20 Things to Know About the American E-Liquid Flavour Ban

Vaping is one of the greatest innovations to hit the market in decades, according to many Americans. Hundreds of creative flavours have appeared on the market, and those flavours have helped to entice millions of American smokers to make the switch to vaping. Vaping has become a significant part of the economy with thousands of shops all over the country. In September 2019, however, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a proposal that would ban all e-liquid flavours except tobacco in the American market. The goal of the proposal is to put a stop to teen vaping. With only tobacco flavours set to survive the ban, it’s likely that vaping sales in the U.S. will see a steep decline.

As we approach May 2020, even stricter vaping regulations will go into effect in the United States as all vaping product manufacturers will be required to compile and submit lengthy applications to the FDA for marketing approval of their products. Most vaping manufacturers that aren’t part of the tobacco industry will not be able to compile the expensive applications and will go out of business. A domino effect will then result in the closure of thousands of vape shops, as those shops will find themselves with few products left to sell.

With the pending regulation looming, there are twenty things you should know as we approach these changes in the industry.

1. What Should You Know About E-Liquid Flavours in the United States?

The United States government under the Trump Administration has made it clear that it intends to ban vaping flavours. This announcement was made on September 11, 2019, and the government has been making a move to actualize it by 2020.

President Trump made the argument that the ban is necessary due to the effect that vaping is having on the youth of America. The ban will aim at reducing the impact of addiction to nicotine, which is becoming increasingly common with the youth. The president relayed his message through the Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. “We will not stand idly by as these products become an on-ramp to combustible cigarettes or nicotine addiction for a generation of youth.”

The FDA has the power to enact a flavour ban because no vaping products in the United States presently have FDA approval as required by law. Since no vaping products have gone through the pre-market application process, the FDA can remove those products from the market pending their successful applications.

Since the September announcement, however, President Trump has appeared to backtrack somewhat from his original proposal. With around 14 million adult vapers in the United States, a removal of flavours from the market would have the very real chance of angering millions of people who might otherwise have voted for Trump in the 2020 Presidential election.

2. Why Is This Policy Being Taken Now by the Government?

In announcing his proposed ban on e-liquid flavours, President Trump cited two core reasons for the ban.

I. Thousands of people have been sickened by vaping in the United States. Several of those people have died. The news media has incorrectly reported, however, that some of those illnesses have occurred as a result of using commercial e-liquid products. Following President Trump’s announcement of the proposed flavour ban, it was revealed that the true cause of the vaping-related lung illness appears to be THC vaping oils produced for the black market.

II. Recent survey results have shown that a shocking number of school-aged children have begun vaping. Vaping products were only ever supposed to be for adult smokers, and the fact that millions of underaged users are now vaping has spurred the government to action.

3. Do We Trust the FDA to Know What They Are Doing?

There are some who believe that the FDA does not have a coherent plan on this proposed step. From the beginning, the FDA has acted without a complete understanding of the vaping industry and how its proposed regulations will affect the market and the American public. In fact, the FDA’s proposed vaping regulations will likely do more harm than good.

The FDA seems to lack an analytical framework for the ban on vaping flavours. They claim that the product does more harm to society without considering all aspects. They have not found the health benefits of these products and how the ban will affect those that rely on vaping products.

In a letter written to the FDA, ten questions were raised to counter their proposed ban of vape products, and they include:

• Is the flavour used in a combustible or non-combustible product?
• Is the cause for concern an actual flavour or the way it is described (or both)?
• Are all flavours, whole flavour categories, or specific flavours the cause for concern?
• How will the subset of flavours that have a particular role in attracting youth be identified?
• Does a flavour preference create a change in behaviour to increase e-cigarette use?
• What is the behaviour of concern, and what is a distraction?
• Would youth uptake of e-cigarettes caused by flavours be harmful or beneficial to health?
• How are trade-offs between potential harms and potential benefits to youth addressed?
• How will beneficial impacts for adults be reconciled with any potential effects on youth?
• What impact would a rulemaking intervention by the FDA have?

It seems clear that the FDA has acted without considering the millions of adults who benefit from vaping.

4. All Other Flavours Except Tobacco Flavour are Now Regarded as Kid-Appealing Flavours

The U.S. government now apparently operates with the stance that all e-liquid flavours except tobacco are created to appeal to children. That couldn’t be further from the truth, though, as millions of adult former smokers have stated in surveys that flavoured e-liquids actually help them stay off of tobacco cigarettes. The flavour of tobacco, in fact, is the last thing that many adult vapers want to taste; they don’t want to use e-liquids that remind them of the cigarettes they’ve given up.

