This week CEI joined a coalition of groups urging Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Robert Califf not to prohibit synthetic nicotine (read theĀ full letter here).
Slipped into the omnibus spending package that President Biden signed in late March was a measure giving the FDA the authority to regulate synthetic nicotine as a tobacco product.
Though presented as a seemingly reasonable measure aimed at preventing e-cigarette businesses from bypassing existing regulations, it would act as aĀ de factoĀ ban on the use of synthetic nicotine. Such a ban would not, as promised, increase oversight of the e-cigarette industry. Instead, like nearly every other action the FDA has taken with regard to e-cigarettes, banning the use of synthetic nicotine will only push more consumers into the unregulated illicit market or back to deadly combustible cigarettes.
Michelle Minton – Competitive Enterprise Institute – 2022-04-05.