Increased rates of vaping nicotine and marijuana products in the U.S. did not result in more e-cigarette or vaping-related lung injuries (EVALI) cases, according to a new study from the Yale School of Public Health (YSPH).
“If e-cigarette or marijuana use per se drove this outbreak, areas with more engagement in those behaviors should show a higher EVALI prevalence,” said assistant professor Abigail Friedman, the study’s author. “This study finds the opposite result. Alongside geographic clusters of high EVALI prevalence states, these findings are more consistent with locally available e-liquids or additives driving the EVALI outbreak than a widely used, nationally-available product.”
Published in the Journal Addiction, the research estimates the relationship between a state’s total number of reported cases of EVALI per capita as of January 2020, and pre-outbreak rates of adult vaping and marijuana use, according to a release from the YSPH. Results show that higher rates of vaping and marijuana use are associated with fewer EVALI cases per capita.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced in February that it had officially classified vitamin E acetate, an additive long linked to EVALI and most common in THC e-liquids that are informally-sourced—i.e., purchased off the street or home-mixed—as “a primary cause of EVALI.”
The EVALI outbreak has motivated a variety of state and federal legislation to restrict sales of nicotine e-cigarettes, including a temporary ban on all e-cigarette sales in Massachusetts in late-2019 and bans on flavored e-cigarette sales in several states and localities. However, if the goal was to reduce EVALI risks, the study suggests that those policies may have targeted the wrong behavior.
The study found that the five earliest states to legalize recreational marijuana—Alaska, California, Colorado, Oregon and Washington—all had less than one EVALI case per 100,000 residents aged 12 to 64, according to the release. None of the highest EVALI-prevalence states—Utah, North Dakota, Minnesota, Delaware and Indiana—allowed recreational marijuana use.
California is on track to ban the sale of most flavored tobacco products, joining states like New York and Massachusetts. The state Assembly passed the ban on Monday, two months after the state Senate passed a similar proposal.
The move sets up negotiations between the Assembly and Senate to resolve differences in the bill before it heads to the desk of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has indicated his support for the ban.
The bill does not make it a crime for people to possess flavored tobacco products, but it bans retailers from selling them. Violators would face a $250 fine.
There is also a sizable exemption for flavored shisha tobacco that is sold by a hookah tobacco retailer, though the law requires several conditions to be met:
The hookah tobacco retailer has a valid license to sell tobacco products;
The hookah tobacco retailer does not permit any person under 21 years of age to be present or enter the premises at any time;
The hookah tobacco retailer shall operate in accordance with all relevant state and local laws relating to the sale of tobacco products; and
If consumption of tobacco products is allowed on the premises of the hookah tobacco retailer, the hookah tobacco retailer shall operate in accordance with all state and local laws relating to the consumption of tobacco products on the premises of a tobacco retailer.
The two chambers must now resolve the differences in their versions of the bill; the Senate bill did not include the exemptions that were passed in the Assembly.
After enjoying economic growth for 10 years and record low unemployment, small businesses are feeling a disproportionate brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic. After California’s initial stay-in-place order and closure of non-essential businesses, the economic consequences have severely impacted nearly 4 million small businesses in the state.
Even efforts by state legislators to address the state’s pandemic-caused budget deficit, too many of the policies aimed to close the gap will severely burden small businesses. That list includes Senate Bill 793, introduced by state Sen. Jerry Hill, a Democrat from San Mateo, a ban on the sale of all flavored tobacco products, which will profoundly impact California’s 12,000 convenience stores.
Even during years of economic growth, many small businesses operated on relatively tight margins, leaving them poorly positioned for a financial setback from COVID-19. Yet, the state budget attempts to squeeze even more out of battered businesses, including $4.4 billion in tax increases.
