With increasing e-cigarette use, flavored e-cigarettes and their appeal to youths have become a prominent concern.
Advocacy groups and the American Academy of Pediatrics emphasize that nontobacco flavors may motivate youth vaping (ie, e-cigarette use) and increase conventional cigarette use (smoking). Given these concerns, the US Food and Drug Administration announced that it will enforce sales restrictions on e-cigarette cartridges with flavors other than tobacco and menthol unless the product has obtained Food and Drug Administration premarket authorization. However, industry representatives claim that such flavors are critical to attracting adults who smoke and want to quit. The tension between these perspectives—nontobacco flavors as a risk to youth vaping initiation vs a boon for adult smoking cessation—remains unresolved. Because vaping’s effect on conventional smoking is central to its health influence, understanding how flavored e-cigarette use is related to smoking initiation and cessation is critical to guiding policy. Henceforth, flavored and unflavored e-cigarettes refer to nontobacco (eg, fruit, candy, menthol, mint) and tobacco flavors, respectively.
Abigail S. Friedman, PhD; SiQing Xu, BS – JAMA Network – June 5, 2020.
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