Ban E-Cigarette Ads Everywhere

Europe has done the right thing. The U.S. has to follow suit for the sake of American teens

Within a few weeks, ads for electronic cigarettes will go dark on European TV, radio, and websites and will disappear from most print publications. Europe’s highest court has approved new regulations on such ads—in contrast with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which declined on May 5 to impose the same ban, even as it declared its authority to regulate vaping products. Cigarette ads have been banned on U.S. TV and radio since the Nixon administration, but e-cigarette ads are allowed everywhere—and they’re often aimed at teenagers.

This helps explain why more and more American adolescents are taking up e-cigarettes. In the past four years, the number has risen more than 900 percent, to 3 million, including about 1 in 6 high school students.

Even experts who believe (on incomplete evidence) that e-cigarettes may have the potential to help tobacco users quit see the danger in allowing vapes to be promoted to young people and other nonsmokers. While e-cigarettes don’t deliver the smoke and tar that traditional cigarettes do, their vapor contains noxious substances such as formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, heavy metals—and, of course, nicotine, which impairs brain development and causes addiction, ultimately encouraging new users to switch to the combustible kind.

Various studies in the U.S. have found an association between teen use of e-cigarettes and ordinary smokes. One found that kids who tried e-cigarettes were more likely to smoke combustible cigarettes within the next year than those who didn’t. That e-cigarettes come in thousands of flavors, from cherry crush to pomegranate, only increases their appeal to kids.

The FDA is starting a yearslong process to evaluate the ingredients in various e-cigarette brands. It’s at least banning the sale of vaping products to minors, though most states already do that. E-cigarettes are readily available to teens online. <BW>