Disposables Thriving

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s focus on preventing sales of flavored vaping products by well-known mass-market brands and open-system products has created a parallel gray market of little-known disposable brands, according to industry expert Jim McDonald.

Writing for Vaping360, McDonald cites figures from the Chicago market research firm IRI showing that the disposable vape sales in the United States have grown from less than 2 percent of the convenience store e-cigarette market to 33 percent in three years.

The growth of the disposable market is a direct result of FDA actions. In January 2020, the agency banned most flavored e-cigarettes. The policy, however, permitted all flavors to be sold in devices that cannot be refilled and are designed to be disposed of after the flavored nicotine has run dry.

In 2018, then market leader Juul Labs was pressured into removing most of its flavored pods from the market in response to concerns about youth vaping.

The crackdown on flavored products sold in the regulated market coincided with the growth of the disposable gray market, which was largely unknown to regulators and the national news media.

None of the disposable vapes that are currently popular have received authorization from the FDA, although some disposable manufacturers have submitted premarket tobacco product applications, and some have challenged FDA marketing denial orders (MDOs) in court or through FDA administrative appeals.

McDonald says the developments bode ill for the vaping policies in the U.S. and elsewhere. “It will be the suckers that submitted applications and made good-faith efforts to comply with the agency’s regulations that get MDOs and warning letters while the gray market sellers will change their product names and laugh at the clumsy regulator,” he writes.