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FDA Chief Considers Ban of All Flavored E-Cigarettes (wsj.com) 341

Calling a surge in teen use of e-cigarettes an epidemic, the head of the Food and Drug Administration says he is considering pulling all flavored e-cigarettes from the U.S. market. From a report: After years of declining U.S. smoking rates, sales of e-cigarettes have jumped in the past year, fueled in part by online startups selling vaporizers and nicotine-laced liquids. The most popular brand, Juul, sells refills with mango, cucumber and creme flavors. Each $4 pod contains as much nicotine as a pack of cigarettes. "The number of teenagers we believe are now using these products... has reached an epidemic proportion," said FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who is expected to announce new measures Wednesday to curb underage use. Dr. Gottlieb said he believes that certain flavors make the products appealing to teens. "The availability of e-cigarettes cannot come at the expense of addicting a new generation of youth onto nicotine, and it won't," he said in an interview. Alternative source, and official announcement.
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FDA Chief Considers Ban of All Flavored E-Cigarettes

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  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @09:03AM (#57296606)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Milking It (Score:5, Insightful)

        by sycodon ( 149926 ) on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @09:35AM (#57296876)

        They do seem to be milking this situation in the most hypocritical way.

        On the one hand, restrict, preach, shame.

        On the other, tax, tax, tax.

        • by gnick ( 1211984 )

          Why is suppression through taxation hypocritical? It's one of several methods of discouragement. Hypocritical because people benefit?

          • Re:Milking It (Score:5, Insightful)

            by sycodon ( 149926 ) on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @09:59AM (#57297112)

            It's like when you don't take all your antibiotics. The infection never really goes away and eventually comes back stronger.

            In this case, they are supposedly trying to suppress it through taxation, but they never tax enough to effectively kill it. Instead, they only tax to the point where there is minimal black market activity. So...keeping it alive. or course they still allow the manufacture and sale of cigarettes.

          • Re: (Score:2, Redundant)

            by danbert8 ( 1024253 )

            Why is it that people believe taxing tobacco reduces people's desire for smoking, but that taxing income doesn't reduce people's desire to work?

            • Re:Milking It (Score:4, Informative)

              by gnick ( 1211984 ) on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @10:08AM (#57297228) Homepage

              Because the consequences of abandoning tobacco are far less dire than the consequences of abandoning employment.

            • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

              by arth1 ( 260657 )

              Why is it that people believe taxing tobacco reduces people's desire for smoking, but that taxing income doesn't reduce people's desire to work?

              That's a false comparison. To make the comparison valid, you'd have to either change the first part to "Why is it that people believe taxing tobacco reduces farmer's desire to grow tobacco" or the second to "but that taxing income doesn't reduce companies desire to hire people".

          • Why is suppression through taxation hypocritical? It's one of several methods of discouragement. Hypocritical because people benefit?

            Taxes are a necessary EVIL that funds our government and government services.

            It should NEVER be used to try to manipulate human behavior.....

            • Why? So-called "sin taxes" are more effective than say public service advertisements (which cost the government money and thus lead to more taxation for everyone).
          • Re:Milking It (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Curunir_wolf ( 588405 ) on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @11:53AM (#57298482) Homepage Journal

            Why is suppression through taxation hypocritical? It's one of several methods of discouragement. Hypocritical because people benefit?

            Thanks to the "deal" with big tobacco companies, a lot more revenue comes in to state and federal governments for cigarette sales. Banning e-cigarettes is a way to create greater demand for (much more dangerous) cigarettes.

            It's interesting that the British NHS service is lately encouraging the use of e-cigarettes as a harm reduction strategy, while in the US, due to funding streams and corruption, health agencies are producing propaganda claiming that e-cigarettes are just as bad as cigarettes.

