Federal regulators and anti-tobacco campaigners are on the warpath against flavored vaping products.
Though alcohol and marijuana use are more common (and more harmful) teenage vices, there seems to be little interest in restricting access to these products.
Federal regulators are deeply concerned about flavored tobacco, especially vaping products. “The United States has never seen an epidemic of substance use arise as quickly as our current epidemic of youth use of e-cigarettes,” former Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced in January 2020. Not to be outdone, then-FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn added that his agency is committed to dramatically limiting “children’s access to certain flavored e-cigarette products we know are so appealing to them …”
Azar’s and Hahn’s comments helpfully summarize the ongoing panic surrounding electronic cigarettes. A quick Google search for “teen vaping flavors” returned some 356,000 results, many of them aping the same message. “Fruity flavors lure teens into vaping longer and taking more puffs, study says,” the first result from the LA times warned. “The Tobacco Industry Has a Kid’s Menu,” the website Flavors Hook Kids similarly complained.
Cameron English – American Council on Science and Health – 2022-06-09.
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