Julian Canete /Credit: CalMatters
They will also feel the downward pressure of a gas tax increase that will increase distribution and production costs, and for those selling gas, they will likely see a decrease of customers at the pump. To top it all off, these businesses are also feeling the impact of new minimum wage, family leave and other mandates and environmental regulations.
For convenience stores, SB 793 presents an even greater risk. The threat of a sales ban on flavored tobacco products, which includes menthol, coupled with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decision to enact a second wave of shutdowns could spell disaster. With individuals encouraged to again stay home and businesses unable to open, this potential ban on a high revenue generator – flavored tobacco products – could spell the end for many of small businesses and the thousands of jobs they provide.
What’s worse is this ban penalizes otherwise law-abiding, compliant business owners. According to FDA data, California’s statewide compliance rate of selling tobacco to legal age adults was 95%, 97% in Sacramento. Yet, lawmakers seem to trust the internet over hard-working men and women who would do anything to keep their business open and profiting.
The most recent analysis by the Mackinac Center found almost 50% of the cigarettes consumed were smuggled in, or acquired through tax avoidance or evasion. Furthermore, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found the strange string of vaping deaths in 2019 was caused by products illegally obtained on the black market, not from regulated products sold in stores.
If lawmakers want to curb youth vaping – their stated goal of this legislation – putting more faith in illegal, predatory online vendors over vigilant store owners and their trained employees does the exact opposite: it puts children at risk.
The National Federation of Independent Business July jobs report shows the small business labor market has continued to weaken. Firms reduced employment by 0.28 workers per firm in June, weaker than the decrease of 0.17 workers per firm in May. These figures are not likely to improve as data was collected well before the recent renewal of state-imposed business shutdowns. And with the money provided by the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program loans essentially used up, coupled with the unknown length of shutdowns, who knows how long convenient stores can weather the storm.
There’s no doubt we need to address the rise in youth vaping. But to water down the problem and propose a unilateral flavored tobacco ban as the solution is at best a half-hearted approach. Convenience store owners have proven to be responsible sellers – they are not the problem. It’s not too late for legislators to go back to the drawing board and, with input from the small business community, find a comprehensive solution to tackle a community problem without putting key members of the community out of business.
Julian Canete is the president and CEO of the California Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, canetej@cahcc.com. This commentary was originally written for CalMatters.org.
Oregon should ban flavored e-cigarettes and vaping products, crack down on online sales and enact more industry regulations to discourage youth vaping, according to recommendations from the state’s Vaping Public Health Work Group.
The group sent its recommendations to Gov. Kate Brown on Thursday after eight months of work examining the health risks of vaping and potential public policy solutions. The recommendations are a reminder that vaping became a public health risk well before COVID-19 captured the nation’s attention, an article by Ben Botkin of The Lund Report stated.
Oregon had 23 cases of vaping-related lung injuries which resulted in two deaths by March 12, according to Oregon Health Authority data. More recent data were not available.
“In the middle of a worldwide pandemic, it might be easy to forget that less than a year ago, we faced a nationwide epidemic of vaping-related illness,” Brown said in a statement. “Now, though, as we are facing the spread of a disease that attacks the respiratory system, it’s even more important that we take steps to protect the health and safety of Oregon’s youth, who have been using vaping products at increasingly high rates.”
Flavored products appeal to young people, and the industry targets them along with low-income people and people of color, the working group said in its recommendations. The group’s membership includes doctors and other experts in pulmonology, pediatrics and public health along with state lawmakers and state agency officials, Botkin’s story states.
The working group also recommended banning harmful ingredients and requiring disclosure of ingredients in cannabis products, with standards for documentation and verification. One harmful additive is vitamin E acetate, which is “strongly linked” to the outbreak of vaping-related illness last summer in Oregon, the governor’s office said.
The working group called for a price hike for tobacco and nicotine products, including e-cigarettes, with tax or non-tax approaches, such as a ban on price promotions or discounts that target youth.
