The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will be taking enforcement actions to target companies that are marketing vaping products in ways that are deliberately appealing to children, the agency’s commissioner told CNN.
“No kid should be using any tobacco product,” FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said.
Experts say that flavors like tutti frutti, cotton candy and sour gummy worms are likely to attract some younger users to e-cigarettes. Joseph Allen of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health conducted a study on artificial flavoring chemicals in e-cigarettes. “To me, these are products that are really appealing to kids,” he said. “Millions of kids are trying these e-cigarette products. Studies show that one in five eighth-graders that currently use tobacco products got there by starting with e-cigarettes. So these e-cigarettes are also a gateway for traditional tobacco use for many young kids,” he said.