U.S. Senator Accuses Elf Bar of Advertising to Youth
Sen. Charles Schumer
A prominent U.S. senator is calling on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to investigate an e-cigarette company because he believes it’s skirting American advertising laws.
Sen. Chuck Schumer says Elf Bar products are is wrapped in colorful packaging to attract youth and it hooks them with kid-friendly flavors like peach mango, cotton candy and vanilla ice cream, according to a Sunday statement.
“While the FDA has done much to snuff out the worst kinds of e-cigs that can hook kids, like Juul, there are clear workarounds and illegal methods being used by sneaky actors like Elf Bar,” Schumer said in the statement.
“Elf Bar is littering TikTok and Instagram, using influencers they pay directly, to push the e-cig to kids and teens,” he continued. “This kind of ploy might totally evade FDA advertising rules, and we have to get ahead of it.”
Schumer said Elf Bar may be even worse than Juul given its “shoddy manufacturing, the risk of counterfeit products and its risk for mislabeled nicotine levels.”
In the UK, Elf Bar was found to be selling e-cigarettes with volumes more than 50 percent over the UK’s legal limit after an investigation. The Chinese vaping giant admitted “inadvertently” breaking the law and ‘wholeheartedly apologized’ following lab tests of its 600 brand of disposable vape pens.
Recently, another Elfbar brand is being pulled from U.K. store shelves after finding the products surpass the legal limit for e-liquid volumes.
