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Tobacco Makers Just Won a Major E-Cigarette Victory, but Does It Matter?

Apr 28th, 2016
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A House Committee has made it easier for e-cigarettes to win regulatory approval, but the ruling probably won’t boost demand for vapor products.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/04/28/tobacco-makers-just-won-a-major-e-cigarette-victor.aspx

A U.S. House of Representatives committee recently approved an amendment to an agricultural funding bill making it easier for e-cigarettes to win regulatory clearance than current proposals from the Food and Drug Administration would allow. The FDA previously proposed that all tobacco products introduced after Feb. 15, 2007, including e-cigs and vapor products, would need to adhere to new regulatory standards if they weren’t “substantially equivalent” to pre-existing tobacco products.

If such a product doesn’t exist, the new offering must undergo a review under the FDA’s premarket tobacco application (PMTA) process, which tobacco makers consider too strict. Vapor device makers also argue that only a single e-cigarette (which isn’t a market-leading brand) was available in the U.S. prior to the FDA’s cutoff date. Around 100,000 new e-cigarette and vapor products have since been introduced.

The House Appropriations Committee voted 31-19 in favor of “easing” that process, although it’s unclear if the PMTA cutoff date would be moved or eliminated. Nonetheless, Arnaud Dumas de Rauly, treasurer of the Vapor Technology Association, told Reuters that the ruling would give the industry “a big boost of momentum”. Let’s see what this positive development means for the country’s leading e-cig makers.

Reynolds American (NYSE:RAI) owns Vuse, the most popular brand of e-cigarettes in America. A Nielsen survey from January showed that Vuse controls 38.5% of the U.S. market by revenue. The brand is available at 110,000 retail outlets across the country and was one of the first e-cigs to sync with a mobile app to track usage and battery life. Reynolds nearly acquired second place Blu, which holds 20.7% of the market, through its acquisition of rival Lorillard.
However, Lorillard sold Blu to Imperial Tobacco to avoid antitrust issues.

Reynolds categorizes Vuse with its nicotine gum under its “all other” category, where sales fell 6.5% annually to $72 million last quarter. That decline wasn’t surprising, since Nielsen reported that for the period ending on January 23, e-cig dollar sales fell 17.7% annually as unit sales declined 3.3%. In a research note, Wells Fargo analyst Bonnie Herzog partially attributed that decline to “difficulty in capturing SKUs of the evolving vapor category and proliferation of vapors/tanks/mods (VTM) and refills, which tend to have lower retail prices.”

Easing regulations might prevent Reynolds’ sales of Vuse e-cigs from being suspended for new approvals, but the overall impact won’t move the needle much, since sales are declining and “all other” revenues only accounted for 2.5% of total sales last quarter.

Altria (NYSE:MO) is the top tobacco company in the U.S., but it ranks fourth in the e-cig market with a 7.6% revenue share from its MarkTen and Green Smoke brands. Altria launched MarkTen in 2014, a year after Reynolds launched Vuse nationwide. To catch up to Reynolds and other market leaders, Altria acquired premium e-cigarette maker Green Smoke for $110 million in cash and up to $20 million in incentive payments. Altria also introduced new e-cig flavors and doubled its e-cig battery life with the MarkTen XL.

Like Reynolds, e-cigs only account for a tiny part of Altria’s sales. Altria groups e-cigs together with snuff in its smokeless category, which posted 5.8% pre-tax sales growth last quarter. However, most of that growth was driven by sales of snuff rather than e-cigs, and the category accounted for less than 10% of Altria’s top line during the quarter.

But looking ahead, Altria might carve out a new niche market between e-cigs and traditional cigarettes with “heated tobacco products”. Last July, Altria signed a deal with its overseas counterpart, Philip Morris International (NYSE:PM), to sell its Marlboro HeatSticks domestically. HeatSticks don’t produce smoke, because they are heated with an electronic device rather than burned.

More relaxed regulations will make it easier for Altria to sell both e-cigs and HeatSticks, but investors shouldn’t expect sales of either product to move the needle for the company anytime soon.

The key takeaway

While the amendment is unlikely to deliver large sales boosts to Reynolds and Altria, it does save them the trouble of sending all their e-cigarette products back to the FDA for PMTA approval. The process could reportedly cost tobacco companies millions per product, and only a single product has passed the PMTA in the past six years. As a result, forcing nearly all e-cigs on the market through the PMTA approval track could kill the industry niche entirely, because it would be more costly to sell them than to halt production altogether.

But as I mentioned in a previous article, tobacco investors shouldn’t place too much faith in the long-term growth of the e-cig market. Public bans, exploding devices, and other future regulations could also throttle demand, which currently account for a tiny percentage of industry volume.

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Smoking E-Cigarettes is 10 Times More Cancerous than Tobacco

Apr 22nd, 2016
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http://www.theweeklyobserver.com/smoking-e-cigarettes-is-10-times-more-cancerous-than-tobacco/11870/

So you probably thought you were fine now that you quit smoking. No cancer for you, no sir! No filthy chemically stuffed cigarettes for you! You’ve opted for that funky and cool alternative they call e-cig. Why shouldn’t you be that confident? After all, the CDC and FDA are fine with it, so it must be safe. Oh, but it isn’t; in fact, that couldn’t be farther from the truth! According to a recent study – that has nothing to do with the CDC/FDA – electronic cigarettes were found to be contain 10 times as much cancerous ingredients than a regular tobacco cigarette.

I bet you didn’t see that one coming!

You may wonder how in the heavens this has passed the FDA’s notice. Well, with $ 4.5 billion that is supposed to be funding for studies exactly like this one, the FDA didn’t seem to think it necessary to do any research on this product’s safety. If you go over to the FDA website and check out when they have to say about electronic cigarettes, you’ll find a bunch of quality control and standardization stuff. However, they do mention quite clearly that “FDA has not evaluated any e-cigarettes for safety or effectiveness.” There you have it. They admit it. So how the hell are you using this? How are you allowing your kids to play around with it, too?

Well, it’s not your fault; you’re unaware. And Japanese scientists have taken it upon themselves to make the world aware of this threat. The Japanese Ministry of Health commissioned a research about the safety of electronic cigarettes, and the scientists found around 10 cancer-causing carcinogens more than those found in a regular old school Tobacco smoke. They found formaldehyde and acetaldehyde in the liquid that you smoke through the electronic cigarette. They also found that these carcinogens fuel drug resistant pathogens that humans may contract.

Even before the Japanese found these shocking results, in 2015 the WHO asked governments to ban the sale of e-cigarettes to under age people. Furthermore, the UN health agency said that despite there not being any evidence about their unsafety, they wanted “to caution children and adolescents, pregnant women, and women of reproductive age”. They also tried to outlaw their use indoors.

Well, once again, thanks to the Japs for being smarter and more aware than the rest of the world.

Cigarette sales get a boost from TV commercials for e-cigs, says study

Apr 21st, 2016
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http://www.campaignlive.com/article/cigarette-sales-boost-tv-commercials-e-cigs-says-study/1392249

It’s been nearly 50 years since Congress banned cigarette commercials from the airwaves. But a new study suggests the rapid proliferation of e-cigarette commercials may be lifting the sales of cigarettes, too, offering an unexpected path back to TV for the tobacco industry.

According to the study, Advertising, Habit Formation and U.S. Tobacco Product Demand, funded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, TV advertisements for e-cigarettes create a “spillover effect” that also increases demand for cigarettes. “If you increase e-cigarette advertisement, then cigarette demand is going to increase slightly,” said Yuqing Zheng, an agricultural economist the University of Kentucky and lead author of the study.

Researchers compared advertising data from Kantar Media with point-of-sale data at outlets that sold five different kinds of tobacco or nicotine products between 2009 and 2013. What they found was that for every increase in e-cigarette advertising on television, there was an accompanying lift — however small — of cigarette sales.

That rise in cigarette sales is small but statistically significant: one-one hundredth of 1% whenever e-cigarette advertising doubles. But e-cigarette advertising increased 17-fold between 2011 and 2014, so it could be contributing to tens of millions of dollars in cigarette sales.

Though the FDA has petitioned for regulatory control of the e-cigarette market, there are currently no restrictions on e-cigarette advertising, the bulk of which take the form of TV commercials. The findings of the study, which was published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, could renew calls for e-such oversight, said the authors. “Such results may lend support to those who advocate that more regulations on e-cigarette marketing are needed,” they wrote.

The study found that the spillover effect was restricted to TV. E-cigarette magazine ads did not have the same positive effect on cigarette sales. “We consistently find that TV advertising is the most effective way to enhance demand,” said Zheng.

Why e-cigarette ads increase cigarette demand is unclear, though Zheng speculated there could be an “umbrella” effect at work. “A lot of the cigarette and e-cigarette brands belong to the same parent company, so when you do advertise for e-cigarettes, it’s probably going to enhance the image of the parent company which owns the cigarette brand, so that might stimulate some cigarette smoking as well,” he said. Intentionally or not, cigarette manufacturers may have found a way to boost sales by advertising a different product in their inventories.

These could be problematic numbers for e-cigarette manufacturers, who have been resisting calls for the regulation of either their products or their advertising. If further research supports the study’s finding that e-cigarette advertising increases cigarette sales, then continuing to allow unregulated e-cigarette advertising “might undermine the efforts to reduce cigarette smoking,” the study said. “If a new policy were to prohibit e-cigarette television ads, similar to what is imposed for cigarettes, the model predicts a small drop in consumer demand for e-cigarettes, and a minor decrease in cigarette demand.”

Whether the prospect of that minor decrease helps anti-smoking advocates win regulatory controls for e-cigarettes and their ads remains to be seen.

Smoking status and subjective well-being

Apr 20th, 2016
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http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2016/04/20/tobaccocontrol-2015-052601.short?g=w_tobaccocontrol_ahead_tab

Abstract

Background/aims

A debate is currently underway about the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) methods for evaluating antitobacco regulation. In particular, the US government requires a cost-benefit analysis for significant new regulations, which has led the FDA to consider potential lost subjective well-being (SWB) of ex-smokers as a cost of any proposed antitobacco policy. This practice, which significantly limits regulatory capacity, is premised on the assumption that there is in fact a loss in SWB among ex-smokers.

Methods

We analyse the relationship between SWB and smoking status using a longitudinal internet survey of over 5000 Dutch adults across 5 years. We control for socioeconomic, demographic and health characteristics, and in a contribution to the literature, we additionally control for two potential confounding personality characteristics, habitual use of external substances and sensitivity to stress. In another contribution, we estimate panel fixed effects models that additionally control for unobservable time-invariant characteristics.

Results

We find strong suggestive evidence that ex-smokers do not suffer a net loss in SWB. We also find no evidence that the change in SWB of those who quit smoking under stricter tobacco control policies is different from those who quit under a more relaxed regulatory environment. Furthermore, our cross-sectional estimates suggest that the increase in SWB from quitting smoking is statistically significant and also of a meaningful magnitude.

Conclusions

In sum, we find no empirical support for the proposition that ex-smokers suffer lower net SWB compared to when they were smoking.

Graphic warning labels and the demand for cigarettes

Mar 25th, 2016
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Abstract

In 2010, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed requiring tobacco companies to add graphic warning labels (GWLs) to cigarette packs. GWLs are large prominently placed warnings that use both text and photographic images to depict health risks of smoking. The companies challenged FDA’s authority on First amendment
grounds; the courts accepted that FDA could compel companies to add GWLs, but argued that FDA had not established that GWLs would significantly reduce smoking.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27015879

This paper adds new evidence on the question of whether GWLs would have reduced cigarette demand, by examining whether tobacco companies’ share prices fell unusually after news indicating a higher likelihood of having GWLs, and rose on the opposite news. Such findings would be expected if investors viewed GWLs as likely to
reduce cigarette demand.

An event-study approach is used to determine whether the stock prices of US tobacco companies rose or fell unusually after news events in the period when GWLs were proposed, finalised, challenged and withdrawn.

Tobacco companies’ stock prices indeed realised significant abnormal returns after GWL news, consistent with expected negative effects on cigarette demand. Our estimates suggest investors expected GWLs to reduce the number of smokers by an extra 2.4-6.9 million in the 10 years after the rule took effect.

These findings support the view that the GWLs proposed by FDA would have curbed cigarette consumption in the USA in an appreciable way.

FDA Reveals First Wave of E-Cig, Tobacco Study

Mar 7th, 2016
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Results show little evidence of consistent electronic cigarette use

http://www.cspnet.com/category-news/tobacco/articles/fda-reveals-first-wave-e-cig-tobacco-study

CHICAGO — Last week’s Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco Conference included numerous tobacco and nicotine-related presentations, most notably select data from the first wave of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and National Institute of Health’s Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) study.

“E-cigs were a big topic in the PATH study, along with many other presentations, as the regulatory and scientific communities try to get a better grasp of the implications from this innovation, Vivien Azer, a tobacco analyst at the New York-based Cowen Group, wrote in a research note.

PATH is a longitudinal study, first mandated in 2011, in order for the FDA to gain a better understanding of tobacco use. About 46,000 U.S. tobacco and nontobacco users participate, all above the age of 12. The first wave of the study began in 2013 and was presented at the conference.

The data suggested regular use of electronic cigarettes is still very low, with just 5.5% of adults and 3.1% of 12- to 17-year-olds having used e-cigs in the past month. Azer added that daily e-cig users make up a very small percentage of these 30-day e-cig users.

“In fact, among current adult e-cig users, more than 40% had only used an e-cig less than three times in the past 30 days,” she said. “We believe [this] points to the continued lack of consumer adoption of the products.”

The data also seemed to dispute claims that e-cigs act as a gateway to other tobacco products, as the majority of e-cig users in the study were already consumers of other tobacco products.

“Overall, 15.9% of adult current e-cig users were nicotine naive,” Azer said. “While a smaller 8.5% of daily e-cig users had not previously used tobacco.”

In terms of flavors in e-cigs and other tobacco products, PATH researchers found the use of flavors was most prominent in e-cig users across the board. For e-cig consumers 25 years and older, 63% reported using flavors, while 85% of e-cig users ages 12 to 17 reported using flavors (though Azer noted this youth group exhibited a strong flavor preference across all tobacco categories).

Azer said the Wave 1 database is currently only available for restricted use, but full dataset will be available later this year. The second wave of data is currently being reviewed, and Wave 3 is 40% complete. PATH researchers announced last week that the study will be extended four years and will now include seven waves, with the final wave set to be completed in 2022.

“We view the extension of the study as a positive (given the agency will take time to evaluate findings from the study and could potentially push back any incremental regulations),” Azer said.

Can you get drunk from e-cigs? Researchers suggest it’s possible

Jan 15th, 2016
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http://www.wflx.com/story/30964623/can-you-get-drunk-from-e-cigs-researchers-suggest-its-possible

According to a recent Yale University study, people who vape e-cigarettes could inhale enough alcohol to impair motor skills, depending on how much alcohol is contained in the liquid of an e-cig.

The study, performed by Yale’s School of Medicine, had people vape two different types of e-cigs; one that had .4 percent of alcohol and another that had 23.5 percent.

The study showed that some people who vaped e-cigs that contained high levels of alcohol performed poorly in tests on their motor skills, as well as had detectable levels of alcohol in their urine. The study also noted that those studied did not feel impaired after smoking the e-cigarettes.

While the study found that the liquid contained in 75 percent of commercially produced e-cigarettes had less than 1 percent of alcohol, some e-cigs have a much higher proportion of alcohol. Because e-cigarettes are not regulated, it is hard for consumers to know exactly how much alcohol content is in the product.

Another cause for concern, according to the study, is the presence of alcohol reinforcing the addictive properties of both the nicotine and alcohol in the e-cig.

“Given the widespread and unregulated use of e-cigarettes, especially by youth and other vulnerable populations, further studies are needed to evaluate both the acute safety and long-term health risks of using alcohol-containing e-cigarettes,” said Mehmet Sofuoglu, of Yale’s Department of Psychiatry and VA Connecticut Healthcare system, who is senior author of the study.

According to Yale, the study was funded by the New England Mental Illness Research Education Clinical, Centers, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Institute for Drug Abuse and FDA Center for Tobacco Products.

The study does not suggest whether e-cigarettes are more or less dangerous than traditional tobacco cigarettes.

Court Overturns Tobacco Company Victory Over FDA on Menthols

Jan 15th, 2016
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http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/court-overturns-tobacco-company-victory-fda-menthols-36315525

A federal appeals court has ruled that tobacco companies had no basis to challenge a Food and Drug Administration report on menthol cigarettes, which the industry alleged was written by experts with conflicts of interest.

The decision by a three-judge panel overturns a lower court ruling that barred the FDA from using the report and ordered the agency to reform its committee of tobacco advisers.

The 2011 report from the agency’s Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee concluded that menthol flavoring leads to increased smoking rates, particularly among teens, African Americans and those with low incomes. The report said removing the flavoring would make it easier for some smokers to quit.

Cigarette makers Lorillard Inc. and Reynolds American Inc. sued the agency, alleging conflicts of interest by several members who had previously testified against tobacco companies in court.

But Judge Stephen Williams, writing for the court, states that the companies had no legal basis to challenge the makeup of the committee. Williams rejected company arguments that they could be damaged by the apparent conflicts as “too remote and uncertain.” The opinion was issued Friday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Despite the victory for the federal government, the ruling may have limited impact on the FDA or its panel. Last year the FDA announced that four members of its tobacco products advisory panel had either resigned or were removed, following the previous court ruling against the agency.

In 2013, the FDA conducted its own review of menthol cigarettes, concluding they pose a greater public health risk than regular cigarettes. But it did not make a recommendation on whether to limit or ban them.

Reynolds American acquired Lorillard last year in a deal worth $25 billion. Reynolds, which is based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, now sells Lorillard’s top-selling menthol brand, Newport cigarettes.

A spokesman for Reynolds declined to comment, noting “this is pending litigation.”

Judge Tosses Big Tobacco Request for His Recusal

Jan 14th, 2016
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http://www.courthousenews.com/2016/01/14/judge-tosses-big-tobacco-request-for-his-recusal.htm

(CN) – A federal judge refused to recuse himself from a Big Tobacco challenge to new labeling rules the industry considers “draconian.”

Philip Morris and other tobacco companies seek to invalidate a Food and Drug Administration “guidance,” issued in September 2015, describing the “FDA’s current thinking on whether and when a change to a tobacco product’s label, product quantity in the package, additives, or specifications renders that later product a ‘new tobacco product’ subject to premarket review.”

Since a tobacco product’s label is now considered “part” of that product, under the amended Tobacco Control Act, the guidance states that a label change to a tobacco product will create a “new tobacco product,” raising a host of other regulatory issues.

Philip Morris asserts the guidance violates its First Amendment rights as well as administrative procedural requirements.

The tobacco companies moved to have U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta recuse himself based on his former law partner’s representation of an anti-tobacco organization, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

The organization submitted comments to the FDA about the disputed guidance.

Mehta was a partner at Zuckerman Spaeder for four years before his appointment to the bench in December 2014. His wife is presently a partner at the same firm, which has represented other anti-tobacco organizations.

But Mehta disagreed that his personal connections to his former firm created an “appearance of partiality,” as the tobacco plaintiffs claim.

“Although I generally knew that CTFK was a Zuckerman Spaeder client, I was not aware at the time the advice was given that the firm was advising CTFK in connection with the draft guidance,” he said.

And while CTFK naturally has an interest in the outcome of the case, Mehta said it was unlikely to seek to intervene, and at any rate, its interest is not enough to warrant his recusal.

Mehta noted that members of the D.C. bench often had careers with large law firms in the city with extensive legislative and government regulatory practices.

“Given these realities, it is not hard to conceive how litigants could be emboldened to judge-shop if I were to recuse in this case,” Mehta said. “If I accepted plaintiffs’ position, would a judge be required to recuse when her former law partner, unbeknownst to the judge while she was at the firm, lobbied Congress on behalf of a client in favor of a piece of legislation that is later challenged as unconstitutional? Or, instead of lobbying Congress, what if the former partner met on behalf of a client with an Executive Branch official about an executive order that is later challenged as exceeding the President’s authority?”

These situations are not unusual, especially in the nation’s capital, the judge said. He also said his wife has never provided any legal services to CTFK or any of the firm’s other anti-tobacco clients.

“A judge is not required to recuse merely because a litigant has discovered an attenuated connection between the judge’s former law firm and the issues before the court,” Mehta concluded.

Regulators urged to scrutinise e-cigarettes

Dec 21st, 2015
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http://www.herald.co.zw/regulators-urged-to-scrutinise-e-cigarettes/

Harvard researchers recently examined 51 separate liquid vaping flavours, and their findings are downright frightening. It may not be the most highly publicised “war,” but the US government and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention have been waging war against tobacco for more than five decades. The results have been nothing short of impressive, with campaigns to educate the public about the dangers of tobacco use leading the adult tobacco use rate in the US to drop from 42 percent in the mid-1960s to 18 percent as of 2013.

The push-back against the US tobacco industry has threatened the growth prospects for giants like Altria, with its signature Marlboro brand, and Reynolds American, maker of Newport. These tobacco product giants have relied on their incredible pricing power and the addictive nature of nicotine to keep their bottom lines strong. Between 2008 and 2013, overall consumer prices rose by a tame 8,2 percent, according to the US Department of labour. Meanwhile, cigarette prices rose an astounding 50percent in that same time frame – more than any other product measured.

The other growth avenue for the tobacco industry is tobacco alternatives, a niche dominated by electronic cigarettes. An electronic cigarette works by heating a flavoured liquid containing nicotine into a vapour, which the user then inhales. This allows users to satiate their nicotine craving while consuming less of the harmful chemicals often found in smoked tobacco. But there have been questions surrounding the safety of electronic cigarettes since day one.

To begin with, regulators are worried that the tobacco industry could be catering to a new, and young, generation of nicotine addicts with flavours like bubble gum and cotton candy. Altria and Reynolds American have been clear that this is not their intention, but it clearly has regulators worried.

Further, the nicotine-containing liquids come in thousands of flavours, and not a single one is governed by the Food and Drug Administration.

Some view this as a good thing for the electronic-cigarette industry, because it means there are few barriers to expansion. Then again, a lack of regulation has left some wondering what’s actually in these solutions beyond nicotine and whether the solution is safe to inhale over the long run.

A recent study conducted by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health offered an insight into the composition of the flavoured liquids – and let’s just say that electronic-cigarette users won’t be happy about the findings.

The study, which was published in the online journal Environment Health Perspectives, analysed a sample of 51 electronic-cigarette liquids for the presence of three flavouring chemicals – diacetyl, 2,3-pentanedione, and acetoin – all of which are known to have adverse effects on users’ lungs. Researchers attached each electronic cigarette to a lab-built and sealed device that drew air through the e-cig for eight seconds, with a break of between 15 and 30 seconds between each draw. Researchers then analysed the air stream for the aforementioned three flavouring chemicals.

The findings showed that 47 of 51 liquids tested (92 percent) contained at least one of the three chemicals. Specifically, 39 of 51 (76 percent) contained an above-laboratory-limit amount of diacetyl, a chemical known to cause bronchiolitis obliterans, also known as popcorn lung, and other respiratory diseases in users. Popcorn lung, which is named after workers who developed the disease after working in popcorn factories and inhaling diacetyl, causes inflammation and scarring of the air sacs of the lungs. It can ultimately result in the need for a lung transplant.

What’s notable is that the researchers’ findings on diacetyl occurred in flavours such as cotton candy, cupcake, and fruit squirts – in other words, flavours that would likely appeal to younger people. That’s concerning, given that there are no regulations covering the industry. As Taylor Hays, director of Mayo Clinic Nicotine Dependence Centre, told USA Today: “There are no FDA regulations on these products. It’s the Wild West of e-cigarettes.”

It should be noted that researchers from Harvard can’t conclusively link the chemicals found in the vapour tested with popcorn lung or any number of other diseases in electronic-cigarette users. However, the correlation is certainly worrisome and worthy of additional follow-up.

If the study from Harvard demonstrates anything, it’s that the FDA has an ever-growing reason to get involved in the regulation of the electronic-cigarette industry. The FDA has been weighing whether or not to classify electronic cigarettes as a tobacco product for some time now. Doing so would allow it to regulate the industry, including the chemical composition of the vaping liquid produced.

This isn’t to say that liquid vaping producers would need to change anything so much as they would need to disclose any known harmful chemicals on their packaging.

Additionally, the FDA would work hard to ensure that there’s consistency in the chemical composition of the liquids produced from one batch to the next.

However, if the FDA gets involved you can almost count on slower growth for the industry.

Each new flavour would need to go through extensive testing to be approved for retail sale. Further, increased levels of transparency and the use of potentially harmful components in vaping liquid and/or the vaping process could harm sales. — Reuters.

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