E-cigs using synthetic nicotine come under FDA oversight
WASHINGTON – U.S. regulators will soon begin cracking down on vaping companies using a nowclosed loophole, including a line of fruit-flavored ecigarettes that have become teenagers’ top choice.
Under a law that took effect Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration can regulate e-cigarettes and similar products that use synthetic nicotine.
The action targets Puff Bar and several other vaping companies that recently switched their formulas to laboratory-made nicotine to skirt FDA oversight.
The change will allow the FDA to “hold e-cigarette companies using synthetic nicotine to the same public health standards we’ve implemented for other tobacco products,” FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said in a tweet Wednesday. Companies must now register with the FDA and submit their products for review within 30 days.
Puff Bar did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
The FDA’s action does not automatically ban Puff Bar and similar products. Instead it brings them under the same regulatory scheme as older e-cigarettes that derive their nicotine from tobacco.
“The synthetic nicotine products do not necessarily just disappear on their own,” Robin Koval, chief executive of the Truth Initiative, an advocacy group that runs anti-tobacco ads. “The FDA will have to decide how they want to enforce the law and hopefully they will.”
The FDA has been reviewing applications for a vast array of vaping devices, formulas and flavors – rejecting more than 1 million, usually because of their potential appeal to youngsters. Anti-tobacco advocates hope the agency will quickly do the same for any applications submitted by Puff Bar and other manufacturers.
Nicotine, the chemical the makes smoking and vaping addictive, occurs naturally in tobacco plants.
The 2009 law that first gave the FDA oversight of cigarettes and related products only referred to tobacco-based nicotine.
That left an opening for artificial nicotine, which is being used in e-cigarette liquids, nicotine pouches and other products.
Last month, Congress passed language clarifying that the FDA can regulate any form of nicotine, regardless of the source.
After appearing in 2019, Puff Bar has grown to become the most popular e-cigarette among teenagers, by far, sold in flavors like blueberry, strawberry banana and mango.
Under FDA pressure, the company said it was halting sales in 2020, pulling its disposable vaping devices out of convenience stores, gas stations and vape shops.