SALEM — Flavored vape products dodged another bullet after Oregon lawmakers killed a proposal to ban them.

Sen. Laurie Monnes Anderson, who championed the bill, said the priority is now to create a program to license all nicotine retailers.

“The flavor ban is gone,” the Gresham Democrat said at the beginning of Senate Bill 1577’s work session Thursday afternoon.

The proposal to ban all flavored nicotine vaping and e-cigarette products came in the midst of an explosion of public awareness about the potential dangers of the minimally regulated industry.

Concerns escalated with a lung illness epidemic that has been attributed primarily to black market marijuana oil vape products. That crisis brought attention to an entirely different one — a spike in youth addiction to nicotine, driven by addictive, available and easily concealable vaping products.

Monnes Anderson’s bill would have banned the sale of all nicotine vape products with flavors, such as mango and mint. Only those that actually tasted like tobacco would have been allowed.