FDA to kick Juul vaping products off the market – Washington Examiner

The Food and Drug Administration is expected to announce that Juul electronic cigarette products can no longer be sold in the United States as soon as Wednesday.

The decision to pull Juul products comes after a two-year review of the company's application to keep its tobacco- and menthol-flavored products in the U.S. market, the Wall Street Journal reported. The company has been charged with conducting years of predatory marketing tactics that enticed children and teenagers and selling flavored nicotine products in fruity flavors that appealed to youth.

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The FDAs campaign to police Juul e-cigarette products has been years in the making. The agency targeted the company for its role in perpetuating a new wave of teenage nicotine use, driven by appealing flavors. The FDA previously charged the company with advertising itself as a safer alternative to smoking combustible tobacco products such as cigarettes and cigars, a designation the company was not approved to use.

Juul conceded to the FDA in 2019 when it pulled all fruit and dessert flavors from the market, though it was permitted to keep marketing menthol- and tobacco-flavored nicotine pods used in the vaping device.

Juul did not return a request for comment.

The FDAs move to pull Juul from the market clears the way for its biggest competitor, Reynolds American, to dominate the e-cigarette market. The FDA declared last fall that four of its Vuse e-cigarettes that use tobacco flavoring could remain on the market after the company successfully demonstrated to the agency that the product offered smokers a less harmful means of satisfying nicotine cravings. Juul products account for 40% of the e-cigarette market, while Reynolds has about 28%.

The decision signals the hard line the Biden administration is taking on the teenage vaping epidemic. Some 2.55 million middle and high school students use tobacco products, including flavored electronic cigarettes, according to the 2021 National Youth Tobacco Survey.

Bidens FDA also unveiled a regulatory plan in April for banning the sale of menthol cigarettes and cigars, marking a major step forward for the administration, which proposed the ban in April 2021. Still, the process is lengthy and is not expected to be finalized until 2023, with the ban set to take effect a year thereafter.

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The agencys plan to restrict e-cigarette sales will rankle users as well as tobacco companies and libertarian groups. The Cato Institute, for instance, argued in 2019 amid a Trump-era crackdown on Big Tobacco that efforts to limit teenage vaping will adversely affect adult smokers looking for a means to quit.

The American Vapor Manufacturers Association, a trade organization for the vaping industry, slammed the agency's decision, arguing that American adults will transition to combustible cigarettes when their vaping products are no longer available.

"FDA's apparent intention to outlaw Juul is the latest sorry example of the agency's campaign of regulatory arson against the nicotine vaping products that millions of Americans rely on as an alternative to cigarettes," AVMA President Amanda Wheeler said. "This shameful decision is hard proof that no matter how deeply resourced or how meticulous the research in the market application, FDA is hellbent to arbitrarily crush the most widely used vaping products preferred by adult Americans."

The Biden administration picked up where the former Trump administration left off in its efforts to regulate tobacco products. The FDA shook up the industry on Tuesday when it announced that it intends to restrict the concentration of nicotine in tobacco products, reducing it to nonaddictive or minimally addictive levels. The move was lauded by anti-tobacco activist groups, such as the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. The group said on Tuesday that the agencys move is a truly game-changing proposal that would accelerate declines in smoking and save millions of lives from cancer and other tobacco-related diseases.

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FDA to kick Juul vaping products off the market - Washington Examiner