America to bring in ban on most popular fruit flavoured e-cigarettes
HEALTH officials in America are to ban most flavoured e-cigarettes popular with underage teenagers, but their plan includes major exceptions that benefit vaping manufacturers, retailers and adults who use the nicotineemitting devices.
The Trump administration announced it will prohibit fruit, sweet, mint and dessert flavours from small, cartridge-based e-cigarettes that are popular with high school students.
But menthol and tobaccoflavoured e-cigarettes will be allowed to remain on the market.
The flavour ban will also entirely exempt large, tank-based vaping devices, which are primarily sold in vape shops that cater to adult smokers.
Together, the two exemptions represent a significant retreat from President Donald Trump’s original plan announced four months ago, which would have banned all vaping flavours, including menthol, from all types of e-cigarettes.
The new policy will spare a significant portion of the multibillion-dollar vaping market.
And the changes mark a major victory for thousands of vape shop owners that sell the tank-based systems, which allow users to mix customised flavours.
Anti-tobacco advocates immediately condemned the decision to permit menthol and exempt tank-based vapes.
They have lobbied the Trump administration to follow through on its initial pledge to ban all flavours except tobacco, arguing that teenagers who vape will simply shift to using menthol if it remains on the market.
“Only the elimination of all flavoured e-cigarettes can end the worsening youth e-cigarette epidemic and stop e-cigarette companies from luring and addicting kids with flavoured products,” said Matthew Myers, of the Campaign for Tobaccofree Kids, in a statement.
E-cigarettes are batterypowered devices that typically heat a flavoured nicotine solution into an inhalable aerosol. They have been pitched to adults as a less-harmful alternative to traditional cigarettes, but there is limited data on their ability to help smokers quit.
The Food and Drug Administration has struggled for years to find the appropriate approach to regulate vaping.
Under current law, all e-cigarettes are supposed to undergo an FDA review beginning in May.
Only those that can demonstrate a benefit for US public health will be permitted to stay on the market.
“We have to protect our families,” Mr Trump said on Tuesday, ahead of the announcement.
“At the same time, it’s a big industry. We want to protect the industry.”
The flavour restrictions apply to e-cigarettes that use prefilled nicotine cartridges mainly sold at petrol stations and convenience stores.
Juul Labs is the biggest player in that market, but it previously pulled all of its flavours except menthol and tobacco after coming under intense political scrutiny. Many smaller manufacturers continue to sell sweet, fruity flavours such as “grape slushie”, “strawberry cotton candy” and “sea salt blueberry”.
The flavour restrictions will not affect the larger speciality devices sold at vape shops, which typically don’t admit customers under 21.
These tank-based systems allow users to fill the device with the flavour of their choice.
Sales of these devices represent an estimated 40 per cent of the US vaping business, with sales across some 15,000 to 19,000 shops.
Even with the exemption for products sold at vape shops, industry advocates were not happy with the restrictions.
Gregory Conley, of the American Vaping Association, said narrower flavour options for Juul and similar devices
“will result in more adults smoking”.
Still, the new policy represents the federal government’s biggest step yet to combat a surge in teen vaping that officials fear is hooking a generation of young people on nicotine.
In the latest government survey, more than one in four high school students reported using e-cigarettes in the previous month, despite federal law banning sales to those under 18.
Late last month Mr Trump signed a law raising the minimum age to purchase all tobacco and vaping products from 18 to 21 nationwide.