Tell the FDA to eliminate illegal e-cigarettes – now!
The tobacco industry is flooding the market with new e-cigarette products that are sold in thousands of kid-friendly flavors, deliver more nicotine than ever before and now even include built-in video games that make them even more appealing to kids.
Almost all of these products are illegal.
To date, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized the sale of only a handful of e-cigarette products, most of which are tobacco-flavored, and made clear that all other e-cigarettes are on the market illegally. Yet thousands of these products remain readily available at retailers across the nation. We’re calling on the FDA and other government agencies to do more to get these illegal products off store shelves.
To the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Department of Justice, and Customs and Border Protection:
The FDA has only authorized the sale of a handful of e-cigarette products – most of them tobacco-flavored – and stated that “these are the only e-cigarette products that currently may be lawfully sold in the U.S.” Yet the tobacco industry is flooding the market with new e-cigarette products that are sold in thousands of kid-friendly flavors, deliver more nicotine than ever before and now even include built-in video games that make them even more appealing to kids.
There must be an intensified, coordinated, multi-agency effort to enforce the law and take these illegal products off the market.
We ask for these concrete changes to help bring the problem under control:
- The FDA must make more frequent use of the full range of available enforcement tools, including fines, product seizures, import restrictions and criminal prosecutions.
- The FDA must impose higher fines to create real incentives to comply with the law.
- CBP and the FDA must prioritize efforts to stop illegal importation of unauthorized products, including flavored disposable e-cigarettes from China that have largely supplied the market in recent years.
- The DOJ must prioritize tobacco product enforcement, and the process must be streamlined. The small number of legal actions taken against manufacturers and the significant delays in court proceedings are unacceptable.
- Enforcement actions must be brought against all parties in the supply chain, including manufacturers, distributors, importers and retailers.
- The FDA must end the broad exercise of enforcement discretion and fully enforce the law against all unauthorized e-cigarettes, including those with pending marketing applications before the FDA.
The failure to adequately enforce the law against unauthorized products has real and significant public health consequences. According to the 2023 National Youth Tobacco Survey, 2.1 million U.S. middle and high school students currently use e-cigarettes. The vast majority of them are using unauthorized products with fun flavors and massive doses of highly-addictive nicotine.
Please act now to clear the market of all unauthorized e-cigarette products – and protect kids.