That recommendation comes as Oregon voters will consider a ballot measure in November that would increase the tobacco tax for cigarettes by $2 a pack and enact a 65% wholesale tax on nicotine vaping products and e-cigarettes, which are not currently taxed. That measure is intended to raise money for tobacco cessation programs and Medicaid.
In addition to a ban on online and telephone sales, the working group recommended other regulations. They include tobacco retailing licensing to ensure that retailers are not selling to underage Oregonians and to raise money through licensure fees for vaping-awareness education and enforcement efforts. Oregon is one of only eight states without a tobacco retail licensing system.
The working group also recommended audit testing of marijuana products to prevent prohibited substances and verify all ingredients and additives.
On the health care front, the work group called for making cessation supports like medications and counseling more widely available through health care providers and insurers, including providers in nonclinical settings to remove barriers to patients.
Oregon lawmakers have unsuccessfully tried to put more regulation of vaping products in place.
In the short session earlier this year, lawmakers considered, but did not pass, bills that would have banned flavored vaping products and prevented remote online sales to discourage underage youth from illicit purchases. The bill to ban flavored vaping products faced strong opposition from the industry and was pared down to a simpler proposal with more regulations to prevent minors from purchases. Those bills died when the session ended in March after a Republican-led walkout to kill a carbon tax bill prevented the House and Senate from having a quorum.
While there is little evidence that flavor bans prevent youth use, bans are forcing businesses to close.
By Timothy S. Donahue
As of Aug. 1, Jeff Barry no longer owns a vape shop. Barry, who once owned three retail stores in the state of New York, had to close his last store because of New York’s ban on flavored vapor products. During the past nine years, Barry has had to close six vape shops across two states. All because of overregulation.
Barry started vaping in 2008 to quit smoking combustible cigarettes. He was the part-owner of a logistics company. Soon he was buying devices for several other smokers to help them quit. A few months later, Barry was selling 30–50 devices a day and lots of e-liquid from his house. His vapor side business soon grew too large for his home. He sold his half of the logistics company. Barry then used $15,000 of his savings to open his first vape shop in New York. Then New York legislatures started talking about banning vapor products. So, Barry moved his business to Warren, Pennsylvania, in 2012.
Barry then opened a second and third vape shop in 2014 and 2015. He was going to open a fourth store in 2016 when it happened. That year, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf signed off on a budget bill that included a massive new tax on electronic cigarettes. The estimated 350 vape shops scattered across Pennsylvania were devastated. The new 40 percent wholesale tax on all vapor equipment and supplies was even more crippling because the same 40 percent tax applied not only to purchases made after Oct. 1—the day the tax took effect—but also covered all inventory on store shelves on that date. A store with $100,000 worth of inventory owed the state $40,000.
Credit: Jeff Barry
“Fifty percent of all vapor stores closed in six months. I closed two stores in September of 2016 and my last store on Jan. 1, 2017,” says Barry. “I moved to one small location in New York in April 2017 and quickly opened two more stores over the next two years.” The entire time he was also doing advocacy work to help fight to keep life-saving vapor products on the market.
Like a bad dream, it happened again. Regulation would ruin Barry’s businesses. New York became the first state in the nation to restrict the sale of flavored vapor products. Snuck into a budget without debate on April 3 while most of the state’s citizenry was focusing on the Covid-19 pandemic, New York banned the sale of all flavored vapor products other than tobacco flavors. This was labeled a huge win for public health and the only real solution to the youth vaping issues. The e-liquid flavor ban went into effect on May 18, 2020, for brick-and-mortar sales and July 1 for online sales.
The Consumer Advocates for Smoke-Free Alternatives Association (CASAA), a nonprofit group, said in a release that the New York budget was passed under the guise of dire circumstances and that it was necessary to keep the state functioning in the midst of a crisis, but all of this was introduced by Governor Andrew Cuomo well in advance of the coronavirus outbreak in New York.
