FDA to impose severe restrictions on e-cigarette flavours

The ban will be placed in convenience stores and gas stations, an agency official said

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will issue a ban on the sale of fruit and candy flavoured electronic cigarettes next week.

The ban will be placed in convenience stores and gas stations, an agency official said, in a move to counter a surge in teenage use of e-cigarettes.

This means only tobacco, mint and menthol flavours can be sold at these outlets, the agency official said, potentially dealing a major blow to Juul Labs Inc, the San Francisco-based market leader in vape devices.

The FDA also will introduce stricter age-verification requirements for online sales of e-cigarettes. The FDA€™'s planned restrictions, first reported by The Washington Post and confirmed to Reuters by the official, do not apply to vape shops or other speciality retail stores.

There has been mounting pressure for action after preliminary federal data showed teenage use had surged by more than 75 per cent since last year, and the FDA has described it as an “epidemic”.

“E-cigs have become an almost ubiquitous ‒ and dangerous ‒ trend among teens,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in September. “The disturbing and accelerating trajectory of use we’re seeing in youth, and the resulting path to addiction, must end. It’s simply not tolerable.”

That growth has coincided with the rise of Juul, whose sales of vaping devices grew from 2.2 million in 2016 to 16.2 million devices last year, according to the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

The agency threatened in September to ban Juul and four other leading e-cigarette products unless their makers took steps to prevent use by minors. The FDA gave Juul and four big tobacco companies 60 days to submit plans to curb underage use, a compliance period that is now ending.

The planned restrictions on flavours in convenience stores are likely to have the biggest impact on Juul, which sells nicotine liquid pods in flavours such as mango, mint, fruit and creme, previously called crème brûlée.

The only other e-cigarette competitors sold at convenience stores are those marketed primarily by tobacco companies such as Altria Group Inc, British American Tobacco Plc, Imperial Brands Plc and Japan Tobacco Inc.

Those products, sold under the MarkTen, blu, Vuse and Logic brands, have lost market share as Juul has risen to prominence over the last year, growing from 13.6 per cent of the U.S. e-cigarette market in early 2017 to nearly 75 per cent now, according to a Wells Fargo analysis of Nielsen retail data.

A representative for R.J. Reynolds Vapor, a unit of British American Tobacco, declined to comment until getting specifics from the agency, but added the company met with the FDA and supports measures to prevent online sales to minors and penalties for retailers selling to youth.

James Campbell, a spokesman for the Imperial Brands unit that makes blu, said the company supports strong age-verification requirements for online sales but still had questions on how the FDA would differentiate vape stores from other retailers.

A Juul spokeswoman declined to comment. Altria did not respond to a request for comment.

The companies have previously said their products are intended for adult use and that they work to ensure retailers comply with the law.

Juul has previously said the company wants to be “part of the solution in keeping e-cigarettes out of the hands of young people” but that “appropriate flavours play an important role in helping adult smokers switch.”

Meredith Berkman, a founder of Parents Against Vaping E-cigarettes, which seeks to curb underage use, said the agency's move was a “good first step,” but added that “the final step should have happened yesterday.”

“Why not do away with flavours altogether, why not do away with online sales altogether?” she said.

E-cigarettes have been a divisive topic in the public health community. Some focus on the potential for the products to shift lifelong smokers onto less harmful nicotine products, while others fear they risk drawing a new generation into nicotine addiction.

Last year the FDA, under Gottlieb, extended until 2022 a deadline for e-cigarette companies to comply with new federal rules on marketing and public health.