By Jason Carignan
Pennsylvania has officially begun enforcement for its new vape directory regulation, and nicotine vapes missing from the state list are denoted as contraband subject to seizure. The state joins more than a dozen others in tying market access to a product’s federal premarket review status, and it deserves credit for drawing a clear line between what may be sold and what may not. The harder test starts now. Most of what the directory excludes was already illegal to sell under federal law, and unauthorized products still made up about 69% of e-cigarette sales at mainstream retailers in December 2025.
Washington has put real resources behind the problem at the border. Congress required the FDA last November to direct at least $200 million toward vape enforcement, including $2 million for a multi-agency task force on illegal imports. In May, Customs and Border Protection, working with the Coast Guard and the Food and Drug Administration, announced the seizure of more than 18 million vapes valued at over $175 million. Ports matter, but a product that clears one still has to be sold somewhere, and the retail counter is where state officials are best positioned to act.
Retail is also where enforcement is hardest. Authorized products move through a structured distribution chain that is relatively easy to inspect. Unauthorized products tend to surface in tobacco shops, liquor stores and vape retailers, which are far harder to police. Pennsylvania has about 11,000 licensed sellers of other tobacco products, a category that includes vapes, and no directory can inspect any of them. If those sellers conclude that inspections are rare and penalties are manageable, little will change. The market for unauthorized products has persisted through years of federal action, and a new list alone will not end it.
The cost of weak enforcement falls hardest on the companies that did what the law asked. Manufacturers on Pennsylvania’s list invested tens of millions of dollars on the PMTA requirements to submit their products for FDA review, filed annual certifications, paid fees and posted surety bonds of at least $50,000. They compete against sellers of flavored disposables, which account for most unauthorized sales, and those sellers carry none of those costs. Compliance only pays when noncompliance costs more, and until unlisted sellers are out of business, there is no real growth opportunity for the companies that followed the rules.
Pennsylvania’s law gives the attorney general real tools, including seizure of unlisted products, civil penalties that escalate to license revocation for repeat violators and unannounced compliance checks. The state should use them broadly. That means prioritizing inspections where unauthorized products are most concentrated, which is independent distributors, tobacco shops, liquor stores and vape retailers, and acting against every unlisted product rather than a handful of visible ones. Lawmakers should also look at penalty levels. A first offense can be negotiated down to the cost of destroying the seized product, which is unlikely to deter a seller who can restock the next week. Fines that exceed the profit from unauthorized sales would change that math. And because the law links the scale of enforcement to what the General Assembly budgets for it, funding will determine whether any of this happens.
There are fair objections. Stricter enforcement can burden small retailers that are trying to comply, so inspectors should focus first on repeat offenders and high-volume sellers, and the law already requires the state to publish a list of sellers with three or more violations. Enforcement also has limits. It will not by itself stop online or cross-border sales, which is why state action has to work alongside the federal effort at the border.
Technology can help, but only as a complement. Manufacturers can build verification into products from the factory to the point of use, and I work on that problem every day. Even so, those investments pay off only in a market where unauthorized competitors face severe consequences. Enforcement comes first, and everything else depends on it.
When Pennsylvania’s inspectors begin their work, the directory will tell them what may be sold. What the state does next will determine whether the companies that played by the rules finally get a market they can compete in.
Jason Carignan is a founding member of IKE Tech and chief commercial officer of Chemular Inc.