“Even under normal circumstances, voters and lawmakers are hard-pressed to amend or remove even the most egregious sections of the governor’s budget proposal,” the release stated. “There are deep cuts and rollbacks to other programs and reforms that will arguably threaten the health and financial security of millions of New Yorkers and, again, all of this was on the table before anyone was recommending austerity measures to slow the spread of Covid-19.”
Barry closed his first location on April 1. Then the second on July 1. He closed his last store on Aug. 1. “I have lost many nights’ sleep over these choices. Many people with no other option or accessibility to products in a convenient local will simply go back to smoking,” explains Barry. “Some will go to the Indian reservation (where products are not banned). Some will travel to other states to get their product.”
According to the Vapor Technology Association (VTA), in 2018, the vapor industry directly generated 87,581 jobs, including manufacturing, retail and wholesale employment. Those jobs generated more than $3.2 billion in just wages. The vapor industry has also created thousands of secondary jobs in the United States, bringing the industry’s total economic impact in 2018 to $24.46 billion.
In the same year, the industry generated more than $4.9 billion in taxes, according to the VTA. In 2016, 78 percent of e-liquid sales were flavored products, and 69 percent of disposable vapor product sales were flavored and menthol products.
Unreasonable action
Several state and local governments have now passed laws banning the sale of flavored e-liquids. In 2020, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island enacted bans on the sale of flavored e-cigarettes. In 2019, eight states—Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah and Washington—issued emergency rules to temporarily ban the sale of flavored e-cigarettes, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
Barry says that New York’s government and other states that enact flavor bans will effectively eliminate a product that is 97–99 percent safer than combustible cigarettes. With the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) premarket tobacco product application (PMTA) due date looming (Sept. 9), the future of the vapor industry is still unknown.
“Just because the government took the legality away does not mean they took the passion to help people quit smoking away,” explains Barry. “I was not a criminal two months ago, and now I am? Vaping is on the right side of science; the government will not be able to lie forever, so myself and people like me will not go away because we can’t.”
Bans on flavored vapor products began as an attempt to curb rising rates of youth use. According to 2018 National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS) data, current e-cigarette use among middle and high school students increased between 2017 and 2018, with more than 3.6 million kids using e-cigarettes in 2018. Flavors, however, may not even be the real cause for the increase of youth vaping. There is also no evidence to support that bans lower youth initiation.
The FDA has said that Juul was the most popular e-cigarette brand used by youth. In response, Juul ended sales of all flavors other than tobacco flavors in the U.S. However, in May, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a study on its website that concluded that youth are not using Juul for the flavors.
In a JAMA study text survey of 1,129 respondents between the ages of 14 years and 24 years, only 4.7 percent of respondents cited “flavors” as a reason for people their age to use Juul. Conversely, 62.2 percent of respondents cited social reasons.
According to Tobacco Harm Reduction 101 (THR 101), overwhelmingly, youth are using vapor products because friends and/or family members are using the products. In a Heartland Institute analysis of available youth surveys in five states, only 15.6 percent of high school students cited using e-cigarettes because of flavors.
“Existing evidence indicates that flavor bans have not reduced youth e-cigarette use in several localities that track this data. Adults rely on flavors in tobacco harm reduction products. In a 2018 survey of nearly 70,000 American adult e-cigarette users, 83.2 percent and 72.3 percent reported vaping fruit and dessert flavors” respectively, according to THR 101.
Credit: Ali Yahya
In 2019, researchers from the University of Texas and the University of North Texas set out to look at the impact of e-cigarette advertising. They found that adolescents exposed to e-cigarette ads in retail stores are twice as likely to start vaping within several years. Some countries, Canada for example, have banned all vapor product advertising.
Another reason used to justify various bans on vapor products had nothing to do with nicotine-based products. In the summer of 2019, public health authorities identified an outbreak of a deadly vaping-related lung injury. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) later called the condition e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury (EVALI). In November of 2019, the CDC admitted that marijuana (THC)-based vapor products containing vitamin-E acetate were responsible for the lung illnesses, but the damage to the nicotine vapor industry was already done.
