US cracks down on vaping ‘epidemic’ among children, with sales restrictions and flavour bans
- Sales of most flavoured e-cigarettes will be limited to stores that only allow customers over the age of 18, taking them out of most convenience stores
The US Food and Drug Administration has announced a series of policies to attack what it calls “the epidemic use of electronic cigarettes and nicotine addiction among kids.”
It imposed sharp restrictions on where flavoured e-cigarettes can be sold, and announced plans to ban flavoured cigars and menthol cigarettes. The use of all three products have been on the rise among youth.
“I will not allow a generation of children to become addicted to nicotine through e-cigarettes,” Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a statement on Thursday. “We won’t let this pool of kids, a pool of future potential smokers, of future disease and death, continue to build. We’ll take whatever action is necessary to stop these trends from continuing.”
Sales of most flavoured e-cigarettes will be limited to stores that only allow customers over the age of 18, or areas of stores that have age-restricted entry. Gottlieb called on companies that cannot adhere to the restrictions to remove their products within 90 days.
The move aims to decrease the number of kids buying these products from convenience stores and service stations.