The bill sailed through the House and went on to the Senate, where it was amended to ban even the possession of cigarettes. The Senate approved the tougher measure with only one dissenting vote, but Roscoe's colleagues in the House balked. A conference committee recommended that the original language be restored, the legislature agreed, and McGraw signed the bill into law on March 7, 1893.
The law made Washington the first state in the nation to ban the sale of cigarettes to anyone, adults or minors. The law was struck down in the federal courts the following July, but Progressive reformers in Washington State continued to agitate against "coffin nails" (a.k.a. little white slavers, dope sticks, devil's toothpicks, Satan sticks, coffin pills, little white devils). The Washington State Legislature passed another cigarette prohibition law in 1907.
