Democrats are stepping up efforts to clamp down on e-cigarette makers’ marketing practices that they argue target children, a public health issue that is returning to the political agenda after being pushed to the back burner by the pandemic.
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat, settled the first state-initiated lawsuit against Juul, the leading e-cigarette maker in the United States, on Monday. The company will pay the state $ 40 million over six years, money that the state will put toward smoking cessation and addiction recovery programs. Juul will also have to overhaul its marketing practices in the state by ceasing advertisements on social media and outside of schools, as well as banning Juul from sponsoring concerts and other events at major venues. Stein told the Washington Examiner that the case was “fundamentally about protecting kids.”
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The settlement was considered a victory on the side of those fighting the vaping industry, such as Democrats in Congress as well as the handful of other states such as California and Massachusetts that have launched suits against Juul.
Democrats have stepped up calls for greater federal oversight of vape and e-cigarette makers in 2021. Forty-three House Democrats pressured the Food and Drug Administration’s acting Commissioner Janet Woodcock in a March letter to pull all flavored vaping products from the market and to deny tobacco manufacturers the ability to legally sell flavored e-cigarettes and other flavored tobacco products.
Stein’s announcement that a settlement had been reached came less than a week after House Democrats on the Oversight Committee grilled Woodcock about the agency’s efforts to better regulate manufacturers of flavored products as well as high-content nicotine products, such as disposable Juul pods.
“Who is the cop on the beat to whom we entrust our children? It’s the Food and Drug Administration. And this agency has been timid and reluctant for way too long … I worry the agency is going to fail again,” Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin, who also serves as Democratic whip in the Senate, said in the June 23 hearing at which he appeared as a witness.
The FDA has until Sept. 9 to rule on marketing approval applications from e-cigarette makers, and Woodcock suggested the agency is running behind. Companies that submitted their applications by the September 2020 deadline will be permitted to keep selling their products while the FDA assesses their applications.
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“You have the authority to commit today to preventing millions of kids from becoming addicted to vaping by making the decision [to ban FDA approval of flavored vaping liquid]… and if you don’t make that decision today in this oversight hearing, then the alternative is going to be years and years of delay while Congress tries to pass a bill, and millions millions more of kids getting addicted,” Katie Porter, a California Democrat, said.
Woodcock, who agreed with members that e-cigarette makers have disproportionately hooked teenagers, did not say how far behind the agency is on reviewing marketing approval applications. Still, she said that the agency will prioritize applications from the five companies that control most of the market, including Juul and NJoy.
Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat who has railed against flavored e-cigarette makers in the past, said after the hearing that he felt “more optimistic than ever that Commissioner Woodcock will do the right thing and deny the premarket tobacco product applications … for all flavored vaping products, and all high-nicotine vaping products.”