Hey, it’s an update. Just haven’t had time lately.
This report from USA Today suggests that a federal ban on flavoured e-cig products is going to happen “very soon.”
This has been building up for months, partly because of the genuine alarm over the rapid increase in teen use of vaping products and partly over the hysteria over vaping illnesses and deaths the past few weeks (though most of those illnesses appear to have been from marijuana vaping products, not nicotine vaping products.).
In anticipation for the upcoming ban, Juul, one of the biggest has already stopped selling menthol-flavoured vaping pods.
When it happens, I will have ZERO sympathy for the industry. For years, they got away with marketing their products to teenagers, for years they got away with enticing kids to vape addictive nicotine through candy flavourings like bubble gum,
It’s a shame for people who have legitimately quit smoking via e-cigs, lord knows I’ve talked to enough of them over the years to accept that their dedication to the power of e-cigs is sincere, but this is what happens when you have an utterly unregulated industry operating with zero oversight … golly, the bottom line becomes vastly more important to them than the social good. Call me an SJW. Whatever.
I’m guessing what this means is that e-cigs will have to be unflavoured from now on? Not sure on that.
It’s also possible that these flavourings will simply be banned from minimarkets and convenience stores and that only vape shops will be allowed to sell them … which was an idea (and a GOOD idea) originally proposed a year or two ago that the FDA dropped. Vape shops are more strictly regulated than convenience stores and are more stringent about keeping minors from coming in the door.
From the USA Today article:
A sign of the imminent ban announcement came Monday, when the Office of Management and Budget said it concluded its review of the rule and cancelled upcoming meetings with industry and consumer interests. (White House spokeswoman Kellyanne) Conway also said an announcement was coming soon. (Yes, that Kellyanne Conway).
On Tuesday, the FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published findings highlighted in September when Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced the planned ban. E-cigarette use among high school students more than doubled from 2017 to 2019 to 27.5%. About 5.3 million middle and high school students used e-cigarettes this year, up from 3.6 million in 2018.
Another study, also published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found after Juul stopped selling mango and other flavors in November, high school students simply switched to mint.