FDA restrictions announced

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced far-reaching new restrictions on flavored tobacco and vapor products.
Retail outlets such as convenience stores will be able to sell only tobacco, mint and menthol e-cigarette flavors. Other fruity- or sweet-flavored varieties can now be sold only at age-restricted stores or through online merchants that use age-verification checks.
The FDA also plans to seek a ban on menthol cigarettes, a longtime goal of public health advocates, as well as flavored cigars.
FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said the moves are meant to prevent young people from continuing to use e-cigarettes, potentially leading to traditional cigarette smoking.
“We won’t let this pool of kids, a pool of future potential smokers, of future disease and death, to continue to build,” he said. “I will not allow a generation of children to become addicted to nicotine through e-cigarettes,” Gottlieb said.
Data released by the FDA and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed a 78 percent increase in high school students who reported using e-cigarettes in the last 30 days, compared with the prior year.
More than 3 million high school students, or more than 20 percent of all U.S. high school students, used the product, along with 570,000 middle school students, according to the survey.
Juul and tobacco giant Altria Group said they would pull flavored e-cigarette products from retail outlets after the FDA threatened in September to ban Juul and other leading e-cigarette products unless their makers took steps to prevent use by minors.
Responding to the FDA announcement, the Vapor Technology Association (VTA) urged caution when limiting access to a lawful product to lawful adults.
“Commissioner Gottlieb clearly understands the important role e-cigarettes, specifically flavored products, play in transitioning adult smokers off of deadly, dangerous combustible cigarettes,” said VTA Executive Director Tony Abboud. “However, every ‘speed bump’ that FDA puts up on the off-ramp for adult smokers is a threat to public health. By impeding adult access to life-saving flavored e-cigarettes, FDA is restricting the millions of adult smokers from living healthier lives.”
Action on Smoking and Health applauded the agency’s plan to target menthol cigarettes, saying that menthol makes inhaling easier and increases nicotine addiction.
Read the FDA’s statement here.