“The latest national and state findings suggest products containing THC, particularly those obtained off the street or from other informal sources (e.g., friends, family members, illicit dealers), are linked to most of the cases and play a major role in the outbreak,” the CDC said in a statement.
Many of those who advocate for bans on vapor products also claim that e-cigarettes are a “gateway” to smoking combustible cigarettes. A study released in July found this to be untrue. The study, “Association of initial e-cigarette and other tobacco product use with subsequent cigarette smoking in adolescents: a cross-sectional, matched control study,” was published in Tobacco Control.
Researchers from University College London in the U.K. concluded that “over the time period considered, e-cigarettes were unlikely to have acted as an important gateway towards cigarette smoking and may, in fact, have acted as a gateway away from smoking for vulnerable adolescents; this is consistent with the decrease in youth cigarette smoking prevalence over the same time period that youth e-cigarette use increased between 2014 and 2017.”
Unintended consequences
Many legislatures have argued that adults don’t use flavored e-liquids to quit; however, several studies have found that adults do use flavored e-liquids to quit smoking cigarettes. A study from the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, that was released in May of this year, found that most regular vapers in Canada and the U.S. use nontobacco flavors. It also concluded that greater satisfaction and enjoyment with vaping are higher among fruit flavor and candy flavor users.
The study showed adult vapers use a wide range of flavors, with 63.1 percent using a nontobacco flavor. The most common flavor categories were fruit (29.4 percent) and tobacco (28.7 tobacco) followed by mint/menthol (14.4 percent) and candy (13.5 percent).
“While it does not appear that certain flavors are associated with a greater propensity to attempt to quit smoking among concurrent users, nontobacco flavors are popular among former smokers who are exclusively vaping,” the researchers wrote. “Future research should determine the likely impact of flavor bans on those who are vaping to quit smoking or to stay quit.”
Additionally, flavor bans bring a potentially bigger problem. Writing in RealClear Policy, Elizabeth Sheld described a June meeting of the Massachusetts Department of Revenue’s Illegal Tobacco Task Force in which participants expressed fear that the ban will lead to increased smuggling and black market sales.
“I’m concerned that placing an added burden and tasking law enforcement with the enforcement of flavor bans will only stand to create a significant new black market, this includes both cross-state border smuggling and counterfeit tobacco,” said Charles Giblin, a retired special agent in charge of the New Jersey treasury’s office of criminal investigation. “At the onset, you’ll start to see an increase between Massachusetts and New Hampshire in smuggling and illegal importation via the internet of counterfeit flavored cigarettes from countries including China and Paraguay. They will skyrocket almost incredibly instantaneously. Another underestimated source will be Canadian First Nations reservation cigarette manufacturers, who are rather robust.”
The black market is already growing, writes Sheld. Rich Marianos, who served 27 years at the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told the task force that “the illegal tobacco trade along Interstate 95 on the East Coast is a $10 billion industry that is already working to fill the void created by Massachusetts’ new law.”
Distributors know vape shops are closing from flavor bans. Many have said that they expect to see a major change in the number of vape shops after Sept. 9. Chris Howard, from EAS, says he knows from personal experience that owners are closing brick-and-mortar vape shops. He says it isn’t easy for business owners to survive the PMTA deadline, flavor bans and then the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s almost a perfect storm.
Credit: Vaporesso
“I know they’ve closed numerous shops and the PMTA deadline hasn’t even passed. That is definitely happening. These are some die-hard vapor advocates, and they’ve been left with no choice,” says Howard. “That’s unfortunately a reality. With regard with what we are seeing happening with the consumers, we’ve seen the reports that Altria’s Marlboro brand’s sales are up whatever percent. I mean, I think a lot of people are going back to smoking. I hate it, but that is an unintended consequence.”
