Flavored e-cigarette products, marketed to appeal to kids, are threatening to hook an entire new generation on nicotine and erase decades of progress in preventing teen tobacco use. At least two million high school and middle school students reported vaping in 2021, many of whom didn’t know they were using nicotine, how dangerous it is, or what other potentially dangerous chemicals they might be inhaling.
In flavored vaping liquids — with options including mango, cotton candy, and Pop Tart — e-cigarette makers have created a line of products designed specifically to appeal to young people. But enough is enough. It’s time to stand up to the tobacco industry and other special interests encouraging youth e-cigarette use. It’s time to raise a call to ban flavored tobacco products so loud that our leaders will have no choice but to listen. It’s time to protect our kids and put an end to this epidemic.
That’s why PIRG is calling on the FDA to protect public health by prohibiting the sale of all flavored e-cigarettes, and other flavored tobacco products, and pulling e-cigarettes not yet reviewed off the market until they undergo the required public health review.