Tag: ecigarettes

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China officially bans fruit flavorings in e-cigarettes

China has joined a handful of countries in banning flavored vapes to combat underage use of nicotine. Starting October 1, e-cigarette companies are only allowed to sell tobacco-flavored vapes in the country, an effort by the government to “standardize” the production, sales and consumption of the novel tobacco product.

China’s e-cigarette makers had a short-lived boom before regulators began reining in the lucrative industry around three years ago. First, it was a ban on the online sales of vapes. Then in May this year, a set of comprehensive regulations went into force, effectively subjecting e-cigarettes to the purview of China’s tobacco authorities.

The ban is long in coming and investors anticipated the change. Relx, which as of 2020 commanded 70% of China’s pod vape market, has lost over 95% of its stock value since its debut on NYSE in January 2021. Shares of Smoore, a major manufacturer of vaping devices based out of Relx’s home city of Shenzhen, are down 90% since hitting an all-time high in January 2021.

A ban on flavored vapes is like a death knell to the vaping industry. Tobacco-flavored products accounted for only an insignificant amount of e-cigarette sales, according to a survey conducted by Landong, a Chinese media publication focused on the vaping industry.

Other major measures from the regulations include a tobacco tax on e-cigarette sales and stringent new requirements on how a vape is made, from its battery, ceramic coil and nicotine content to fragrance. Meeting all these criteria could cost a fortune, which means the shoddy, scruffy type of vape sellers that were crowding the market before will struggle to survive.

Well-funded Chinese vaping startups such as Relx and Myst have long begun international expansion to diversify their revenue streams. In 2020, Relx kickstarted the costly and time-consuming ordeal of obtaining FDA approval in the U.S. Myst, which was co-founded by a former Juul scientist, had entered Malaysia, Russia, Canada and the United Kingdom as of May last year.

China’s clampdown on vaping flavors stems from the same concern shared by other jurisdictions: health risks for young people. In a notice from 2019, the country’s tobacco authority had this to say:

“The current electronic cigarette market in China is chaos. The quality of products varies substantially, and a large number of them has safety issues around unsafe additives, leaky e-juice, and shoddy battery. In particular, some companies are casually adding addictives to change the flavor and color of e-cigarettes to make them more appealing, but this is causing severe damage to underage users’ mental and physical health.”

In 2019, the U.S. government was getting ready for a policy to ban flavored e-cigarette products. In June, European Union lawmakers are proposing to ban flavored heated tobacco products. As the world’s largest producer of vaping devices, China’s e-cigarette factories will likely see their demand shrink as regulators around the world continue their battle with the vaping industry.

China plans e-cigarette regulation as industry booms

China officially bans fruit flavorings in e-cigarettes by Rita Liao originally published on TechCrunch

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Trump administration is readying tighter regulations on e-cigarettes, including ban on flavorings

The Department of Health and Human Services and the Food and Drug Administration are readying tough new requirements on e-cigarettes — including a potential ban on flavorings for vaping products.

The FDA compliance policy would mean that all non-tobacco flavored e-cigarettes would have to be cleared by the FDA before they could be sold. The regulations could effectively remove flavored e-cigarette products from the market until they go through the testing required for FDA approval.

In August 2016, e-cigarette companies were required to file premarket tobacco product applications with the FDA over a two-year period. Those companies whose products have not received FDA approval are now considered to be marketed illegally, according to the HHS statement.

“The Trump Administration is making it clear that we intend to clear the market of flavored e-cigarettes to reverse the deeply concerning epidemic of youth e-cigarette use that is impacting children, families, schools and communities,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, in a statement. “We will not stand idly by as these products become an on-ramp to combustible cigarettes or nicotine addiction for a generation of youth.”

Over the past year, the e-cigarette industry has faced a steady stream of criticism related to the health effects of vaping and the ways in which companies marketed their products to minors.

A new version of the National Youth Tobacco Survey shows the continued rise in rates of youth e-cigarette use, especially through non-tobacco flavors, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. More than 25% of high school students were e-cigarette users in 2019, and the bulk of those kids cited fruit and mint flavors as their pods of choice.

Earlier in September, the Centers for Disease Control issued a warning against vaping as several deadly instances of lung-related illnesses cropped up among vape users (although no solid link between the lung condition and vaping has been identified). As we reported at the time:

The first death was reported in late August in Indiana, but other suspected cases have turned fatal in Illinois, Minnesota, California and Oregon — as reported by The Washington Post, though the CDC said three are confirmed and one is under investigation. The number of reported cases has skyrocketed, though this is likely a consequence of better information coming from state health authorities and hospitals, rather than a sudden epidemic.

