Rutgers professor responds to state, federal vaping restrictions

Yesterday, Gov. Phil Murphy (D-N.J.) signed a ban that prevents the sale of flavored vaping products in New Jersey, according to an article from The Washington Post.

Earlier this month, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finalized an enforcement policy that increases the regulation of vaping products, according to a press release from the FDA.

“Countless young people are already addicted to JUUL and similar e-cigarette products,” said Cristine D. Delnevo, director of the Rutgers Center for Tobacco Studies in a recent press release. “With the FDA’s announced enforcement action, many will likely switch to menthol pods or tobacco-flavored pods for their nicotine. The FDA should closely monitor the crossover appeal of those products when evaluating the effectiveness of this action.”

Tobacco-flavored vaping products will stay on the market in New Jersey while the sale of menthol-flavored products will be banned, according to the article.

The ban branches off President Donald J. Trump’s federal vaping enforcement policy to include banning the sale of menthol-flavored products, according to the article.

Kevin Schroth, an associate professor at Rutgers School of Public Health in the Department of Health Behavior, Society and Policy and former Senior Legal Counsel directing tobacco control policy for New York City, said there are three main issues the vaping policy addresses.

He said that the FDA’s rule bans flavored cartridge-based e-cigarettes with the exception of menthol and tobacco flavors. It also restricts minors’ access to vaping products by requiring age verification for online purchases, screening retailers before renewing sale agreement and quantity restrictions on individual sales.

The overarching goal, he said, is to prevent youth from getting addicted to the nicotine in vaping products, made clear by the FDA’s additional priority of enforcing rules for products that target kids through cartoons or candy-like flavors.

Schroth said that the FDA has two flaws: it fails to restrict flavors for mod or tank-based vaping devices and completely self-contained, disposable products.

“These tend to be more popular among adults,” he said. “This is a large loophole that will enable underage e-cig users to access flavored e-cigs.”

Schroth said other products, like Puff Bar, are disposable and very popular with underage users.

“They share virtually all of the characteristics that made JUUL popular, making this a completely senseless counterproductive exemption,” he said. “It seems to be a mistake, perhaps because the FDA wasn’t sufficiently familiar with emerging trends in youth use.”

The rule has significant gaps due to lobbying pressure in Washington D.C., Schroth said. 

“It’s significantly less stringent than what the White House announced in September 2019,” he said. “Many e-cigarette supporters argued to the White House that they were single issue voters, and if the FDA rule banned all flavors, they would vote against Trump. That message apparently had an impact on the ultimate policy.”

Schroth said there are alternatives to the federal policy that he feels are feasible and more effective. The first is to ban the most prevalent and second most prevalent flavored tobacco products: menthol cigarettes and mass merchandise flavored cigars.

He also said that a recent federal law was passed, raising the minimum age for the legal sales of tobacco products and e-cigarettes to 21, and should be enforced vigorously.

The state and local limits should also be placed on where these products can be sold, he said.

“There are limits to what the FDA can do, but states and local municipalities have broad authority to regulate the sale of commercial products like tobacco/e-cigs through licenses,” Schroth said. “A healthy society doesn’t need tobacco/e-cigs for sale on every street corner. That’s what the industry wants.”