Despite such challenges, Barry believes the industry will survive. He says that some responsible business owners and innocent consumers will become criminals instead of going back to traditional cigarettes. “The Industry will survive. It started as a grassroots product. It will simply go back to that. We won’t stop. We only tried to help people quit smoking and make a legal business income from doing something we were passionate about,” says Barry.
Numerous public health groups, including the Royal College of Physicians, Public Health England and the American Cancer Society, have stated that the use of vapor products is significantly safer than traditional cigarettes. “E-cigarettes are also twice as effective in helping smokers quit. Further, their use could save states billions in healthcare-related costs,” writes THR 101. “As with any policy area, lawmakers should refrain from outright bans and seek out alternative solutions that reduce youth use while maintaining adult access to tobacco harm reduction products.”
There is little doubt that flavor bans and other regulations will crush small businesses. The real loser in all of this, however, is the end-user, according to Barry. “I see little hope for small business in this industry to continue to survive,” he says. “The demographic all of this regulation will hurt the most is the consumer—the smokers trying to quit by using a safer product.”
The Montana health department has ended its quest to ban flavored vaping products in the state.
The decision came Friday after 13 state senators and seven representatives, all Republicans, signed letters last month opposing the rule and stating that the health department does not have the authority to implement such a ban, according to NBC Montana.
Montana law dictates that a poll of the entire Legislature is required when 20 or more legislators object to a proposed administrative rule.
Department of Public Health and Human Services Director Sheila Hogan said the decision to poll the Legislature revealed that additional education and collaboration is necessary to protect Montana’s young people, according to the story
Just three months after the state of New York banned flavored vaping products, vape shop owners say there has been a steep drop in customers. The ban, aimed at reducing youth vaping, came after several cases of lung disease caused by illicit marijuana products.
The number of those illnesses surged in August and September 2019 and had killed 68 people by Feb. 18, when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped collecting state health data on the illnesses because of the decline in cases, according to an article on Newsday.com.
The CDC concluded that vitamin E acetate, which was sometimes added to vape products containing THC was “the primary cause” of the illnesses, Brain King, a deputy director in the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health, told Newsday in an email.
New York’s ban, which went into effect May 18, allows the sale only of vape liquids that are flavorless or taste like tobacco. A ban on all online vape sales started July 1. Some vape shops have shut down since the flavor ban, and others “are just barely hanging on,” said Cheryl Richter, executive director of the New York State Vapor Association.
Tammy Mink, owner of Shore Vapes in Glen Cove, said the ban, and a Nassau County ban on all flavors except menthol and mint that went into effect Jan. 1, “killed our business.” About 90% of pre-ban sales of vape liquids were of flavored products, she said.
Mink said most of her customers started vaping to stop smoking — as she did — and some have now returned to smoking. Mink said she would have welcomed a crackdown on sales of vape products to people under 21. Instead, the ban “opened up a black market,” she said. “It will not stop the kids from getting it.”
Several stores on the Shinnecock reservation — which asserts it is exempt from the ban because of its legal sovereignty — still sell flavored vape products, said Taobi Silva, a former tribal trustee who co-owns a vape store and manages a smoke shop that sells vape products and traditional cigarettes.
Silva saw increased sales after the ban went into effect “but not as significant as we were expecting.” That’s largely because gas stations and bodegas outside the reservation, as well as people operating from their car trunks, illegally sell the flavored products, he said.
The current ban was passed by the State Legislature and signed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. A state health council approved a ban in September, but a state appeals court blocked enforcement after a lawsuit filed by the Washington, D.C.-based Vapor Technology Association. Association president Tony Abboud said in a statement Thursday that the group “does not have any plans to litigate” the new flavor ban.
Lawmakers in Montana legislature will be polled on a proposed ban of flavored vaping products. The decision comes after numerous Republican lawmakers opposed the rule advanced by the Montana Department of Health and Human Services.