CDC says stop vaping as mystery lung condition spreads

The FDA is now working on a compliance policy that will be announced in the coming weeks to address the flavored e-cigarette issue.”Once finalized, this compliance policy will serve as a powerful tool that the FDA can use to combat the troubling trend of youth e-cigarette use. We must act swiftly against flavored e-cigarette products that are especially attractive to children. Moreover, if we see a migration to tobacco-flavored products by kids, we will take additional steps to address youth use of these products,” said Acting FDA Commissioner Ned Sharpless, MD, in a statement.”Earlier this week, the FDA sent a warning letter to the leading e-cigarette company, Juul Labs. With a reported 70% of the U.S. e-cigarette market and more than $14 billion in financing, Juul is the largest private company operating in the vaping space.

The government’s mobilization efforts come just one day after former New York City mayor and billionaire philanthropist Mike Bloomberg announced a $160 million effort to combat youth vaping.

Blomberg actually called out the federal government in the announcement, saying:

The federal government has the responsibility to protect children from harm, but it has failed – so the rest of us are taking action. I look forward to partnering with advocates in cities and states across the country on legislative actions that protect our kids’ health. The decline in youth smoking is one of the great health victories of this century, and we can’t allow tobacco companies to reverse that progress.

Mike Bloomberg’s philanthropic arm is shelling out $160 million to keep kids from vaping

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Democratic Senators question Juul about its Altria deal

Eleven democratic senators, led by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), have penned a letter to Juul Labs, asking a series of questions around the product’s marketing, its effectiveness as a tool to help people quit smoking combustible cigarettes, sales figures, and perhaps most importantly, more information on the deal that gave Altria a minority stake in Juul Labs.

“The corporate marriage between two companies that have been the most prolific at marketing highly addictive nicotine products to children is alarming from a public health standpoint and demonstrates, yet again, that JUUL is more interested in padding its profit margins than protecting our nation’s children,” writes Sen. Durbin in the letter.

Questions in the letter include records around advertising and marketing spend for Juul products, as well as any changes that might have been made to Juul’s Youth Prevention Plan following the deal with Altria.

In late 2018, Juul announced that it had sold a 35 percent minority stake of the company to Altria Group, makers of Marlboro cigarettes, for $12.8 billion. The company said that a partnership with Altria would help Juul market and distribute to currently addicted adult cigarette smokers.

In the letter, the senators cite the American Heart Association, which called the Altria/Juul deal “a match made in tobacco heaven.” Juul was already in hot water over its product’s popularity among young people, so it’s only expected that a partnership with traditional Big Tobacco would further fuel concerns among critics.

More from the letter:

JUUL’s decision to team up with Altria, the parent company of Philip Morris USA, is also bad news for children considering that Altria has a long and sordid history of spending billions to entice children to smoke through targeted campaigns that intentionally lied about the science and health effects from cigarettes. And their efforts have clearly paid off. According to the CDC, Altria’s Marlboro cigarette continues to be the most popular cigarette brand among children in the United States, with 48.8 percent of high school smokers preferring Marlboro cigarettes. Further, the proportion of high school smokers who smoked Marlboro cigarettes increased dramatically between 2012 and 2016, by a whopping 27 percent. While JUUL has promised to address youth vaping through its modest voluntary efforts, by accepting $12.8 billion from Altria—a tobacco giant with such a disturbing record of deceptive marketing to hook children onto cigarettes—JUUL has lost what little remaining credibility the company had when it claimed to care about the public health.

A Juul Labs spokesperson had this to say in response to the letter:

We welcome the opportunity to share information regarding JUUL Labs’ commitment to curbing underage use of our products while fulfilling our mission to eliminate combustible cigarettes, the number one cause of preventable death in our country. We agree that companies such as ours must step up with meaningful measures to limit access and appeal of vapor products to young people. That’s exactly what we’ve done, and we will do more to combat teen use to save the harm-reduction opportunity for the 34 million adult smokers in the United States. Don’t take our word for it — look at our actions. As part of our action plan deployed in November 2018 to keep JUUL products out of the hands of youth, we stopped the sale of certain flavored JUULpods to traditional retail stores, strengthened our retail compliance and secret shopper program, enhanced our online age-verification, exited our Facebook and Instagram accounts and are continuously working to remove inappropriate third-party social media content. We support the FDA’s draft guidance restricting the sale of certain flavored products, including JUULpods, at retail outlets and online, and will continue to work with FDA, Congress, state Attorneys General, local municipalities, and community organizations as a transparent and responsible partner in combating underage use.

U.S. Senators Patty Murray (D-WA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Jack Reed (D-RI), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Tom Udall (D-NM), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) joined Sen. Durbin in sending the letter. It comes just a month after the FDA proposed further regulations to the sale of flavored e-cig products.

Juul has until April 25 to provide answers and information in response to the letter.