Answer Addiction

Category: Banning E-cigarettes

  • Walmart To Halt E-Cigarette Sales

    Walmart To Halt E-Cigarette Sales

    The American Vaping Association has criticized Walmart for punishing e-cigarette companies but continuing to sell regular cigarettes.

    With so much focus on the dangers of vaping in the news, one of the largest retailers in the world is announcing they’re going to phase out e-cigarettes.

    As Yahoo reports, Walmart has circulated an internal company memo which reads: “Given the growing federal, state and local regulatory complexity and uncertainty regarding e-cigarettes, we plan to discontinue the sale of electronic nicotine delivery products at all Walmart and Sam’s Club U.S. locations.” 

    Retailers React To Pressure

    The memo also stated that once the current inventory of e-cigarettes has sold, Walmart will “complete our exit” from selling them. 

    In the wake of nine deaths that have been linked to vaping, the FDA is launching a criminal investigation and lawmakers have implored the current administration to get rid of e-cigarettes altogether. 

    Back in May, Walmart voluntarily raised the minimum age to buy tobacco products to 21. 

    As CNBC reports, a number of companies don’t want to wait for an FDA crackdown on e-cigarettes, and have been instituting their own bans on them. (CBS, WarnerMedia and Viacom have all decided to stop airing e-cigarette ads as well.)

    At the same time, the American Vaping Association has criticized Walmart for punishing e-cigarette companies but continuing to sell regular cigarettes. In a statement, the association’s president, Gregory Conley, said, “You know you are in the middle of a moral panic when big corporations like Walmart find it is easier to sell deadly combustible tobacco products than to sell harm reduction alternatives.”

    Prior to Walmart’s big move, the Trump administration announced it was moving ahead on banning flavored e-cigarette products. So far, Michigan and New York have banned flavored e-cigarettes just this month. San Francisco became the first U.S. city to ban the sale of e-cigarettes this past June.

    As Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement, “The Trump administration is making it clear that we intend to clear the market of flavored e-cigarettes to reverse the deeply concerning epidemic of youth e-cigarette use that is impacting children, families, schools and communities.” 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • San Francisco May Become First US City To Ban E-Cigarettes

    San Francisco May Become First US City To Ban E-Cigarettes

    San Francisco is one vote away from officially putting a “moratorium” on e-cig sales.

    San Francisco is on track to becoming the first city in the United States to effectively ban e-cigarettes—amid rising concern that youth vaping has reached “epidemic” levels.

    The city’s Board of Supervisors approved a measure that would prohibit sales of electronic cigarettes by a unanimous vote, and will need a second vote to make it official.

    “We spent the ‘90s battling Big Tobacco, and now we see its new form in e-cigarettes,” said supervisor Shamann Walton, who voiced concern over the role of e-cigarettes in increasing “nicotine addiction for middle school children [and] high school students.”

    City officials prefer to call it a “moratorium” on sales instead of a ban—put in place until there is approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), according to local reporter Ali Wolf.

    Though the FDA has been very vocal about the concerning rise of vaping among youth, City Attorney Dennis Herrera said that until the agency acts, “it’s unfortunately falling to states and localities to step into the breach.” Herrera said that young people “have almost indiscriminate access to a product that shouldn’t even be on the market.”

    Youth vaping has reached “epidemic” levels, said former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb.

    “We didn’t predict what I now believe is an epidemic of e-cigarette use among teenagers,” said Gottlieb in a September 2018 statement. “I use the word epidemic with great care. E-cigs have become an almost ubiquitous—and dangerous—trend among teens. The disturbing and accelerating trajectory of use we’re seeing in youth, and the resulting path to addiction, must end.”

    He continued, “The FDA won’t tolerate a whole generation of young people becoming addicted to nicotine as a tradeoff for enabling adults to have unfettered access to these same products.”

    Another proposal endorsed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors would ban the manufacturing of e-cigarettes on city property.

    One Nebraska school district is taking on this “epidemic” by implementing random nicotine testing on some students this fall.

    “The skyrocketing growth of young people’s e-cigarette use over the past year threatens to erase progress made in reducing youth tobacco use,” said CDC Director Robert R. Redfield. “It’s putting a new generation at risk for nicotine addiction.”

    View the original article at thefix.com