FDA chief: Banning online sales of e-cigs ‘on the table’

Food and Drug Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Tuesday that banning online sales of e-cigarettes outright is one option his agency is exploring to slash alarming rates of teen use.

“That’s one thing that’s going to be on the table. It’s very clearly something that we’re now looking at,” he told an event hosted by news outlet Axios.

Dr. Gottlieb said he isn’t “strongly” considering such a drastic option, which would have to go through a federal rule making process, though it’s definitely out there as he pushes the industry to come forward with their own solutions.

“They should start contemplating which actions they’re willing to take to dramatically reverse these trends,” Dr. Gottlieb said, hinting his agency wants to take action as new data on teen use is released in November.

The commissioner said e-cigarettes can be a net positive for adults who are hooked on riskier, combustible tobacco products that contain a nasty range of cancer-causing ingredients.

Yet the agency is even more worried about a spike in vaping among middle- and high school students, saying e-cigs still contain harmful chemicals and nicotine that can “rewire” the brain to crave more, meaning a percentage of vapers could switch to regular cigarettes.

“The problem is the rise in youth use,” Dr. Gottlieb said. “Unfortunately, we think we’re going to have to take steps that, in order to close the on-ramp for kids we’re going to have to narrow that off-ramp for adults, because of what we’re seeing in the marketplace.”

Dr. Gottlieb cited a sharp spike in the use by kids, according to new figures from the National Youth Tobacco Survey that will be released in November.

The data is being finalized, though Dr. Gottlieb acknowledged it will show a more than 70 percent spike among high school students from 2017 to 2018.

High school students from Potomac, Maryland, said there are plenty of stores that will sell vaping products to teens and that fake IDs are used for e-cigs in addition to alcohol.

“The kids who were ditching class 20 years ago to smoke weed are now the kids ditching class to go vape,” said Brandon Schoenfeld, a high school student from Potomac, Maryland, who said he does not vape.

Earlier this year, the FDA issued 1,300 warning letters and fines to leading e-cig makers threatened to yank flavored e-cigs off shelves unless major makers explain how they plan to reverse illegal sales to minors.

Dr. Gottlieb said they could force some flavored e-cigs off the market and then require them to meet certain criteria before they went back on shelves.

“In order to come back on the market they would have to have successful applications with the agency and demonstrate, as they claim that they do, that they help more adult smoking quit rather than help more kids get onto favored products,” he said.

Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association, urged federal regulators to proceed carefully, saying less than 10 percent of adult vapers also use tobacco and that flavors were a big reason former cigarette smokers were able to quit.

“Please don’t think of flavors as just some reason to get out to young people,” he told the Axios audience. “Adults love these products and it helps them get off of deadly cigarettes.”