WASHINGTON, March 13 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a proposal on Wednesday to tighten sales of flavored e-cigarettes to teenagers.
The proposal, open for public comment for 30 days, said all flavored e-cigarettes except tobacco-, mint- and menthol-flavored ones should be off limits to anyone under age 18 at both vaping shops and websites and some flavored e-cigarette products should be "no longer be sold at all."
The FDA threatened to ban most flavored e-cigarettes last year but didn't take any enforcement moves. Now, it vowed to prioritize its enforcement resources to crack down unauthorized e-cigarettes with youth appeal, for instance, those resembling juice boxes.
FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb called the youth vaping in the country an "epidemic-level rise," posing "a greater risk for minors."
A total of 3.6 million middle and high school students report that they used e-cigarettes last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Gottlieb warned that American youth are especially attracted to flavored e-cigarette products and minors are able to access these products from both brick-and-mortar retailers and online, despite federal restrictions on sales to anyone under 18.
While the mint- and menthol-flavored e-cigarettes are usually preferred by adults but other flavored ones like mango and creme are attractive to the underage, according to FDA.
Also, the FDA proposed for premarket applications for all flavored e-cigarette products that continue to be sold by Aug. 8, 2021.
Norman Sharpless, director of the National Cancer Institute and who was named Tuesday to replace the outgoing Gottlieb as FDA's acting commissioner, supported the e-cigarette crackdown.