5. Flavours Encourage Adults to Switch to Vaping

Surveys have shown that most adult smokers who switch to vaping choose non-tobacco flavours for their first vaping experiences. In that sense, the availability of appealing non-tobacco flavours actually helps convince adults to make the switch.

Tobacco e-liquid does not taste like tobacco. If that’s the only available e-liquid flavour, many adults will try vaping one time and return immediately to smoking.

6. All Flavours Appeal to Teens – and Everyone Else

One obvious fact that the U.S. government has neglected to consider is that all flavours – of all products – appeal to teens. They also appeal to everyone else. Do teens want flavoured e-liquids? Of course. They also want flavoured ice cream, soda and pizza. Flavoured snacks encourage juvenile obesity. Is the government going to ban those as well?

7. Activists Want the Total Prohibition of Vaping Products

The ultimate goal of many activist groups in the United States is to ban all vaping products, and they’ve furthered that aim by continually shifting the scope of their demands. The activists began by demanding the removal of “kid-friendly” flavours, and they continued by acting as if all e-liquids have kid-friendly flavours. It’s clear that the activist groups are targeting the total prohibition of vaping products, and they’ve furthered that goal by lobbying for extensive taxation and regulation of the industry. The spread of misinformation has increased the public’s support of that goal. Completely ignored are the millions of former smokers who will inevitably be driven back to smoking or to black-market or home-made e-liquids in the event of a flavour ban.

8. Younger Smokers Prefer Non-Tobacco Flavours

Surveys have shown that the younger a smoker is, the more likely that person is to choose a non-tobacco flavour when switching to vaping. Among former smokers aged 21-45 – the age range at which quitting smoking would have the greatest effect on long-term health outcomes – tobacco e-liquids are not popular at all. Most smokers in that age range choose fruit, dessert and candy flavours when they switch from smoking to vaping.

9. Flavours Aren’t the Only Reasons Why Teens Vape

Research has shown that the availability of appealing flavours is only one reason why some teens have chosen to vape. The most common reason cited by teen vapers is the same reason why millions of adults now vape – because it’s less harmful than smoking. Other common reasons for teen vaping include peer pressure and the fact that e-cigarettes are easier to conceal than tobacco cigarettes. A flavour ban will not eliminate the most common reasons why teens start vaping. Only education – and a deeper understanding of the issue – can do that.

10. Existing Research Focuses on Flavour but Doesn’t Explain Why Teens Vape

There is research showing that teens who begin vaping with non-tobacco and non-menthol flavours are more likely to still be vaping six months after the first use. However, that research tells us nothing about why those teens are vaping in the first place or whether they have a history of tobacco usage. Did some teens start with tobacco flavours because they already smoked cigarettes? Since tobacco e-liquid doesn’t taste like actual tobacco, it’s highly likely that those teens would return to smoking.

Let’s examine some other observations on the bias of this research.

• Those who choose tobacco, menthol and mint flavours when they begin vaping are likely to be tobacco users trying to decide between vaping and smoking. Many of those people will try vaping and eventually return to tobacco products.
• Some of the people who choose traditional e-liquid flavours might simply buy the first vaping product that they see in a convenience store. Those who choose other flavours might select them because they’ve researched the available products and taken the time to decide which flavours are most likely to appeal to them.
• The media has conditioned teens to believe that tobacco flavours are gross and anti-social.
• The availability of e-liquid flavours may not be a completely bad thing if the teens using those flavours would otherwise be smoking.
• Dividing the vaping market into tobacco flavours, mint/menthol flavours and everything else is making an enormous generalization with no real basis.

11. Teens’ Reasons for Vaping May Not Always Be Truthful

One of the things that regulators, activists and parents have focused on is that, when teens are asked why they vape, the most common reason cited is the fact that e-liquids come in appealing flavours. We know from history, though, that teen smoking often happens due to factors that teens may not readily admit – factors like depression, problems at home, mental illness and poverty. It’s likely that teens vape for similar reasons, but they aren’t going to discuss those reasons in surveys.

The research also completely ignores the fact that people can’t know what an e-cigarette will taste like until they’ve tried it. Flavours, therefore, can’t have anything to do with teen vaping initiation unless it’s actually the flavour descriptions that are appealing to teens. So, do teens start vaping because they like the flavour descriptions?

