To the Editor:
Re “Big Tobacco’s Latest Ploy,” by Alex Bogusky (Op-Ed, May 6):
We applaud Mr. Bogusky for refusing to work with Juul. E-cigarette companies exploit a loophole the Food and Drug Administration has delayed closing despite the youth vaping epidemic.
Juul used social media and flavors to send a message of a cool lifestyle choice to teenagers. Now almost 3.6 million of them are vaping. We hear from parents every day whose children, sometimes as young as 12, didn’t understand that they were choosing nicotine addiction.
There’s another loophole: Congress banned broadcast cigarette advertising in 1970, but there are no restrictions on e-cigarettes. While Juul’s “Make the Switch” floods airwaves — possibly breaking F.D.A. rules with implicit, unproven “modified risk tobacco product” claims — vape ads appear on homework websites.
(In Massachusetts, Attorney General Maura Healey used state laws to halt several companies’ internet sales.)
The quickest way to slow this epidemic is an F.D.A. ban on e-cigarette flavors that are proved to hook children. The federal government should also regulate e-cigarette advertising. If we don’t act soon, we will have a generation of nicotine addicts. And that’s not cool.
Dina Colombo Alessi
Meredith Berkman
Dorian Fuhrman
The writers are co-founders of Parents Against Vaping E-cigarettes.
Source: Read Full Article
Home » Analysis & Comment » Opinion | The F.D.A. Needs to Act on Vaping
Opinion | The F.D.A. Needs to Act on Vaping
To the Editor:
Re “Big Tobacco’s Latest Ploy,” by Alex Bogusky (Op-Ed, May 6):
We applaud Mr. Bogusky for refusing to work with Juul. E-cigarette companies exploit a loophole the Food and Drug Administration has delayed closing despite the youth vaping epidemic.
Juul used social media and flavors to send a message of a cool lifestyle choice to teenagers. Now almost 3.6 million of them are vaping. We hear from parents every day whose children, sometimes as young as 12, didn’t understand that they were choosing nicotine addiction.
There’s another loophole: Congress banned broadcast cigarette advertising in 1970, but there are no restrictions on e-cigarettes. While Juul’s “Make the Switch” floods airwaves — possibly breaking F.D.A. rules with implicit, unproven “modified risk tobacco product” claims — vape ads appear on homework websites.
(In Massachusetts, Attorney General Maura Healey used state laws to halt several companies’ internet sales.)
The quickest way to slow this epidemic is an F.D.A. ban on e-cigarette flavors that are proved to hook children. The federal government should also regulate e-cigarette advertising. If we don’t act soon, we will have a generation of nicotine addicts. And that’s not cool.
Dina Colombo Alessi
Meredith Berkman
Dorian Fuhrman
The writers are co-founders of Parents Against Vaping E-cigarettes.
Source: Read Full Article