Vapor Technology Association’s 11 Steps
The Vapor Technology Association has called on regulators and legislators to implement its eleven steps and not ban flavours in the United States
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by Dave Cross
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The VTA announced that the flavour ban proposed by the Trump Administration and certain members of Congress would “do little to address underage use of e-cigarettes” and, more importantly, will do nothing to control the marketing of vapour products.
Executive Director Tony Abboud said: “We have listened to our critics complain for years that the vapor industry is 'marketing to youth' but those same critics have focused on banning products and refused to do anything to address marketing.”
“VTA has long been a proponent of strict marketing and advertising standards. We first developed and implemented marketing restrictions in 2017 and asked FDA and FTC to enforce them early in 2018. We have advocated for such standards at the federal and state level and have led our industry in implementing and advocating for them.”
“Now, we call on regulators and lawmakers to come together with the industry to formally implement meaningful and critical alternatives that have thus far been unaddressed. To be clear, removing flavours in nicotine-containing vapor products will not address any of the serious illness issues that the CDC and FDA are reviewing since over 80% of those tragic incidents are being tied to the use of black market THC products, not store-bought FDA-registered and FDA-regulated nicotine vapor products (otherwise known as e-cigarettes). Regulators at the federal and state levels have refused to clearly acknowledge the direct link between black market THC products and the recent outbreak of lung illnesses, and are instead focused on implementing flavor bans that would adversely impact the American public.”
The trade body’s proposals are that Trump’s Administration, the FDA, the FTC and lawmakers implement:
- "Tobacco 21" to raise the age from 18 to 21 to purchase tobacco and nicotine vapor products, instead of restricting flavours
- Implement strict marketing standards to prevent nicotine vapor products from being marketed to or attractive to youth – this would cover things like a ban on advertising in most places, to ban certain words like “cotton”, “candy” and “gummi bear”, and to ban cartoon characters on packaging
- To somehow ban sales on Amazon, eBay and other online marketplaces
- To adopt a ‘three strikes and out’ policy resulting in vendors being banned from selling vape products
- High nicotine products only to be sold in “adult only” stores
- Add a 3% tax to vape products
- To have all vape products locked away behind counters
- To have compulsory age verification systems in place
- Shops to display warning signs
- To ban non-licence holders from selling “tobacco products”
- A limit of 2 devices or 5 packages/bottles per sale
While some action might be seen as necessary, many British eyebrows will be raised at these proposals.
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Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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