Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN/AP) - A new report from the AP finds the number of vaping products has tripled despite an FDA crackdown that began in 2020. That leaves people, and that has experts like Dr. Andrew Hyland of Rowell Park concerned.
The number of different e-cigarette devices sold in the U.S. has nearly tripled to over 9,000, despite a three-year effort by the Food and Drug Administration to crack down on kid-friendly flavors. The rise in electronic cigarettes has been almost entirely driven by a wave of cheap, disposable devices imported from China. That's all according to sales data obtained by The Associated Press.
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Most are sold in fruit and candy flavors that can appeal to teenagers. All are technically illegal, but they continue to flow into U.S. ports with little threat of retaliation. The trend underscores the FDA’s inability to control the tumultuous vaping market previously dominated by Juul and other reusable e-cigarettes.
Dr. Andrew Hyland of Roswell Park says he knows the FDA is trying to get a hold of the vaping market. "Vaping is not safe. There are fewer toxins in vaping products than in cigarettes, but there are levels of toxins that are there," says Hyland. He says everyone agrees kids and vaping don't mix. "Especially in the last two or three years, we see kids getting hooked on vaping products. So it looks like the products that are more recent, in the last five years or so ... they deliver nicotine more effectively, which means that it's easier to get hooked on those," explains Hyland.
Hyland says most of those illicit brands are coming from small companies, not from major conglomerates, as all vaping products are required to go through an authorization process to be sold. "But if you don't go through that process, then you know who's checking, I think that's what an FDA is trying to put some teeth behind that," notes Hyland. But he says enforcement resources are scattered. "I've heard it described as whack a mole, where you might close clamp down on one company, but they just sort of resurface change their name, maybe different partners, and resurface in a different area. So it is a perpetual challenge," explains Hyland.
He says there are always new products that are coming through different innovation. "If there's opportunity, even for somebody, a small business owner can go and purchase nicotine liquid often from China and not always but often put a label on it, put it up for sale," says Hyland. That leads to a number of unknowns. "That's hard to be sure of when you have unauthorized products that that are being sold again, what the constituents are the marketing, there's no control over how they're marketed. We see many products that least visually looks like they're obviously targeted to an underage market," adds Hyland.
More than 5,800 unique disposable products are now being sold in numerous flavors and formulations, according to the data, up 1,500% from 365 in early 2020. That’s when the FDA effectively banned all flavors except menthol and tobacco from cartridge-based e-cigarettes like Juul, the rechargeable device blamed for sparking a nationwide surge in underage vaping.
The IRI data obtained by the AP provides key insights beyond figures released last week by government researchers, which showed the number of vaping brands in the U.S. grew nearly 50% to 269 by late 2022.
IRI restricts access to its data, which it sells to companies, investment firms and researchers. A person not authorized to share it gave access to the AP on condition of anonymity. The company declined to comment on or confirm the data, saying IRI doesn't offer such information to news organizations.