Attorneys General Want FDA to do More to Protect Youth
State of Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel
The attorneys general for 33 states sent a letter to request the U.S. Food and Drug Administration do more to protect young people from e-cigarettes.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced she signed a bi-partisan letter calling on the FDA to limit the e-cigarette flavors that draw kids in and protect them from marketing, according to media reports.
She also suggested that the FDA should require a limit on nicotine levels in e-cigarette cartridges and disposables, according to a press release.
“Nicotine use by our young people has reached epidemic levels,” Nessel said in the release. “We need impactful tobacco regulations that protect our youth from the dangers of e-cigarettes and marketing tactics that target them with products flavored to taste like fruit and candy.
“We must act to regulate young people’s exposure to these products and take robust enforcement actions against manufacturers, distributors and retailers who ignore the law.”
The letter is becoming a yearly occurrence. Last year, a bipartisan coalition of 31 attorneys general are calling on the FDA to reject marketing authorization for all non-tobacco nicotine products, which are currently being sold without regulation of their contents, manufacturing, health effects, required warning labels or marketing claims.
In the 2022 letter, the coalition argues that vaping products don’t meet the FDA’s public health standard, and the regulatory agency should not gamble on the unknown effects of the products, despite the FDA having authorized 23 vaping products.
The other attorneys general signing onto the 2023 letter are from the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.