House Bill 2068 (H-2040.2) amends many existing statutes, adds a new chapter to Title 70 RCW, and creates several new sections. It establishes a statewide retail prohibition (effective July 1, 2027) on the sale, offer, display, marketing, or advertising of flavored tobacco or nicotine products and of "entertainment vapor products," and it adds statutory definitions for those products, for nicotine and nicotine analogues, and for related terms. The bill directs the Department of Health to run a time-limited prevention and awareness campaign (with a report due January 1, 2027), makes violations of the new chapter actionable as unfair or deceptive practices under the Consumer Protection Act, and authorizes the governor to pursue government-to-government tribal compacts on implementation. The bill changes tax law and licensing requirements. It imposes or specifies a cigarette tax (stated as $2 per package in the text excerpt) with an automatic CPI-based adjustment beginning December 2028 and every three years thereafter, directing the first $5,000,000 of cigarette revenue to a youth tobacco and vapor prevention account and the remainder to the general fund. It sets a tax on vapor products at 95 percent of the taxable sales price, amends definitions of taxable sales price, and allocates the first $25,000,000 per year of vapor tax revenue between an Andy Hill cancer research match transfer account and the foundational public health services account with additional revenue to the general fund. The bill imposes $1,000 license or renewal fees for wholesalers, distributors, retailers, and delivery-sale licenses (with per-location fees and some additional machine fees) and establishes recordkeeping, reporting, and preexisting-inventory reporting and payment deadlines (reports by Jan 31, 2026 and payment by Apr 30, 2026 are required in the text). The bill expands enforcement, penalties, and procedural provisions. It gives the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board authority to adopt rules, provide compliance education, and impose escalating monetary penalties and license suspensions or revocations for licensees (including specific escalating schedules tied to violations within any three-year period, up to a $20,000 penalty and five-year license bar for fifth or subsequent violations). It amends criminal and civil penalties and procedures: selling or giving tobacco or related products to a person under 21 is a gross misdemeanor; acquiring vapor products from an unlicensed person and holding them for sale is a class C felony; refusal to allow inspections can be a gross misdemeanor; operating without required additional licenses can be a misdemeanor. The bill requires posted signs and ID checks, allows the board to offer clerk training in lieu of a first monetary penalty, provides for seizure/forfeiture procedures and distribution of forfeiture proceeds, and directs that enforcement proceedings follow administrative procedure law. The provided text is incomplete in places. Important material referenced in multiple places (for example, the full content of "section 4 of this act," some tax collection timing rules, and some cross-referenced statutory language) is not included in the extracted facts, so precise implementation details for those items cannot be stated here.

If enacted, the law will remove flavored tobacco, flavored nicotine, and entertainment vapor products from retail sale statewide starting July 1, 2027, while dramatically raising taxes on cigarettes, vapor products, and most other tobacco products (a $2-per-pack cigarette charge with CPI indexing and taxes at about 95% of the sales price for vapor and many tobacco products). Retailers, distributors, and wholesalers will face new $1,000-per-location licensing fees (plus some extra fees and a required bond for wholesalers), strict recordkeeping and ID checks, free required signage, and near-term cash and filing requirements to report and pay tax on preexisting inventory by early 2026. Losing flavored product sales and paying much higher taxes will likely increase costs and reduce revenue for businesses that relied on those product lines; noncompliance risks escalating monetary penalties, suspension or revocation of licenses, seizure of goods, and in some cases criminal charges for dealing with unlicensed suppliers. State agencies will gain new responsibilities and dedicated revenue flows: the Department of Revenue must collect and adjust taxes and publish amounts, the Liquor and Cannabis Board will run enforcement, licensing, education, and a clerk-training option to limit penalties, and the Department of Health must run a short prevention campaign and provide the required signs. The first shares of new tobacco and vapor tax revenue are earmarked for youth prevention, a cancer research match account, and foundational public health services, with the remainder to the general fund. Important implementation details are missing from the extracted text (notably the full contents of the referenced “section 4” and some tax mechanics), so the exact compliance steps and total financial impact on specific businesses or tribes cannot be fully determined here.