Two years ago a Food and Drug Administration crackdown had virtually wiped out the use of flavored e-cigarettes that had become a teenage favorite and fueled a vaping epidemic among young people. But the ever-inventive vaping industry managed to come back by swapping out one of the product’s key ingredients—tobacco-derived plants—and instead use synthetic nicotine, made in a lab, thereby circumventing FDA monitoring and oversight. The result: sales of highly addictive, disposable, flavored e-cigarettes are soaring, raising concerns about another teen vaping crisis and a new generation addicted to nicotine. Overall, sales of disposable devices filled with candy flavors and synthetic nicotine nationwide grew from nonexistent in 2020 to take up shelf space in two-thirds of U.S. vape shops, with sales of disposable fruit- and candy-flavored devices increasing by 290 percent to 56.5 million a month by the end of 2021.
Meanwhile, lawmakers are within striking are of closing the legal loophole that allows such companies to escape FDA oversight of vaping products containing synthetic nicotine. A draft bill would give the agency explicit authority to regulate such products, posing a challenge to vaping companies that switched to synthetic nicotine to defy the agency’s earlier crackdown on flavored e-cigarettes. The bill, if signed, would be a major win for tobacco control advocates who have urged the FDA to do more to regulate synthetics, despite its lack of authority. The FDA also made e-cigarette companies, including then-market leader Juul, apply for authorization to remain in the market, thereby limiting the number of products for sale.