Last week, the CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly report published “E-cigarette Unit Sales by Product and Flavor Type, and Top-Selling Brands, United States, 2020–2022” that reported rapid growth in e-cigarette sales: from January, 2020 to December, 2022, e-cigarette sales increased by 46.6%. (These figures are based on checkout bar code scanner data from retailers and exclude most vape shops and online sales.) The increase actually peaked in March-April 2022, then declined some through December, probably reflecting local and state action to end the sales of some or all flavored e-cigarettes and other tobacco products.
The detailed results highlight the fact that partial restrictions on the sale of e-cigarettes by specific flavors or product types doesn’t work. The article reports
Citing the appeal of flavored e-cigarettes to children, FDA announced during January 2020 that it would prioritize enforcement against prefilled e-cigarettes in flavors other than tobacco and menthol based on the prevalence of use of these products among youth at the time. The present study’s findings indicate that after this announcement, retail sales of mint- and other- flavored prefilled cartridges halted while notable increases in sales of fruit- and mint-flavored disposable products occurred. Although disposable e-cigarettes constituted approximately less than one quarter of total unit sales during January 2020, disposable sales surpassed refillable sales in March 2022.
The FDA understood that partial measures wouldn’t work and tried to act against all flavored e-cigarettes (except menthol), but was blocked by the Trump White House according to Mitch Zeller, who was Director of the Center for Tobacco Products at the time. And this wasn’t the first time the White House blocked FDA action to end the sale of flavored e-cigarettes. Zeller also told the Wall Street Journal that In 2016, when the FDA asserted regulatory control over e-cigarettes (in the so-called “deeming rule”), it wanted to clear the U.S. market of all e-cigarette flavors other than tobacco, but the Obama White House cut that part of the deeming rule to allow flavors to stay on the market.
The article also points out that youth use dominates the e-cigarette market. In 2021, the prevalence of e-cigarette use among high school students was over triple that of adults (age 18+): 14.1% of high school students vs. 4.5% of adults.
The solution to this problem is clear: The FDA should immediately do what Obama and Trump blocked it from doing and prohibit the sale of all flavored e-cigarettes and other tobacco products that are not legally on the market.
The full citation is: Ali FR, Seidenberg AB, Crane E, Seaman E, Tynan MA, Marynak K. E-cigarette Unit Sales by Product and Flavor Type, and Top-Selling Brands, United States, 2020–2022. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2023;72:672–677. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7225a1. It is available here.
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