The US is responding to the rapidly increasing consumption of flavored e-cigarettes among adolescents and wants to tighten their supply. The FDA does not only strive for stricter conditions for sale in stores. Even in online trading age checks should be enforced. The agency also announced that it was working to ban conventional menthol-flavored cigarettes and flavored cigars.
The announced measures against e-cigarettes, however, fall short of earlier statements by the FDA. In September, authorities chief Scott Gottlieb had informed that he was examining a general ban on flavored e-cigarettes. The FDA banned the sale of e-cigarettes of all kinds to minors two years ago. Nevertheless, according to Gottlieb, their consumption among young people has spread „epidemically“.
The plan now announced by the FDA provides, among other things, that flavored e-cigarettes may in the future only be sold in those shops or shop areas to which minors are not admitted.
Excluded from the new restrictions for the time being are e-cigarettes with menthol and mint flavor. Gottlieb argued that such e-cigarettes are more popular among adults than among adolescents. He also wanted to avoid the situation that consumers of e-cigarettes changed to menthol-flavored tobacco products, because e-cigarettes with this taste are more difficult to obtain.
According to a survey he has published, consumption of e-cigarettes among US high school students increased by 78 percent between 2017 and 2018, and 48 percent among middle school students. A total of 3.6 million of these students are now consuming the electrical stunts – that is 1.5 million more than last year.
Gottlieb sees the consumption of e-cigarettes as a way into nicotine addiction. „I will not let a generation of children become dependent on nicotine through e-cigarettes,“ he said.
E-cigarettes simulate smoking without burning tobacco. In the process, liquids, so-called liquids, are evaporated. The resulting mist is inhaled. Like tobacco cigarettes, most e-cigarettes contain nicotine. The taste of fruit and sweets, with which they are often offset, makes them particularly attractive to many young people.
