FDA Bans Fruit-And-Mint-Flavored Nicotine Vaping Products
The ban was issued to help curb e-cigarette use among children and teens.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is banning most flavored nicotine vape cartridges in an effort to curb the teen vaping epidemic.
In a notice released on Thursday, the FDA said that manufacturers have 30 days to stop making and selling flavored pre-filled cartridges, which include mint-, fruit-, and dessert-flavored e-cigarettes. The ban does not apply to menthol or tobacco flavors, or vape pens, which require a user to manually fill the e-cigarette with liquid.
Back in September, President Trump announced that his administration would take action against the growing teen vaping epidemic by banning all flavored vape cartridges, except for those that tasted like tobacco. But, according to a report in The New York Times, many view the newly-released ban’s exclusion of menthol flavors as a step back from that promise.
“Flavors attract kids, and menthol is a flavor,” American Lung Association spokesperson Erika Sward said. “It really helps to numb the senses and makes the poison go down easier.”
Back in October, vaping giant Juul suspended its sale of fruit and dessert-flavored e-cigarette pods until they could be evaluated by the FDA. The move followed the increasingly publicized vaping epidemic that has led to over a thousand lung injuries and several deaths—most of which have been related to cartridges containing THC.