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Call Kurtis: Better Packaging for Candy Flavored E-Cigarette Liquid?

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – The liquid nicotine used in e-cigarettes come in flavors like watermelon and banana split, and some kids think it is candy. Now lawmakers are pushing to make sure the packaging is child safe.

22-month old Winona was hospitalized after being poisoned by liquid nicotine.

"Her eyes were rolling back, it was really scary," said Winona's mom, Nicole Oliver.

She didn't initially know what Winona had swallowed.

"Then I saw it was her dad's e-cigarette vapor," Nicole said. "In that second it clicked in my head, I was going to lose my daughter."

Liquid nicotine is sold online and in shops, and come in desert and candy flavors like gummy bear, vanilla cupcake and banana nut bread.

Winona survived even after swallowing half a bottle.

But, 18-month old Eli Hotaling of New York wasn't so lucky. He died after drinking from an uncapped bottle left on a dining room table.

Dr. Tim Albertson of UC Davis said ingesting just a teaspoon of liquid nicotine can be toxic.

"It's not a benign drug at all. It's quite toxic." Dr. Albertson said. "It's just a walking time bomb waiting for a kid to trip it."

We learned the number of calls to California Poison Control involving e-cigarettes multiplied from 19 in 2012 to 243 in 2014 year – a 1,200 percent increase.

A television commercial produced by TobaccaFreeCA showed how some kids are drawn to the liquid nicotine packaging.

"This smells like strawberry," said one child featured in the television ad.

"That has been a major problem," said State Senator Jerry Hill.

He wrote a bill requiring liquid nicotine to be in child proof packaging.

"I mean it's common sense to me," Hill said.

The industry actually agrees. The American Vaping Association claims many manufacturers already use child safe packaging and told us: "If the proposed California law is reasonable and in line with the federal standard for such packaging, it will likely have the backing of the industry as a whole."

Nicole Oliver hopes no one else experiences what she went through with Winona.

"It was probably the scariest [waiting] game of my life," she said. "I could have lost her."

State Senator Jerry Hill's bill, SB 438, will have its first hearing in July.

There is another state bill that would allow law enforcement to sting businesses to make sure they're not selling e-cigarettes to minors.

Currently, there are no federal regulations when it comes to liquid nicotine packaging.

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