Woman using an electronic cigarette(Photo: Getty Images)

The Food and Drug Administration is considering limiting the sale of soft electronic cigarette flavors to limit what its Commissioner Calls an "epidemic" of teenage vaping, according to a senior agency official.

The FDA will ban next week the sale of fragrances other than tobacco, mint and menthol in convenience stores and gas stations, the official said. More stringent age verification requirements are also provided for online sales of e-cigarettes.

Scott Gottlieb, commissioner of the FDA, said in September that the agency would stop sales of flavored electronic cigarettes if major manufacturers could not prove that they were doing enough to protect them from children and teenagers.

The agency gave Juul, Vuse, MarkTen XL, Blu and Logic 60 days to present plans to prevent young people from vaping and said they could order their products off the market if it does not judge these plans are robust enough. These five brands represent more than 97% of the US market for electronic cigarettes.

Gottlieb told USA TODAY in September that the FDA was "reconsidering our global approach" after a review of preliminary data showing that youth vaping was up 75% from last year.

"Teens are becoming regular users and the proportion of regular users is increasing," said Gottlieb. "We will have to act."

The restrictions provided would not apply to vape shops or other specialty retail stores, which are more often used by adults who use vaping to try to quit. FDA plans were first reported by the Washington Post.

New federal data released on Thursday indicates that the percentage of cigarette smokers in the United States fell to 14% in 2017, the lowest level since record keeping.

Gottlieb and other public health officials are trying to find a balance between helping adult smokers quit smoking and not trapping a new generation of nicotine with electronic cigarettes.

More: Teens fascinated by vaping: FDA suspects ban on flavored liquids for electronic cigarettes

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