        • It is not hypocritical if you think it in ways of doing the most political expedient way.

          e-Cigarettes those are the things for those Millennial that everyone seems to hate, and it doesn't help that the jerkiest among them like to adjust their e-Cigarettes to puff vapor at a crazy level. But every generation had Jerks, like those Gen Xers who drive down the streets with cars with the mufflers modified to not muffle, with the bass on the radios shaking the town. Of those Boomers back in the 1960's with their

          • by omnichad ( 1198475 ) on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @10:43AM (#57297652) Homepage

            with the bass on the radios shaking the town

            You know, that never bothers me. But what does bother me is not bothering to put basic dampening on your trunk. It's the rattling metal that's annoying.

            • with the bass on the radios shaking the town

              You know, that never bothers me. But what does bother me is not bothering to put basic dampening on your trunk. It's the rattling metal that's annoying.

              Ironic, considering the conversation - back in the day we used rolled-up cigarette packs stuffed behind the license plate to muffle the rattling. Worked really well with soft packs.

    • Re:Ban cigs (Score:5, Insightful)

      by BlueStrat ( 756137 ) on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @09:36AM (#57296888)

      Ban cigarettes while your at it dipshit.

      That's not going to happen.

      As a matter of fact, all this hand-wringing about teens vaping is just smoke to cover the fact that the government wants to find an excuse to ban e-cigs and vaping because it's seriously cutting into tobacco sales and especially hurting the creation of new teen smokers, not to mention all the federal and State tobacco & cigarette taxes the government is losing out on, and stands to see even more losses if teens take up vaping instead of smoking tobacco.

      The government would much rather see Dick and Jane. See Dick and Jane with a 3-pack-a-day habit. See Dick and Jane pay thousands in tobacco taxes every year. Watch Dick and Jane get lung cancer and spend many tens of thousands on medical treatment and hospice costs. See the Government and healthcare providers run away with pockets bulging with cash. Run, merchants of death, run!

      Strat

      • Yep. And honestly, if you are a teen vaping to look cool, you are in a much better situation than smoking cigarettes simply do to the fact that you can use a 0 level nicotine juice and skip the addicting factor all together.

        It's much easier to be a "social vaper" than a "social smoker."

      • See Dick and Jane with a 3-pack-a-day habit. See Dick and Jane pay thousands in tobacco taxes every year. Watch Dick and Jane get lung cancer and spend many tens of thousands on medical treatment and hospice costs. See the Government and healthcare providers run away with pockets bulging with cash. Run, merchants of death, run!

        My library must not have stocked this particular book. Do you know which one [wikipedia.org] this was featured in?

    • Ban cigarettes while your at it dipshit.

      Freedom, fuck yeah. Also, you're the dipshit it seems.

    • Well they are banning flavored e-cigarettes not all e-cigarettes. As a non-smoker while I would love to see all smoking stopping. There is still too much of an economy behind tobacco to ban it. It is easier to ban small markets that are harmful then large ones which may be more harmful.
      Besides, they are too many smokers who would rebel.

    • Regulate Nicotine as the addictive non-medicinal drug it is. If it was introduced today it would be lumped in with cocaine, heroin, and marijuana.

      • Regulate Nicotine as the addictive non-medicinal drug it is. If it was introduced today it would be lumped in with cocaine, heroin, and marijuana.

        Says the ignorant authoritarian fascist. Are you planning to regulate tobacco by spraying the fields with paraquat? You going after eggplants, potatoes, tomatoes, and the other plants that also contain nicotine? You planning to ban it and neonicotinoids from being used as insecticide (one of the safest in use, BTW)?

        As far as your "non-medicinal" claim, nicotine has been shown in many studies, such as this one [medicalnewstoday.com], that it is useful treatment for schizophrenics.

        But, hey, screw those guys, right, Right? Better

    • Exactly, so I will keep being poisoned by my neighbors smoking normal cigarettes because vaping is too unhealthy?
      I personally welcomed e-cigarettes as a way for people addicted to smoking, who cannot or do not want to give up their habit not affecting bystanders.
  • Sounds good to me (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @09:03AM (#57296610)
    No one wants to walk though your cloud of second-hand blueberry fumes!
    • by Oswald McWeany ( 2428506 ) on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @09:11AM (#57296654)

      No one wants to walk though your cloud of second-hand blueberry fumes!

