ESCANABA — Last week Michigan became the first state in the nation to ban flavored liquids used for vaping products, a step the governor said was needed to protect young people from the potentially harmful effects of vaping. A vape shop business owner, an individual who used to make e-liquids and a public health official weighed in on the ban and its possible repercussions.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) ordered the state health department to issue emergency rules that will prohibit the sale of flavored nicotine vaping products — including sales to adults — and the misleading marketing of e-cigarettes. Retailers will have 30 days to comply with the rules once they’re filed in coming weeks. The rules will almost certainly be challenged in court.

Eric Curtis, owner of the Rustic Vapor shops in Escanaba, Marquette and Ishpeming, said there is already a law that makes it illegal for anyone under 18 years of age to purchase cigarettes and vaping products. He said the ban will just create a black market.

“Prohibition does not work,” he said.

It is true that the federal government and states already ban the sale of vaping products to minors. ­However, government survey figures show that last year, one in five U.S. high school students reported vaping in the previous month. Top government health officials, including the U.S. surgeon general, have flagged the trend as an epidemic.

Michelle Chaillier, a prevention specialist at Public Health, Delta Menominee Counties, said she has seen a huge increase in youth use of vaping products in the local area firsthand.

“We’ve actually seen a huge increase in youth use of vape products. It’s been really scary. I’ve been doing prevention for over four years and when I started it was pretty much non-existent. Obviously, it existed, but not within our area, not with youth. And this past year being in the schools, we saw sixth graders using it; fifth graders using it. So just in a really short amount of time we’ve seen a huge increase,” she said.

She explained she felt the ban was the step in the right direction because getting vaping products out of the hands of kids is extremely important. She said the use of vaping products in youth is alarming because of how quickly the trend continues to rise and how vaping devices are not as easily recognized or detected by parents and teachers as packs of cigarettes are.

Matthew Keith, a Lansing man who used to make e-liquids, said the ban on the pre-mixed flavored liquid is a temporary measure, both in the length of the ban and the public’s willing to put up with it.

“I think you’re going to see a rise in the do-it-yourself scene for e-liquid. Teens who already vape that don’t have access to the liquid anymore will either turn to cigarettes or making it themselves in less safe and sanitary conditions than something you’d buy from a reputable source with dedicated lab facilities,” he said.

The ban also comes as the Center of Disease Control and Prevention is investigating more than 450 cases of lung disease that some officials believe were triggered by vaping. At least six deaths have been attributed to the lung disease and six people in Michigan have been hospitalized, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

Curtis and Keith both attribute the illnesses to black market THC cartridges using unsafe ingredients, like vitamin-e acetate.

Curtis explained in his shops, and in any reputable shop that sells e-liquids, all of the liquids sold have its ingredients listed with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA is still coming up with rules involving vaping products.

Although Curtis and Keith view the ban as potentially opening a flood gate to more black market productions of vaping products, Chaillier thinks the reality of respiratory illness may cause children to fear experimenting with black market flavors.

The e-liquid ban targets all e-liquid flavors except tobacco-flavored products.

Chaillier said the marketing surrounding flavored vaping products target youth as adults are not the usual target when products are bubble-gum flavored.

Although Chaillier said sweet flavors are a tactic to lure children into becoming addicted to nicotine, Curtis said a majority of his customers purchase the flavored e-liquids to help in their journey to quit smoking.

“I’d say 95 percent of my adult customers use flavored e-liquid — whether candy, fruit; dessert. If the ban goes into effect, it will force me to close my doors and over a dozen people will be unemployed,” said Curtis.

He noted he has talked to quite a few of his customers and they told him that they’d go back to smoking cigarettes if the ban goes through.

Curtis questioned why there wasn’t a push for a ban on cigarettes as cigarettes kill thousands of people in the U.S. every year.

He said 99 percent of the vape shops in Michigan are small businesses just trying to help adults quit using combustible cigarettes.

According to Chaillier, if a teen wants to quit smoking or vaping they can check out mylifemyquit.com, and if adults want to quit smoking or vaping they can call the Michigan Tobacco Quit Line at 1-800-784-8669.