12. E-Liquid Flavour Descriptions Do Not Appeal to Teen Non-Vapers

A 2015 survey exposed non-vaping teens to the text descriptions of various e-liquid products and asked the teens to rate their interest in those descriptions on a scale of 0-10. The average score given was 0.41. E-liquid descriptions, in other words, don’t appeal at all to teens who don’t already vape.

13. Is There Any Precedent for Banning an Entire Category of Products Because Teens Use it?

While we don’t wish to downplay the very justifiable concerns about teen vaping, it’s also a fact that teens have always experimented with forbidden products and behaviours. In surveys asking about their behaviours in the past 30 days:

• 29.8% of teens admitted to using alcohol. Is the U.S. government banning alcohol?
• 19.8% of teens admitted to using cannabis. Are states cancelling their medical cannabis programs?
• 13.9% of teens admitted to smoking cigarettes. Is the U.S. government banning cigarettes?
• Nearly 25% of teens admitted to texting while driving. Is the U.S. government banning mobile phones?

The answer to all of the above questions, of course, is “no.” There is no precedent for banning entire categories of products because teens use them. Instead, we focus on educating those teens and helping them understand the potential consequences of their actions.

Does a Youth Nicotine Addiction Epidemic Really Exist?

In all of the discussions of teen vaping among politicians and activist groups, the one common thread is the idea that vaping has created a new generation of nicotine addicts. The people saying that, however, have failed to address whether those teens are also using – or have used – tobacco products. They have also failed to address whether all of those teens are actually addicted to nicotine. Experts in the United Kingdom analysed the responses given in youth vaping surveys and found that the responses do not suggest a high level of nicotine dependence. Teen nicotine use is deeply concerning, but putting the health of 14 million adult vapers at risk isn’t the right way to manage that behaviour.

How Else Could We Manage Teen Vaping?

An appropriate response to teen vaping would target youth specifically rather than allowing millions of adult vapers to become collateral damage.

• We should control access to vaping products with strong online age verification, by limiting the sale of those products to specialty vape shops that don’t allow underaged customers to enter and by continuing to check for compliance to all applicable rules.
• We should control the ways in which vaping companies are allowed to market their products. JUUL’s youth-oriented social media campaigns should not have been allowed to take place, and vaping companies will be watched much more closely by regulators in the future. E-liquid flavour descriptions and packaging should be basic and to the point.

14. Could an E-Liquid Flavour Ban Actually Be Harmful for Teens?

Activists and politicians have failed to consider the fact that an e-liquid flavour ban could actually be harmful to teens by driving them to tobacco. Surveys have arrived at the following conclusions:

• Most teen vapers tried tobacco before they began to vape.
• Most teens who vape do not vape often.
• Most teens who do vape often are former smokers.

When one considers the tobacco usage patterns of vaping teens, it becomes clear that vaping may actually benefit some of those teens by helping them quit smoking or by reducing the number of cigarettes that they smoke.

15. The FDA Doesn’t Care About Vaping as an Alternative to Teen Smoking

It’s interesting to note that the rise of vaping among teens has coincided with a drastic reduction in teen smoking. The FDA is aware of that fact and has said that the reduction in smoking rates doesn’t constitute “an acceptable trade” because “no child should be using any tobacco product.” It’s folly, though, for the government to institute policy based on idealism rather than what actually happens in the real world. The FDA is aware that banning vaping products will increase teen smoking rates. They simply don’t care. Could that have something to do with the fact that underage smokers are likely to come from low-income families?

16. Is a Vaping Ban the Result of Class Bias?

When we read about the parental outrage over teen vaping, what we’re mainly reading are the opinions of well-off parents whose children don’t have a high risk of smoking. If those children do experiment with vaping products – which aren’t that harmful in the first place – they aren’t likely to become lifelong addicts. The kids that are likely to become lifelong nicotine addicts are the ones who come from poorer families, and those kids are far more likely to smoke than they are to vape. Shouldn’t vaping exist as a less harmful alternative?

17. Does Adult Vaping Benefit Children?

U.S. lawmakers have largely spoken about their proposed vaping policies with the viewpoint that it might be necessary to take e-cigarettes away from adults because we can’t allow children to be harmed by vaping. That viewpoint assumes that adults and children are two entirely separate groups, but that isn’t how things work in the real world. Children live in families, and millions of those families include parents who smoke. In many of those households, though, vaping has reduced the harm that parental smoking would have caused for children.

