Flavor changes are coming to cigars, cigarettes and e-cigarettes. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) believes having flavored nicotine products is causing American Youth to start smoking at younger ages than ever before.
It a recent announcement, Commissioner of the FDA, Scott Gottlieb, M.D., released FDA data from a survey that “alarms” him, and says the data is what caused this flavor-ban proposal. The nationwide survey, conducted of high school and middle school students shows a drastic increase in ENDS product use. From 2017-2018 there was a 78 percent increase in current current e-cigarette use among high school students. And during that same period of time there was a 48 percent increase among middle school students. That means there are 1.5 million more youth using e-cig’s now, than last year.
“These increases must stop,” said Commissioner Gottlieb. “The bottom line is this: I will not allow a generation of children to become addicted to nicotine through e-cigarettes. We won’t let this pool of kids, a pool of future potential smokers, of future potential disease and death, to continue to build. We’ll take whatever action is necessary to stop these trends from continuing.”
