Read articles from United States of America

April 12, 2022 by washingtontimes.com

This month the principal architect of America’s nicotine policy regulation, Mitch Zeller, will retire as head of FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products. His career highlight might be the arbitrary outlawing of nearly all nicotine vaping products, which are the single most effective smoking cessation method ever devised.

But that’s just Mr. Zeller’s latest ignominy. Back the frame out and behold the carnival of policy ineptitude that has marked his tenure as tobacco czar. 

According to the Federal Trade Commission, for the first time in 20 years, cigarette sales are rising. That reverses a downward trend that had seen its steepest decline during the emergence of nicotine vaping.

April 08, 2022 by thehill.com

Packed with nicotine and sold in a myriad of kid-appealing flavors, e-cigarettes, or vapes, remain the tobacco products most commonly used by young people. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has made it one of our top priorities to reduce youth use of these products. But in recent years, some in the e-cigarette industry have responded to our efforts by trying to skirt federal regulation.

In one instance, after receiving a warning letter from the FDA, the maker of the e-cigarette brand most popular with kids removed its products from the market, only to then resume selling its products by claiming to now be using a chemical form of nicotine not derived from tobacco.   

April 07, 2022 by cei.org

This week CEI joined a coalition of groups urging Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Robert Califf not to prohibit synthetic nicotine (read the full letter here). Slipped into the omnibus spending package that President Biden signed in late March was a measure giving the FDA the authority to regulate synthetic nicotine as a tobacco product.

Though presented as a seemingly reasonable measure aimed at preventing e-cigarette businesses from bypassing existing regulations, it would act as a de facto ban on the use of synthetic nicotine. [...]

April 06, 2022 by riverbender.com

U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin [...] spoke by phone with Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf about the agency’s delay in comprehensively regulating the e-cigarette marketplace to protect public health. During today’s call, Durbin urged new Commissioner Califf to finally conclude FDA’s review of premarket tobacco product applications (PMTAs) for e-cigarette products, now seven months past the court-ordered deadline for the review. While FDA has reviewed nearly seven million PMTAs it received, the agency has yet to act on e-cigarette products most often used by children, including JUUL.

April 06, 2022 by centerfreeeconomy.org

Conservative leaders and free market advocates representing associations across the country sent a letter to FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf M.D. in opposition to a new regulation signed into law by Congress that will effectively ban vapor products that include synthetic nicotine manufactured and sold legally in the United States.

Most importantly, the groups are urging Commissioner Califf to exercise enforcement discretion to allow for regulated small businesses trying to comply with this foolish new law to remain on the market for longer than the 60 days stipulated, as they prepare their marketing applications.

April 06, 2022 by vapingpost.com

Earlier this year, the Congressman reintroduced the END ENDS Act which proposed a cap on nicotine concentrations in vapes switch the aim of combating teen vaping. Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat representing the 8th Congressional District of Illinois, said that he is continuing his work to end the youth vaping epidemic by advocating for legislation like the END ENDS Act [...]

Subsequently in a recent letter to the Chicago Sun-Time, the congressman once again exaggerated the threats posed by underage vaping, equating it to smoking and said “there’s simply no evidence” that e-cigarettes help smokers quit. [...]

April 05, 2022 by reason.org

Colorado has been a leader in trusting adults and unwinding outdated prohibitions. Colorado led the way in the legalization of marijuana and then legalized sports betting in 2019. Locally, Denver decriminalized the possession of magic mushrooms. But, when it comes to nicotine, Colorado may be headed in the opposite direction.

A bill in the Colorado state legislature would prohibit the sale of flavored tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes. Only one state has implemented such a ban. In June 2020, Massachusetts implemented its prohibition of flavored vaping and tobacco products and the results have been disastrous. [...]

April 05, 2022 by healio.com

A new study published in JAMA highlights the prevalence of unsuccessful quit attempts among adolescents who use either e-cigarettes or cigarettes over the past 13 years.

The reported prevalence of an unsuccessful cigarette quit attempt by adolescents declined from 1997 to 2020. However, in 2020, the reported prevalence of unsuccessful quit attempts among adolescents who used either cigarettes or e-cigarettes was higher than the prevalence of unsuccessful cigarette quit attempts from 1997 to 2020, researchers reported.

April 04, 2022 by filtermag.org

Michele Mital, the current deputy director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products (CTP), will become its new acting director in mid-April. On March 30, the FDA told Filter that she will assume the role once Mitch Zeller, CTP’s current director, retires in a few weeks. [...]

Mital, who has been at the agency for 25 years in a variety of roles, inherits the politically loaded job of overseeing the regulation of cigarettes and vaping products. She will be under intense pressure from, on the one hand, industry and harm reduction advocates who argue that vapes should be widely available as a safer alternative for smokers;

March 31, 2022 by houstonchronicle.com

The city of Houston outlawed vaping in public spaces Wednesday, amending its smoking ordinance to include electronic cigarettes.

City Council unanimously approved the change, proposed last year by the Houston Health Department in response to a growing scientific consensus on the dangers of vaping. The amendment adds all types of e-cigarette devices — vape pens, electronic pipes and hookahs, among others — to the smoking ban, which bars cigarettes from enclosed public places and seating areas and within 25 feet of any building. It does not affect hookah bars or other private areas where smoking is permitted.