Now f lavoured vaping faces crackdown
US first to act over health fears
DONALD Trump is expected to announce a ban on flavoured e-cigarettes this week amid health fears and skyrocketing popularity among teenagers.
White House officials said the US President will forge ahead with the crackdown in order to stop youngsters becoming enticed by flavoured ‘vape juice’.
The expected move exposes the stark differences between policies in America and the UK – where officials continue to insist electronic cigarettes are a vital health tool.
In the US, on the other hand, experts are increasingly alarmed by the huge uptake of ‘vaping’ by American teenagers.
Reports of a number of deaths linked to e-cigarettes in recent months have compounded those fears, leading to a clampdown on the technology. This week Mr Trump will respond to the concerns by announcing a ban on all e-cigarettes apart from tobacco and menthol flavours, sources told the Wall Street Journal. His announcement, expected to include new guidance from the Food and Drug Administration, will take all other flavours off the market – including the bubblegum and fruit varieties that are popular with children.
Mr Trump threatened to clamp down on flavoured e-cigarettes last month, warning: ‘We can’t allow people to get sick. And we can’t have our kids be so affected.’
However, it was not clear if he would follow through on his threat after a backlash from conservative lobbyists in the US, who pointed out the policy would cripple a growing market.
Reports from Washington DC last night stressed that Mr Trump could still change his mind, but is currently expected to push ahead despite the criticism.
The FDA is also set to introduce a wider clampdown, which will mean e-cigarette makers must submit all vaping products for review from May, with any others immediately taken off the market.
In stark contrast, UK officials are convinced e-cigarettes are a crucial tool, with vaping at the heart of anti-smoking strategies.
Officials have repeatedly insisted that vaping is safe and should be celebrated as a successful alternative
‘We can’t allow people to get sick’
to cigarettes. Professor Ann McNeill, of King’s College London, the author of two reports which have endorsed e-cigarettes, said: ‘Many adult smokers say they need the flavours if they are going to use them.
‘To take flavours off the market would affect the ability of adult smokers to switch.’
It has been illegal to sell e-cigarettes to anyone under the age of 18 in the UK since October 2015. However, schoolchildren in England are now more likely to have tried e-cigarettes than traditional cigarettes, with more than one in three 15-year-olds having used the devices.
Many critics warn that the UK is out of step with the rest of the world. The World Health Organisation is concerned about cancercausing chemicals in the devices and the EU believes e-cigarettes may act as a ‘gateway’ to tobacco.
One US teenager has become an anti-vaping campaigner after she found herself on a life support machine following two years of e-cigarette use. Simah Herman, 18, from Long Beach, California, would take a drag on her vape pen every 15 minutes.
She was beset with health issues including vomiting, blacking out and weight loss – but had no idea what was causing it. ‘It didn’t seem like it was hurting my lungs at all,’ she told Sky News. However, one morning in August, she woke up and could not breathe.
She was taken to hospital with lung failure and put on a ventilator before being put in a medicallyinduced coma.
When she woke up days later, she posted a picture on social media of her holding a sign saying, ‘I want to start a no-vaping campaign’.
She said: ‘I never would have vaped if they weren’t flavoured.’