Before brands are allowed to stay in the market, regulators would have to check the design, contents and flavor of the fast-growing devices, which have found a foothold with teenagers.
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“We can not let the enormous progress that we have made toward a tobacco free generation be under minded by products that have impact our health and economy in this way”, said Secretary of Health and Human Services, Syliva Burwell.
Thursday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced they would be cracking down on those who can buy the devices. “As cigarette smoking among those under 18 has fallen, the use of other nicotine products and especially e-cigarettes has taken a drastic leap”.
Electronic cigarettes are battery-operated devices designed to create an aerosol that delivers nicotine, flavor and other chemicals when inhaled by the user. FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf said, “Today’s action is a huge step forward for consumer protection”.
Until now, e-cigarettes and other alternative tobacco products have gone unregulated by the FDA, despite a 2009 law that granted the agency the authority to govern any tobacco sold in the United States.
Public health advocates applauded the news.
The vaping industry says the reviews would be time-consuming and costly, and could put numerous smaller companies that make the products out of business.
The FDA spent more than two years finalizing its proposal for regulating nontraditional tobacco products, delayed for months by industry resistance. “If the FDA’s rule is not changed by Congress or the courts, thousands of small businesses will close in two to three years”. “Policy, regulation, taxation – these are tools and levers that have been used to bring down the rate of consumption of a very unsafe product”. But the possible health benefits and harms of e-cigarettes remain unclear.
And he fears stricter regulations will push people back into their old bad habits. E-cigarette products introduced in the future would still undergo the safety reviews. They also restrict the sale of covered tobacco products in vending machines to adult-only facilities.
The rules would also impose restrictions on products like cigars and hookah tobacco. They say that e-cigarettes could be harmful, that the long-term health risks are unknown and that companies are marketing their products to younger and younger teens.
“Until now, the marketplace for tobacco products outside of traditional cigarettes has been like “the wild, wild west”, said Mitch Zeller, director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products”. He started vaping as a way to quit smoking. However, there’s not much scientific evidence supporting those claims, though officials said they are working on research.
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“These final deeming regs could realistically stifle innovation, which could dramatically slow industry growth by dis-incentivizing consumer conversion from combustible cigs”, Bonnie Herzog, a tobacco analyst for Wells Fargo Securities, said on Thursday in her newsletter. Manufacturers like Sands will need to meet the new standards to keep their products in their stores. Zeller says he expects consolidation in the number and type of products and vape shops. That space alone may be worth $2 billion in sales, according to estimates, though precise figures are not available.
