A new federal regulation has gone into effect since last Monday, which requires increased scrutiny over e-cigarettes. Vaping, as the usage of e-cigarettes is referred to, is hugely popular among teenagers and youngsters. The new federal law might make it harder for minors to vape. It has been reported that The Food and Drug Administration needs to approve all e-cigarette products, which have been available in the market since February 2007. This means every e-cigarette present in the market has to go through the approval proceedings, to ensure that they can be sold. E-cigarette manufacturers can keep sell the products for two years while they submit a new production application, plus an additional year while the FDA reviews it.
Vape shops have been instructed against providing free samples to customers or sell to minors, under the new regulations. Identification would be required from customers who appear to be under the age of 27, for the purchase of e-cigarette. And vending machine sales of e-cigarettes have been banned unless the machines are in adult-only facilities. Premium cigars, as well as hookah and pipe tobacco have been included in the list. Before the new regulations, there were no federal laws prohibiting retailers from selling e-cigarettes or cigars to minors, though almost all states already prohibit the sales of e-cigarettes.
E-cigarette companies have begun a legal battle to stop the FDA, as they claim that the vapor industry would go through major losses if the regulations are fully implemented. “The bad news is that August 8th … marks the beginning of a two-year countdown to FDA prohibition of 99.9%+ of vapor products on the market,” Greg Conley, president of the American Vaping Association, stated on the group’s website. “If we do not succeed in changing the FDA’s (new regulations the vapour industry will shrink to almost nothing beginning August 8, 2018."
The regulation, which was finalized in May this year, by the FDA, comes into effect as anti-tobacco health groups have raised concerns that e-cigarettes have become gateway to tobacco products. The use of e-cigarette has been rising steadily, especially among youngsters. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, e-cigarette use among high school kids has risen from 1.5% in 2011 to 16% in 2015. Federal health officials claim about 3 million middle and high school students use e-cigarettes. According to the American Lung Association, “It will help prevent young people from starting to use tobacco, and help consumers better understand the risks of using these products. It will also prevent new tobacco products from being marketed unless a manufacturer demonstrates that the products meet certain public health standards.”
The e-cigarette industry is going against these laws, as these e-cigarettes do not contain tobacco but do contain nicotine. In the past, the industry has marketed its products as a healthier alternative to cigarettes, which gathered a lot of attention. Nicopure Labs, one of the leading e-liquid manufacturers, filed a lawsuit in May to stop the regulations. The company argues that the rules placed a “disproportionate and unjustified regulator burden” on the industry. A Technology group TechFreedom and the National Center for Public Policy Research filed a brief in support of Nicopure’s challenge last week.“This is an absurd way to regulate new technology,” says Evan Swarztrauber, a spokesman for TechFreedom. “The FDA’s obsession with perfect safety will deny Americans what is obviously a safer technology for consuming nicotine.”