National Report
Many of you may not know, but there still is a constant flood of illegal, flavored vape pens and solutions saturating the US market from China. This reality calls for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to take decisive action against these unauthorized products.
Through the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (2009), the FDA is responsible for regulating the tobacco and e-cigarette market to protect public health, especially to protect children. This may be their responsibility but, for years, the agency has failed to do its job. Thus allowing millions of new vaping products to illegally enter the market.
In 2020, in spite of the FDA requiring all e-cigarette product companies to apply for and receive regulatory approval prior to any sales, these illegal products remain on the market. To date, the agency has not authorized any e-cigarette products outside of tobacco or menthol flavored. However, more than 5,800 unique disposable products are now being sold in numerous flavors and formulations—this constituted a 1,500% increase from 365 products in early 2020. The increase in the number of brands marked 46% over three-years accounting for 260 brands, and each with the potential marketing of thousands of different products.
In June, at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, federal officials responsible for regulating vape sales faced bipartisan criticism for their failure to curb the illegal marketing of tobacco devices to children. Senators, including Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), highlighted the urgency of this issue, emphasizing the alarming presence of unauthorized e-cigarettes designed for kids in stores across the country, even near the FDA’s headquarters. More than 2 million kids used e-cigarettes in 2023, including 10% of high school students and 4.6% of middle school students up from 3.3% in 2022. Among middle school and high school students who currently use e-cigarettes, 89.4% used flavored e-cigarettes.
The need for regulatory intervention is clear and a ban is most apt. The FDA must step up its efforts to halt the illegal sale of unauthorized e-cigarettes and vaping products to protect our youth from the dangers of nicotine addiction.