• Youth tobacco usage is highly influenced by parental behaviours. If a parent switches from smoking to vaping, that parent’s children will probably be less likely to smoke.
• Parents who smoke eventually acquire tobacco-related diseases. Those diseases create financial strain, reduce parental involvement in teens’ lives and even result in those parents’ early deaths.
• Parents who smoke expose their children to second-hand smoke.
• Teens eventually grow into adults who may smoke if vaping is not available as an option.

Any public health policy that results in increased adult smoking – even if it’s enacted in the name of protecting children – will in fact have the opposite effect in many households. There is no way to fully separate kids from adults in health policy because that’s not how families work.

18. How Would a Flavour Ban Affect the Vaping Market?

It’s important to remember that banning flavoured e-liquids will not simply cause those e-liquids to disappear, nor will it alter the product preferences of the 14 million American adults who already vape and use those e-liquids.

Here’s what a flavour ban will do:

• It will result in the closure of thousands of small businesses across America. The American vaping industry currently supports more than 166,000 jobs and over 11,400 specialty vape shops. Those businesses generate about $24.46 billion in yearly commerce.
• It will give control of the vaping industry to Chinese wholesale suppliers such as Fast Tech, who will happily ship their products anywhere.
• It will create a new black market for flavoured e-liquids resold by bulk importers and organized criminals.
• It will cause millions of people to experiment with the potentially unsafe practice of DIY e-liquid mixing.
• It will cause people to return to smoking. It will also cause existing smokers to decide against switching to vaping.
• A few vapers may switch to tobacco e-liquids.
• A few vapers may stop using all nicotine products, although they may remain at risk for other behaviours.

The FDA is very aware of the potential adverse effects of an e-liquid flavour ban, though those potential effects appear to have no influence on policy decisions.

An E-Liquid Flavour Ban Is a Big Win for Big Tobacco

The biggest enemy of the vaping industry is the tobacco industry, and Big Tobacco would love to see e-liquid flavours go away because cigarettes can’t directly compete. Smoking is the leading preventable cause of death, and there is therefore no industry that does more to harm public health than the tobacco industry. Despite that fact, by banning e-liquid flavours, the FDA is doing exactly what Big Tobacco wants the agency to do.

• Every major tobacco company owns or partially owns a vaping brand. However, the loss of those brands won’t hurt the tobacco companies because they can always fall back on cigarette sales. Pure vaping companies have no fallback options if their core products are banned. An e-liquid flavour ban effectively kills Big Tobacco’s competition.
• Any e-liquid company that somehow manages to survive the flavour ban will operate with drastically reduced revenue and will not have the funds necessary to complete the required pre-market authorization process by May 2020. By that time, virtually all pure vaping companies will be gone. Tobacco companies, however, will have no difficulty coming up with the funds necessary to complete the application process.
• In the rash of recent lung injuries caused by illicit THC vaping cartridges, some public figures have jumped on social media to claim that smoking and vaping are equally risky. Big Tobacco loves those people. We’re looking at you, Michael Bloomberg.

19. What Would Actually Help Teens?

If we actually wanted to do the right thing for teens, we’d start by examining the causes of premature death among young people. Nicotine use is not one of those causes. The actual causes are traffic accidents, other accidental injuries, suicide and homicide. If we really wanted to help teens, we would start by addressing those problems.

Some experts believe that as many as 49.5 percent of teens meet the criteria for mental health disorders – and nicotine use is far more common among those with mental health problems. With regard to teen vaping, U.S. lawmakers have consistently addressed nicotine use as the problem when they should be addressing it as a symptom. If the government really wanted to address teen nicotine use, they’d start by assessing those individuals along with their unique needs and problems – but they don’t do that, because there’s no money in it.

20. Could the Moral Panic Against Teen Vaping Actually Make the Problem Worse?

Have you ever heard the statement that there’s no such thing as bad publicity? Anti-vaping campaigners have started social media accounts about the evils of JUUL and other vaping products. They’ve produced videos essentially telling kids that their friends are all using JUUL and explaining how to conceal their vaping. They’ve written anti-JUUL articles and published those articles in newspapers and on the Internet. JUUL hardly markets their product in the United States at all anymore; there’s too much controversy. Is it possible that the anti-vaping activists are actually doing JUUL’s work for them?