Public Health Association’s Tobacco 21 coalition. “It’s a teeny chunk of what we are working for.”
The laws don’t include all the places you can buy nicotine and tobacco products and doesn’t include most of the products that youth can “easily walk in and buy,” she said.
The coalition has spent years pushing for legislation known as “Solly’s Law”, named for Solomon Wynn, a 15-year-old New Hanover County high school student who died in 2023 from a vaping-related illness.
Solly’s Law is the main legislation advocates have pushed for in recent years. A coalition of students, lawmakers, advocates, state officials and health experts has spent years supporting the proposal, which would require retailers to obtain a permit before selling tobacco and nicotine products, including vapor products. It also would raise the minimum purchasing age from 18 to 21, to align with federal law. North Carolina is one of a handful of states that requires neither.
The House version of that bill, filed in 2025 — the most recent iteration — has several Republican primary sponsors and Democratic co-sponsors. In the Senate, the bill’s primary sponsor is a Democrat, and it has a Republican co-sponsor. Despite bipartisan support, neither bill has received a committee hearing in the Republican-led General Assembly.
Speaker Destin Hall told reporters in May that the House caucus had not talked about the legislation, but “vapes are in schools everywhere now, and we hear from a lot of superintendents and principals about the issue. And so we’ll see.”
“I find that if you’re 16 or 17 years old, they find a way, whether the limit’s 18 or 21. So I don’t know — maybe there’s some merit to it.”
Nicotine and tobacco use claims the lives of 14,200 North Carolina residents each year, according to the American Lung Association. About 76,000 North Carolina middle and high school students report regularly using tobacco products, and about one in eight high schoolers use tobacco products in North Carolina, according to the 2022 NC Youth Tobacco Survey. E-cigarettes are the most-used product by youth.
North Carolina already has tax licenses covering tobacco products, but they don’t apply to many retailers like grocery stores, gas stations and corner shops that buy and sell pre-taxed inventory.
One of the new laws creates a new type of license for shops that sell vapes, but it doesn’t apply to many of those same retailers, either.
The license would be required for shops that meet any of several criteria, including having a name that references vaping, devoting at least 20% of its inventory or 10% of its retail space to vapor products, offering product samples, maintaining self-service displays or producing vaping liquids on-site.
The license costs $1,000 per location. North Carolina’s existing licenses for tobacco dealers cost $25 for wholesalers and $10 for retailers. The licensing provisions take effect July 1, 2027.
Those under 21 would be banned from those licensed shops — but not all shops that can carry tobacco, nicotine and vaping products.
“This is not even banning vapes or keeping vapes away from youth, it’s just from a vape shop,” Molloy said. “So a youth could still go into a gas station that isn’t doing the right thing and buy a vape. That’s a lot of Swiss cheese right there.”
The law “needs to be 21 to purchase nicotine everywhere, whether it’s a grocery store or corner store, gas station, mom-and-pop shop, everywhere,” she said.
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“Kids go and buy snacks and drinks, lottery tickets, whatever, lunch at a convenience store, at a gas station, they go to corner stores, grocery stores. They may have different names in different towns. They’re not going to buy lunch and snacks in a vape shop or smoke shop,” Molloy said.
Licensed businesses must check customers’ ages by electronically scanning a government-issued ID through a third-party verification service. The provision takes effect Dec. 1, 2027.
The new laws do put “more law enforcement eyes on a vape shop,” Molloy said.
The law increases penalties for retailers and expands inspections.
North Carolina already bars the sale of vapor products not listed in the Department of Revenue’s Vapor Products Directory, which generally means disposable vapes are banned if they lack authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The directory applies only to products containing nicotine, not cannabis-derived products that are often sold in the same stores. Hemp and marijuana both come from cannabis. Marijuana is illegal in North Carolina. Hemp is legal in the state and is largely unregulated, with no age restrictions.
News reports show law enforcement officials in North Carolina have uncovered, often after executing search warrants, some vape shops being used as distribution hubs for controlled substances, including marijuana.
Under the new law, a first violation for carrying unauthorized products now carries a fine of $500 to $750, a mandatory reinspection within 30 days and a 30-day license suspension. Previously, those penalties did not apply until a second violation. A second or subsequent violation now carries a fine of $1,000 to $1,500 and license revocation, down from the previous threshold of a third violation. These penalty changes take effect Oct. 1, and apply to violations on or after that date.
The new law says that all these retailers are subject to “at least one” compliance check that can be conducted by “any state or local law enforcement officials,” including the Alcohol Law Enforcement agency, the State Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Justice, or local sheriff and police departments. Anyone who observes a violation can alert the SBI, and the SBI can direct law enforcement to investigate.
In addition, law enforcement agents may immediately seize products that are not listed in the state’s directory.
This enforcement framework took effect when the budget was signed into law.
Molloy said Solly’s Law, by contrast, parallels the existing system in place for alcohol sales, in which businesses must obtain licenses before selling and Alcohol Law Enforcement agents handle education, inspection and enforcement.
ALE, part of the state Department of Public Safety, is the lead enforcement agency for alcoholic beverage control, lottery and tobacco laws.
“It would be fine if other law enforcement groups wanted to participate and collaborate and add to that, but at minimum, no matter who the agency is that did the enforcement, there needs to be a system in place that if someone’s selling to underage kids, they could be fined,” Molloy said.
Under current law, selling tobacco or vapor products to a minor is generally a Class 2 misdemeanor for the person who makes the sale, such as a clerk. The law does not impose a specific fine or criminal penalty on the shop itself for that sale.
Josh Batten, assistant director of ALE, told The News & Observer that while the new law “does give us the ability to go in and look (and check for compliance with the vape registry),” it does not give officers “any specific authority to go in and say I’m going to look in certain areas or behind the counter,” he said.
“It basically says that any law enforcement can go in and do a visual compliance check,” he said, unlike when they enter alcohol shops where they can review records, check products and look in areas such as behind the counter.
Still “the law is a step in the right direction,” he said. “It’s encouraging and allowing all law enforcement to go in the vape shops to make sure that this specific law (is followed.)” He added that from anecdotal experience, the “overwhelming majority” of products are non-compliant.
Previously, compliance checks could occur after someone reported a noncompliant product to the Department of Revenue. And products could be seized, forfeited and destroyed upon a second or subsequent violation.
The directory of allowed products became public May 1, 2025, and full enforcement began July 1 of that year. According to an annual Department of Revenue report, inspectors checked eight retailers as of Dec. 31. All eight were found in violation, and officials identified 24,773 noncompliant products. Two retailers were found in violation after a follow-up inspection.
The budget creates a task force involving many law enforcement agencies for the purpose of coordinating compliance checks and enforcement. The SBI is tasked with leading and coordinating the task force and making rules.
Agencies have begun meeting, SBI spokesperson Chad Flowers said. “Members are working through the specifics of how compliance will be enforced and what policies will guide that work going forward,” he said.
Meanwhile, the council pushing for Solly’s Law wants a public hearing so “all the pieces can be discussed.”
“Four-fifths of the puzzle that’s missing may not be obvious to many people,” she said.
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This story was originally published July 24, 2026 at 5:30 AM.