Health officials have warned online retailers to stop marketing e-cigarettes to children to “quickly protect public health.”
This week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued warning letters to ten online retailers for selling unauthorized e-cigarette products targeted at children.
The agency cited popular products under the brand names Elf Bar, EB Design, Bang, Cali Bars and Lava.
The warning comes at a time when 2.1 million American teens vape, and half of those who try become addicted.
The FDA has sent warning letters to ten online retailers for selling unauthorized e-cigarettes and selling them to children. Elf Bar is one of the most popular brands mentioned in the letters
The vast majority of youth vapers opted for fruit or candy flavored vaping products in 2023
Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Youth Tobacco Survey found that half of current youth e-cigarette users smoke disposable products like Elf Bar.
The CDC’s annual Youth Tobacco Survey is a nationally representative sample of tobacco use, and the trend over the past four years has shown that while the number of young people lighting up is at an all-time low, more and more young people are turning to electric vehicles.
Dr. Brian King, director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, said, “The FDA’s robust oversight of the e-cigarette landscape helps us identify products that appeal to youth and act quickly to protect public health.
“The goal is to identify, prevent and reduce these risks to our nation’s youth before they escalate further.”
Recipients of the letter will have 15 business days to respond with the steps they will take to correct the violation and prevent future violations, the FDA said.
“Failure to correct violations immediately may result in additional FDA actions, such as injunctive relief, seizure, and/or civil penalties,” the agency said.
It added: ‘As always, we will hold accountable anyone who sells unauthorized e-cigarettes that are labelled, advertised and/or designed to encourage use by young people.’
Supporters of anti-smoking policies believe that the government can and should do more to prevent young people from purchasing and using vapes.
Matthew Myers, the former president and CEO of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and a staunch critic of the administration’s approach, has told DailyMail.com in the past that the current youth vaping crisis is a product of “a combination of shyness and the tobacco crisis’. industry is fighting regulation at every stage.”
One of the rules that anti-smoking and vaping advocates have been fighting for is a national standard limit on the amount of nicotine allowed in e-cigarettes.
The maximum permitted nicotine content in a vapor is set at 20 milligrams of nicotine per milliliter of liquid (two percent) in Europe, the United Kingdom and Canada. These devices last approximately 550 to 600 puffs.
But in the US, where you can easily find a vaporizer with as much as five percent nicotine, those concentrations have been steadily rising for some time. An Elf Bar BC5000 device, which contains five percent nicotine, can hold approximately 5,000 puffs.
Flavors like cotton candy and strawberry lemonade, which are very appealing to young users, exacerbate the problem in highly addictive vapes.
High-potency e-cigarettes are extremely addictive. Of all young people who tried one, almost half became regular users.
Nearly nine in 10 youth vapers in 2023 used the flavored products that advocates and many lawmakers have pushed for a ban, as evidenced by the fact that children’s use of flavored products is up from 83 percent in 2020.
Over the past year, the FDA has sent more than 400 warning letters to retailers for selling illegal cigarettes.
In June, the agency ordered 180 U.S. stores to stop selling fruit- and candy-flavored e-cigarettes, including Elf and Esco Bars.
Ann Simoneau, director of the Office of Compliance and Enforcement within the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, said, “CTP will continue to closely monitor everyone in the supply chain, including retailers, for compliance with federal law.”