Efforts to combat the teen nicotine and vaping epidemic took a big step forward, as California banned all retail sales of flavored tobacco products—including e-cigarettes—to reduce the lure of teens and tweens to vaping. Children have become one of the largest markets of flavored tobacco products, with adolescents and young adults and teens under age 25 comprising 60 percent of e-cigarette sales. The law restricts the sale of all flavored tobacco products including menthol, which was excluded from a partial FDA ban enacted last year that critics say does little to tackle an increase in youth tobacco use.
Across the country, eight states have issued emergency rules to temporarily ban the sale of flavored e-cigarettes, which are especially appealing to minors and associated with vaping-related injuries and death, as well as substance abuse. Unfortunately, the California ban does not include online sales—a loophole that should be closed by both state and federal regulators.
Meanwhile, the embattled e-cigarette maker Juul, under scrutiny for helping fuel the teen nicotine epidemic, is cutting more workers and considering withdrawing from the European and Asian markets—a remarkable retreat for a once fast-growing company that singlehandedly powered the e-cigarette surge by targeting younger consumers.
And finally, a new study finds that three-quarters of participants in an inpatient addiction program came into the hospital using more than one substance, including meth. This suggests that to overcome the opioid epidemic, a single focus on opioids may do more harm than good if doctors overlook the complexity of each individual’s actual substance abuse, the report concludes.