Category: Flavors



U.S. President Donald Trump appeared to soften his position on banning flavored vapor products during a meeting with stakeholders on Friday, citing concerns about black market sales, according to reports in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and USA Today.

“If you don’t give it to them, it is going to come here illegally,” he said during a “listening session” at the White House that included vapor industry leaders, public health advocates and others on policies to address a surge in underage vaping.

Trump said that instead of legitimate companies “making something that’s safe, they are going to be selling stuff on a street corner that could be horrible.”

“Now instead of having a flavor that’s at least safe, they are going to be having a flavor that’s poison,” he said.

Trump announced a ban on flavored e-cigarettes in September in response to growing youth vaping. The administration had been expected to release details on the ban earlier this month, but it was delayed following pushback from conservative interest groups, vapor industry advocates and e-cigarette users, who warned about job losses, illicit sales and the risk of vapers taking up smoking.

Pro-vaping organizations have also been publishing surveys showing that vaping is popular in key states Trump needs to win reelection.

During the Friday meeting, Trump reiterated his support for raising the minimum age to purchase e-cigarettes and tobacco products to 21 from 18, a move backed by e-cigarette maker Juul Labs and other companies.

Vapor industry representatives put forward alternatives to an outright ban, such as advertising limits, an end to online sales, requiring e-cigarettes to be kept behind the counter or restricting their sale to adult-only stores.

Anti-tobacco advocates pleaded with Trump to stick with the flavor ban, saying bright students were failing out of school because of their nicotine addictions.

According to The Washington Post, the Friday meeting resembled a public policy version of the reality TV show “The Apprentice,” during which industry and government representatives occasionally shouted at each other in order to persuade Trump.

Among those on the guest list were Juul Labs CEO K.C. Crosthwaite and two executives of the largest U.S. tobacco companies, Altria CEO Howard Willard and Reynolds’ Joseph Fragnito.

Other invitees included Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association, and Tony Abboud, executive director of the Vapor Technology Association.

Health leaders who attended included the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids president, Matt Myers, the American Academy of Pediatrics president-elect, Sally Goza, and the American Lung Association president, Harold Wimmer.

Conley said afterward that the president “seemed to understand that prohibition is not the only option.”

“He cares a lot about youth and keeping them away from these products, but there [are] the jobs issues and the adult cessation issue that is clearly weighing on his mind,” Conley said.

Gary LeRoy, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, noted that the sides were far apart on such issues as the value of vaping to wean adults off of cigarettes but said all sides seemed to agree that vaping “has no place for young adults below the age of 21.”

A transcript of the listening session is available here.



The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plans to “enforce existing law” rather than ban flavored cigarettes outright, the agency’s Acting Commissioner Ned Sharpless testified on Wednesday before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation.

Earlier this month, Head of the Health and Human Services Department Alex Azar said the Trump administration intends “to clear the market of flavored e-cigarettes.” Some interpreted that to mean the FDA would ban the flavors outright, but Sharpless made clear during the hearing that isn’t the case.

Manufacturers have until May 2020 to apply to the FDA for marketing applications. If companies don’t have an approved application by then, they will be required to pull their products from the market.

“Anyone who thought their product was good for public health can file an application at any time” even before the May deadline, said Sharpless. “If the product can demonstrate a public health use, then it would be authorized for sale.”

The FDA released a proposed rule this month outlining what manufacturers should put in their marketing applications.

Vaper companies have expressed concern about the resources required to prepare the applications.

Responding to lawmakers’ criticism that the FDA’s 2017 decision to delay the review of vapor products contributed to the current spike in teen e-cigarette use, Sharpless said that the agency should have acted sooner.

The recently announced accelerated investigation should help the agency “catch up,” he added.

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker on Sept. 24 imposed a temporary sales ban on all vapor products effective immediately that will extend to Jan. 25, 2020. The retail and online sales ban includes all nicotine and marijuana vapor products. Retailers have been told to remove vapor products from their shelves but not to destroy their products.

The proposed ban, which was approved by the state’s Public Health Council later in the day, could be extended past Jan. 25 if the governor and the board choose to extend it.

Governor Baker said, “The use of e-cigarettes and marijuana vaping products is exploding, and we are seeing reports of serious lung illnesses, particularly in our young people. The purpose of this public health emergency is to temporarily pause all sales of vaping products so that we can work with our medical experts to identify what is making people sick and how to better regulate these products to protect the health of our residents.”

According to the Baker administration, the four-month long ban is meant to give the medical community and federal officials time to investigate the recent spike in illnesses and deaths connected with vapor product usage. Baker referred to an upcoming meeting with the medical community that will examine many questions including what types of additives and what parts of the vapor devices can attributed to these illnesses and deaths.

Researchers are investigating whether the vaping-related illnesses that have been making headlines in the U.S. recently have been occurring undetected all along, reports Reuters.

Many of the recent victims reportedly had pockets of oil clogging up cells responsible for removing impurities in the lungs.

Researchers have begun to re-examine lung cell samples they have collected in recent years for evidence of these oil-filled immune cells in people who vaped but didn’t get sick.

Some suspect the oils are formed inside the lungs as part of the body’s natural response to chemicals found in many commercial vapor devices. One theory is that vaping these chemicals may impair the immune system and make people who vape more vulnerable to respiratory distress.

A study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation earlier this month found that mice exposed to aerosols of propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin—common solvents used in conventional nicotine vapor devices—developed these same fat-clogged immune cells even though they were never exposed to vaping oils.

These mice also had impaired immune systems.

Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, will end sales of e-cigarettes at its locations in the United States, reports The New York Times

The announcement was made on Friday in response to rising concerns about sicknesses and deaths seemingly linked to vaping.

“Given the growing federal, state and local regulatory complexity and uncertainty regarding e-cigarettes, we plan to discontinue the sale of electronic nicotine-delivery products,” Walmart said in a statement.

The company will continue selling the devices until its current inventory of e-cigarettes is exhausted.

Earlier this year, Walmart raised the minimum age to purchase tobacco products from 18 to 21. In May, it announced that it would no longer sell fruit-flavored and dessert-flavored electronic nicotine-delivery systems.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo proposed legislation on Monday to ban flavored e-cigarettes statewide.

If the proposed legislation were to become law, New York would become the second state to ban flavored e-cigarettes following Michigan, which passed a ban on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, New York’s Department of Health has issued subpoenas to Honey Cut Labs, Floraplex Terpenes and Mass Terpenes after finding high levels of vitamin E acetate in these vapor companies’ products.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has fingered vitamin E acetate as a possible factor in the recent spate of mysterious lung illnesses that have been linked to vaping.