      No they don't, but I don't want to listen to someone's rap music playing out a car window, or smell someone with BO, or taste ketchup that was put on my burger.

      Not wanting to experience something that other people do want to experience is not reason for it to be illegal. Banning flavoured vapes because some teens are getting it illegal is not right in my opinion. Target people illegally selling it, or giving it to kids if you want. Tax the stuff if you want.

      I don't like smoke or vaping- but I'm not for making it illegal. If they do it in the privacy of their own properties and don't expose others- and are well-informed of the consequences, then people should be allowed to smoke or vape if they want. I don't approve of banning things just because they're unpopular with the masses.

      One day, something I like doing which is unpopular with the masses might be next on the chopping block. Let people have their vices if it isn't hurting anyone else. And yeah... do things to keep it out the hands of underage teens who have not yet reached adult age.

      • Not wanting to experience something that other people do want to experience is not reason for it to be illegal.

        There's ample reason to ban it in public, though. And also for all ingredients in anything you put into your body to be listed on the packaging. That would mean a major change for the alcohol market, but so what?

        • There's ample reason to ban it in public, though.

          Name one.

        • Re:Sounds good to me (Score:5, Informative)

          by sjames ( 1099 ) on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @02:49PM (#57300234) Homepage Journal

          There's ample reason to ban public cologne and perfume as well, but it hasn't happened. At least the vapers stop emitting the vape when they go inside.

    • Re:Sounds good to me (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anubis IV ( 1279820 ) on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @11:19AM (#57298086)

      I was sitting out on a patio at a restaurant last week, with a college-aged guy doing some form of smoking at the table next to us. We had maple-bacon smoke wafting over us for the better part of 30 minutes as he blew big, billowing plumes for his own amusement.

      Maple-bacon scented patios may sound like some people's idea of a pleasant evening, but as someone with asthma, it's not unusual for me to feel my airways closing up when I'm exposed to strong scents, which I've had happen before with e-cigs and vaporizers. Thankfully, nothing happened this time, so it was little more than a random thing that happened that evening, but I don't want to see a return to the way things were a few decades ago. People always talk about the big risks when it comes to this stuff—addiction, cancer, death—but we shouldn't forget that there's a significant decrease in the quality of life for others when being able to breathe easily is something they need to concern themselves with.

  • The FDA has no authority to regulate if the juice contains no nicotine and teens who don't already spoke don't use the nicotine juice. You can make any flavor with or without it, the nicotine is an add on.
    • The FDA has no authority to regulate if the juice contains no nicotine and teens who don't already spoke don't use the nicotine juice. You can make any flavor with or without it, the nicotine is an add on.

      Its the FDA, not just the DA.

      • Uh huh... last I checked nobody is eating the e-juice.
      • Does a cloud of mist that one inhales qualifies as "food"?
        • People that sell liquids for fog machines are always talking about how their ingredients are all approved by the FDA. That doesn't mean the FDA regulates those at all, but I just thought it was an odd thing to advertise. There is no one that regulates the health of vaporized chemicals, especially propylene glycol. This is one thing where you have to do your own research if you don't want long term health problems rather than counting on a government agency to issue warnings.

        • Maybe it counts as a "drug" ?

  • by FilmedInNoir ( 1392323 ) on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @09:12AM (#57296668)
    Sure, you can regulate pre-made juice and disposable e-cigs but refillable e-cigs allows me the option to purchase the individual components to make my own e-juice.
  • What flavors are they banning, and how are they determining that.
    Mine is a sweetish tobacco flavor with vanilla in it. Will that be banned?
  • I agree (Score:5, Funny)

    by ilsaloving ( 1534307 ) on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @09:35AM (#57296878)

    I have to say I agree with this.

    There's nothing worse than smelling donuts or cotton candy, and you turn the corner thinking "Mmmm I'm gonna treat myself to something tasty!"

    But no... It's just Brad and his cloud of LIES.

  • Okay, you have 2million kids now using e-cigs.
    How does that compare to before e-cigs were available? How many kids were cig smokers in the past?

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