U.S. FDA Expected to Ban All Flavors Except Tobacco and Menthol in Pod-Based Systems

The answer could be known by Friday. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plans to ban the sale of fruity flavors in cartridge-based e-cigarettes, but the restriction won’t apply to tank vaping systems commonly found at vape shops, according to people familiar with the matter.

According to an article in The Wall Street Journal, the action is seen as a compromise between Trump administration officials who want to address a rise in teen vaping and those concerned about the impact on small businesses and the possible political fallout for President Donald Trump, these people said. Polls commissioned by the vaping industry have shown an outright ban would be unpopular in key states for the 2020 election, according to the article.

Federal officials are expected to announce the new plan as soon as Friday. Open-tank vaping devices, which allow users to mix their own nicotine liquids, aren’t popular among children or teenagers, who tend to use vaporizers with prefilled cartridges such as those made by Juul Labs Inc. Open tanks are typically found in vape shops and allow consumers to custom-mix flavors.

The new policy, intended to curb a surge in underage vaping, would apply only to pod-based vaporizers such as those made by Juul Labs, NJOY Holdings Inc. and Reynolds American Inc.