Should America ban flavoured e-cigarettes?

AMERICA IS IN the grip of a health scare over e-cigarettes. At least seven people have died and around 380 are suffering from a mysterious lung disease linked to vaping. In response, national and local lawmakers are restricting e-cigarettes. On September 11th the Trump administration said it would ban the sale of most flavoured e-cigarettes. Michigan and New York have announced similar bans. On September 16th California’s governor signed an executive order regulating e-cigarette sales. Hundreds of municipalities and at least 18 states already have e-cigarette laws on the books (see map).

Concern over vaping has been growing for years. Much of it has focused on teenagers, more and more of whom are warming to the habit. In 2018, according to an annual survey by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, more than one in ten eighth-graders (mainly 12- to 14-year-olds) said they vaped nicotine in the past year. Among high-school seniors (aged 17 to 18) the figure was 37%. Nearly 21% reported vaping in the past 30 days, up from 11% the previous year. This was the largest single-year increase in the use of any substance in the survey’s 44-year history.

Juul Labs, an e-cigarette company in San Francisco, is regulators’ most prominent target. On September 9th the Food and Drug Administration warned the company against marketing its flavoured products to children. Juul is also being sued in Illinois, where a local prosecutor accuses it of using “deceptive” marketing aimed at teenagers. Last year the firm agreed to stop selling its sweet flavours, such as mango and cucumber, in bricks-and-mortar stores. Its troubles are not limited to America. Days after launching its products in China, the world’s largest cigarette market, sales there were halted (Juul did not disclose why its products were pulled from e-commerce sites).

Regulatory scrutiny of vaping is welcome: e-cigarettes are not good for your health. Marketing aimed at children is plainly unacceptable. But banning them may not be the answer. Vaping is still preferable to smoking, which kills 450,000 Americans a year and 7m people worldwide. Bans may only push people to buy e-cigarettes from illicit vendors—which are more likely to make them ill. America should perhaps look instead to the European Union, which limits the amount of nicotine e-cigarettes can contain. It should also consider its past successes. In 2018 only 4% of high-school seniors said they smoked conventional cigarettes daily, down from 22% in 1998. Plenty can be gleaned from America’s anti-smoking efforts in the intervening years.