The facts are clear on e-cigarette industry: Teens are their target
Jacob Sullum’s op-ed (“New Restrictions on E-Cigarettes Will Deter Adult Smokers from Switching”) asserts that the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decision to crack down on kidfriendly e-cigarette flavorings will deter adult smokers from switching to vaping and actually lead to an increase in smoking-related deaths. Mr. Sullum needs to check his facts.
He claims that vaping helps people quit smoking traditional cigarettes. A recent study from Dartmouth found the exact opposite: e-cigarette use leads to 81 times more new smokers than quitters.
Mr. Sullum also claims that these candylike flavors are aimed at adults, not kids. Flavors like blue razz candy, gummy bear, whipped cream, and chocolate cupcake? Come on. The appeal of these flavors is reflected in who is using them — nationwide, 12 percent of young people are vaping, whereas only 3 percent of adults are.
Today, e-cigarettes are the most popular form of tobacco use among youth, with more than 2 million middle and high school students using them. New data will soon be released showing that there was a 75 percent spike in e-cigarette use among high school students over the past year.
This popularity among youth is in no small part due to the flavorings developed by e-cigarette companies to hook a new generation of children on nicotine. The FDA reports that 81 percent of kids who have ever tried an e-cigarette started with a flavored product.
This is a page right out of Big Tobacco’s playbook. Remember Joe Camel? Remember strawberry, orange, and grapeflavored cigarettes? In 2009, Congress banned these kid-appealing flavors and marketing for cigarettes because the science on the risk of harm to children was clear. It’s time we do the same for e-cigarettes.
I introduced a bipartisan bill that would give companies one year to prove that their flavors actually help people quit smoking cigarettes, do not cause children to start smoking, and do not harm the user.
The real story is that tobacco addiction among kids is going down. That’s why Big Tobacco is becoming Big Vaping. They need a replacement addictive product.
The FDA is right: e-cigarette use is an epidemic and our kids are the targets.
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois