On July 13, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it had sent two warning letters to manufacturers marketing synthetic nicotine products without authorization, and more than 100 warning letters to retailers that had sold synthetic nicotine products to minors.
The press release, issued on the FDA’s website, arrived on the day the agency was granted the power to regulate and exercise its enforcement discretion on synthetic nicotine products.
In March, President Joe Biden signed an omnibus spending bill that gave the FDA this authority, something that had previously eluded it. (The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, signed by President Barack Obama in 2009, only gave the FDA the power to regulate nicotine products derived from tobacco—although chemically, synthetic nicotine is essentially identical.)
Many anti-nicotine and prohibitionist-minded lobbying groups and legislators now expect a significant offensive on disposable e-cigarettes—many of which use synthetic nicotine and have become teenagers’ vapes of choice, although youth vaping rates have decreased over the years. That will be tricky, however, when many disposables are manufactured in China—beyond the FDA’s regulatory arm.
Alex Norcia – Filter – 2022-07-14
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