For years the Food and Drug Administration has been in a running battle with the e-cigarette industry over rules and regulations of the now booming vaping sector, especially with teens. Now, Congress has finally given the federal agency the legal authority to close the largest loophole in the industry: cracking down on companies that use synthetic rather than plant-based nicotine, including those in fruit- and candy-flavored products popular among young people. The law targets companies like Puff Bar that had switched their recipes to lab-made nicotine to avoid FDA control. Synthetic nicotine will now be subject to the same sales restrictions as nicotine products, allowing the FDA to stop companies from targeting kids, at a time when vaping among middle and high school students has reached epidemic proportions. After launching in 2019, Puff Bar became the most popular e-cigarette among teenagers, with flavors such as blueberry, strawberry banana, and mango—a typical marketing tactic that is particularly sinister when it is applied to highly addictive e-cigarettes. Meanwhile, the FDA continues to exert control of the vaping industry, reviewing applications for a vast array of vaping devices that are seeking market approval—and rejecting more than one million so far for their potential appeal to teenagers.
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Rosenthal Center for AddictIon Studies