The Food and Drug Administration, charged with protecting Americans from harmful foods and drugs, including limiting disposable — and highly addictive — flavored e-cigarettes to children, is failing in its core mission.
Congress gave the federal agency legal authority to restrict the popular synthetic nicotine to minors in April 2022, but it has taken no action to date.
Now located just 250 yards from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) headquarters in Washington, D.C., is a convenience store that sells dozens of flavors of Puff Bars and Hyde Bars, including watermelon, bubblegum, and strawberry kiwi.
The White Oak supermarket is located about 200 yards from the edge of the FDA headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland and offers a variety of disposable flavored e-cigs, including Puff Bars, Elf Bars, and True Bars.
The FDA sent a warning letter to Puff Bar in October, but it’s not clear it didn’t exercise the same authority it used to ban flavored Juul pods from store shelves years ago.
The back and forth of over-flavored e-cigarettes has left the FDA catching up as manufacturers find new solutions to avoid having their product pulled from the market.
A convenience store that sells dozens of flavors of Puff Bars and Hyde Bars — including watermelon bubble gum and strawberry kiwi — is just 250 years from FDA headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Shop offers a variety of single use e-cigs including Puff Bars, Elf Bars and True Bars
The Food and Drug Administration has not set a limit on flavored e-cigarettes, although they have legal authority since April 2022.
In early 2020, the FDA under President Trump banned flavored e-cigarette cartridges like Juul pods, causing a huge shock to young vape smokers everywhere. The move came after a viral scare over “popcorn lung” that some attributed to vaping.
That ban did not ban the sale of disposable e-cigarettes, giving rise to popular flavored vapes such as Elf Bar and Puff Bar, which children and young adults then turned to.
Puff Bar soared in popularity and profits, reaching sales of over $170 million in 2020
In July 2020, the FDA ordered Puff Bar off the market, saying it was not getting the necessary approval to be sold, as tobacco products that surfaced after 2016 had to get approval from the FDA before going on sale.
But in 2021, Puff Bar found a solution and was back on the market. It came with a new synthetic nicotine formula that put it out of the reach of the FDA’s tobacco regulators. Other products followed Puff Bar’s lead.
In April 2022, Congress voted bipartisan to close the loophole and give the FDA the authority to regulate synthetic nicotine.
Meanwhile, youth e-cigarette use is down from an all-time high, but use of disposable vape products is up nearly 2,000 percent since 2019, according to CDC’s National Youth Tobacco Study.
More flavored disposable vapes pictured behind the counter
The White Oak supermarket is located approximately 200 yards from the edge of the FDA headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland
As of 2022, 14.1 percent of high school students and 3.3 percent of high school students self-reported regular use of e-cigarettes — some 2.55 million children. Flavored e-cigarettes still dominate the market among children – more than half of young e-cigarette users report using the disposable version.
According to the CDC, Puff Bar was the brand of choice for nearly a third of middle and high school e-cigarette users.
“These numbers confirm that the e-cigarette epidemic in our country is far from over,” said Linda Neff, the chief of the division of epidemiology in the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health, according to NBC news. “Our work is far from over.
“What’s even more troubling is the frequency of use,” she added. “Of those who currently use e-cigarettes, more than 1 in 4 use them daily.”
Nearly half of high school teens said they vape every day.
Meanwhile, a recent study found that in some cases, the nicotine content of certain disposable items has been mislabeled, with a concentration sometimes 1.5 times higher than the label.
A single disposable device can pack the nicotine of an entire pack of cigarettes. The Mojo brand states that its product is “equivalent to about 20 cigarettes.”
As of July 13, 2022, synthetic nicotine tobacco products should have a marketing order from the FDA to be sold, but many such products are still on the market.
An FDA spokesperson noted that in October the agency sent a warning letter to Puff Bar for selling and receiving its products in the U.S. without a market authorization and requested a response within 15 days. But as the company reports on its website, the products are still on the market.
“Failure to promptly address violations puts the manufacturer at risk of regulatory action, such as a civil fine, product seizure, and/or injunction,” the FDA said at the time.
“No, Puff Bars are not banned. No, they are not illegal to buy. No, they haven’t been discontinued — and no, they’re not gone,” Puff Bar wrote on its website.
The company sells dozens of kid-friendly flavors on its website — banana ice cream, sour apple, lemon zest.
The FDA also said it has taken action against the Hyde brand, issuing marketing refusal orders for 32 Hyde e-cigarettes. But flavors like strawberry guava ice cream and mango are still listed on Hyde’s website.
“FDA remains vigilant in its oversight of the market, both reviewing submitted applications to market e-cigarette products and using our compliance and enforcement resources to remove illegal products, including disposables, from the market,” said a spokesman.
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