Montana law dictates that a poll of the legislature is required when 20 or more legislators object to a proposed administrative rule, according to an article on flatheadbeacon.com.
Thirteen Montana senators and seven representatives, all Republicans, signed letters last month opposing the rule, stating that the health department does not have the authority to implement such a ban. If passed, the rule would prohibit all sales, distribution and marketing of electronic smoking devices in Montana. The health department proposed the rule on June 16, citing increased use of flavored vaping products by Montana youth.
Numerous health officials spoke Wednesday in favor of the proposed ban during a special meeting of the legislative Children, Families, Health and Human Services Committee.
The committee, which has jurisdiction over the health department, determined that Montana’s 50 senators and 100 house members will be polled on whether the rule is “consistent with the intent of the legislature.”
Supporters of the ban cited a study conducted by Stanford researchers and released earlier this week, which linked vaping with a substantially increased risk of COVID-19 in youth. The research found that those who used vaping products were five to seven times more likely to be infected with the respiratory virus than those who did not use e-cigarettes.
Sen. Jason Ellsworth, R-Hamilton, was one of the 20 legislators who opposed the rule. He spoke during the committee meeting Wednesday, stating the health department was “circumventing the legislative process by trying to create law within rule.”
“We have three branches in our government,” Ellsworth said. “We do not have a fourth branch, we do not have a branch called the Department of Health and Human Services, or any other department that can create law.”
Polling ballots will be sent to Montana legislators by next week, and must be postmarked by Sept. 8. Poll results will be provided to the Montana secretary of state for publication.
As manufacturers of e-cigarettes and certain other tobacco products face a Sept. 9, 2020, deadline to apply to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to keep their products on the market, six public health and medical organizations are urging the FDA not to authorize the sale of any flavored products.
“The FDA should not authorize the sale of any flavored tobacco product, including e-cigarettes or e-liquids, because of the clear evidence that flavored products appeal to youth and have driven the current epidemic of e-cigarette use among youth and young adults, and the lack of evidence that flavored products help smokers quit,” the groups wrote in a joint statement.
“Research shows that 97 percent of youth e-cigarette users report using a flavored product in the past month and 70 percent say they use e-cigarettes ‘because they come in flavors I like.’ In contrast, there is no credible evidence that flavored e-cigarettes help adult smokers quit. In a report issued earlier this year, the U.S. Surgeon General concluded, ‘there is presently inadequate evidence to conclude that e-cigarettes, in general, increase smoking cessation’,” the organizations wrote.
The groups also called on the FDA to take prompt enforcement action to remove from the market products for which applications are required but are not submitted by the Sept. 9 deadline.
The organizations that issued the statement are the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and the Truth Initiative.
The vaping industry in New Zealand has three months to prepare for regulation after a law banning advertising and restricting flavors has passed under the cover of night. It’s taken 620 days to get the law over the line after Associate Health Minister Jenny Salesa promised to regulate the industry in November 2018.
It wasn’t until this year she introduced the bill, which was voted through the House late last night – just before the final sitting day in this term of government, according to an article in The New Zealand Herald.
The Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Vaping Amendment Bill will come into effect in November of this year. It has broadly been welcomed but some fear it is too restrictive and could result in people using vaping as a smoking-cessation tool to turn back to cigarettes.
The new law will:
• Ban the sale of vaping products to those under the age of 18. • Prohibit advertising the products and encouraging people to buy them in-store. • Limit the sale of all flavors to specialist stores, including online retailers, with shops Like dairies, supermarkets and petrol stations restricted to mint, menthol and tobacco. • Allow speciality stores to continue offering loyalty points and discounts. • Ban vaping in cars with children. • Enable all retailers to display products in-store. • Provide a framework for regulations to be set where people are allowed to vape in or outside premises. • Introduce a safety system which would allow the Ministry of Health to recall products, suspend them and issue warnings.
