[ad_1]
Vape stores in the Washington, DC area spoke loudly about President Trump's decision to ban flavored electronic cigarettes.
"It's not because we have a fool in the office that he needs to be able to voice his opinion and his label, but also to watch millions of hard sellers like us," said Preston Paul, Clarendon Vapes. & Cigars. in Arlington, Virginia.
The President, sitting alongside First Lady Melania Trump, Social Services and Health Secretary Alex Azar, and Acting Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, Ned Sharpless, announced on Wednesday that his administration will be in charge. was preparing to ban the sale of flavored electronic cigarettes.
The announcement came as the growing popularity of teenage vaping became a concern and 380 people in 36 US states became infected with a mysterious lung disease that appears to be related to spraying. Six people died of respiratory diseases, leaving more and more pressure on federal authorities and health authorities to enact tougher regulations on e-cigarettes.
A plan to ban more flavored electronic cigarettes is expected in the coming weeks, Azar told reporters, although it takes 30 days before the rule comes into effect.
"Do not vape," Trump told reporters on Thursday. "We do not like vaping. I do not like vaping. "
But vape shops say the industry, which includes 20,000 vape and smoke stores across the country, has been insulted, in part because of Juul, an electronic cigarette company that has been closely scrutinized by federal officials and states for its marketing practices deliberately targeting teens. They believe that the president and federal regulators have made an ill-considered decision without studying the long-term effects of vaping.
Sean Popal, of Vape Town & CBD in Washington, said that the San Francisco-based company, also accused of misleading consumers about the strength of nicotine in its products, has become "too big, too fast" and has attracted the attention of federal regulators with its publicity.
But Popal also said that flavored electronic cigarettes were at the root of the mysterious lung disease, even though doctors claimed that many people infected with the disease had vaporized THC, the ingredient responsible high marijuana content.
"It's not because of the vapots that people get sick," he said. "It's thanks to the THC cartridges that people make at home and distribute to young children and adults at a very low price. It's the one people make illegally, and they're not chemists. Most of them do not know what they are doing.
Popal added that THC cartridges are generally not regulated.
Walter Olson, a senior fellow of the Cato Institute, said the vape stores are designed for consumers who want safe, legal and controlled products and that this ban would ensure that stores that have good quality control and who are recognized lose products.
"It will be a blow to a A small business that already has something to worry about, he said. "This therefore involves a number of factors that constrain them in different directions, including the tightening of FDA regulation in this area, the fact that many users go on the Internet, as with other problems. brick and mortar companies ".
Although the ban on most flavored electronic cigarettes by the federal government is not immediate and the details have not yet been finalized, consumers already seem to be preparing to remove them from the market. Paul, of Clarendon Vapes & Cigars, said a buyer had bought seven bottles of vape juice after Trump's announcement, and that the store had received many phone calls from customers asking for the ban.
Avail Vapor, a vape store, urged its customers to stock up on flavored electronic cigarette products in anticipation of the new restrictions. Any flavored electronic cigarette that would not be sold after the Trump administration ban will probably have to be thrown in the trash, said Popal.
For vaping advocates, it is difficult to reconcile the way in which flavored electronic cigarettes can be banned when cigarettes remain on the market and some fear that consumers will return to cigarettes once products are taken off the market.
"There is a war against vaping when we still let cigarettes be legal, killing millions and millions of people each year," said Paul. "The vaping has been around since 2008. There are five people in the last 15 years, as opposed to the expensive tobacco that kills millions of Americans every year."
Lawyers urge federal regulators to begin researching the causes of the mysterious diseases before issuing a blanket ban.
"It would destroy the livelihoods of thousands and thousands of people trying to survive," said Will Reaver, director of Clarendon Vapes & Cigars, about the impact that a ban would have on small vape shops opened in recent years. "For business owners trying to succeed, that's a big part of our income, a part of our livelihood." There's not even enough research to say that these deaths were caused by erosion ".
[[[[Opinion: The ban on flavored electronic cigarettes could cost Trump's reelection]
[ad_2]
Source link