CHICAGO – Attorney General Kwame Raoul, as part of a bipartisan coalition of 21 attorneys general, called on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to abandon draft guidance that would ease approvals for flavored e-cigarette products, widely understood to disproportionately worsen youth addiction.
Federal law requires that all e-cigarette products receive authorization from the FDA before they can be legally marketed or sold in the United States. The FDA has authorized only 45 e-cigarette products, and, until last week, had approved no flavors other than tobacco and menthol. However, just six days before today’s deadline to submit comments on the approval process, the FDA approved two fruit-flavored products.
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“E-cigarettes, which are highly addictive and pose significant health risks, have flooded the market nationwide and must be subject to strict regulation,” Raoul said. “Youth in Illinois and across the nation are particularly susceptible to e-cigarette use, especially flavored products, which can lead to addiction to nicotine products. I am urging the FDA to strengthen its guidance and enforcement, and I am committed to protecting our communities from the harms of e-cigarettes.”
In March, the FDA released draft guidance which runs contrary to years’ worth of evidence and would ease the path to approval for certain flavored products. The guidance claims, contrary to the FDA’s own science, that certain flavors such as coffee, tea, spices, menthol and mint are “lower risk” flavors for youth addiction. In fact, extensive research shows that flavored products of all kinds are favored by youth over unflavored tobacco.
Despite the FDA’s prior limited authorization, hundreds of thousands of e-cigarette varieties in multitudes of flavors are currently available for purchase, in flagrant violation of state and federal laws. In addition to the draft guidance, the FDA recently issued a press release announcing it would not prioritize enforcement against certain categories of vapes and nicotine pouches marketed without the necessary FDA authorization.
