The US Food and Drug Administration has banned unauthorized flavored vaping cartridges, cracking down on e-cigarette products as it tries to cut use among children.
But that effort stalled after vaping proponents and lobbyists pushed back and White House advisers told Trump that a total flavor ban could cost him votes. It also excludes so-called open systems, known as vape pens, which require a user to manually fill the e-cigarette with liquid.
Anti-tobacco advocates immediately condemned the decision to permit menthol and exempt tank-based vapes. It still sells menthol pods.
"Rather than clear the market of all flavored e-cigarettes, as the Administration promised to do in September, the new policy allows menthol flavored e-cigarettes and flavored liquids in every imaginable flavor to remain widely available - and kids no doubt will be able to get their hands on them", the campaign's president Matt Myers said in a statement.
Fruit and mint flavors are included in the crackdown, while tobacco and menthol flavors are excluded.
"The United States has never seen an epidemic of substance use arise as quickly as our current epidemic of youth use of e-cigarettes", HHS Secretary Alex Azar said of the new enforcement strategy. And if they weren't prepared, the writing has certainly been on the wall for some time.
Wellington has also worked with Helena-area schools, holding presentations about the risks of youth tobacco use - particularly vaping. In a televised White House meeting in November, he said he was concerned that a full ban would drive people seeking flavors to unsafe, illicit products. "Unfortunately, the Trump Administration caved to industry lobbying pressure and chose to prioritize politics over people's health".
The move comes just after President Trump hinted at an upcoming temporary ban on "certain flavors" during a New Years Eve party he hosted at Mar-a-Lago, and months after the CDC found that more than one in four USA teens vapes.
The youth tobacco data released in September showed that nearly 28 per cent of high school students had vaped in the previous 30 days in 2019.
The National Youth Tobacco Survey, conducted by the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and published last month, noted that nicotine exposure during adolescence could harm the developing brain, which continues to form until about age 25.
The deaths have raised fears surrounding vaping's safety, but the outbreak of such cases appears to be waning.
Investigators have said they believe vitamin E acetate, which is sometimes added to marijuana vaping products, is playing a role. At least 54 people have died in the outbreak. Health leaders have described the growing number of teenagers using vaping products as an "epidemic". The flavour ban will specifically target cartridge-based vaping products as well as all other electronic nicotine delivery systems that are targeted to minors or "for which the manufacturer has failed to take (or is failing to take) adequate measures to prevent minors' access". Regulators cited copious evidence for the move. "It doesn't criminalize or make a wrongdoing for a young person who buys". Senior Obama administration officials ultimately sided with them and overruled the FDA, The Times reported. Trump said afterward that he wanted to "do something for everybody, where everybody's happy". "It's something that, frankly, should have been looked into a few years ago in a much more advanced way".
"We have to protect our families", Trump told reporters before a New Year's Eve party at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. We have to protect the children.
