“Will be meeting with representatives of the Vaping industry, together with medical professionals and individual state representatives, to come up with an acceptable solution to the Vaping and E-cigarette dilemma. Children’s health & safety, together with jobs, will be a focus!”
Last September, the Trump administration had announced a plan to ban flavoured vaping products across the US. Subsequently, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, confirmed the plan last month, when in response to an announcement by Juul that it would stop selling the flavoured products, he said that this move would not affect the administration’s plans in anyway. “We want anything that’s attractive to kids to not be available for kids,” he said, “It doesn’t stop what the president and I are working on.”
According to sources familiar with the plan, an announcement was expected last week, and the ban was meant to apply to all flavours with the exception of tobacco and menthol flavours. However, Trump’s recent comments are suggesting that thankfully common sense may be prevailing after all and that the administration is considering a change of strategy.
A change in tone
“We have to take care of our kids, most importantly, so we’re going to have an age limit of 21 or so, so we’ll be coming out with something next week very important on vaping.”
“Will be meeting with representatives of the Vaping industry, together with medical professionals and individual state representatives, to come up with an acceptable solution to the Vaping and E-cigarette dilemma. Children’s health & safety, together with jobs, will be a focus!” tweeted Trump last Monday.
Trump then mentioned raising the legal vaping age limit to 21, as a way to prevent teen vaping. “We’re going to be coming out with a very important position on vaping,” he said. “We have to take care of our kids, most importantly, so we’re going to have an age limit of 21 or so, so we’ll be coming out with something next week very important on vaping.”
The vaping industry is being taken in consideration
Finally, he added, possible detrimental effects on the vaping industry are also being considered. “We have a lot of people to look at, including jobs, quite frankly,” Trump said. “Because, you know, it’s become a pretty big industry.”
A number of States and localities have already raised the legal age limit. Meanwhile, an article on CNBC pointed out that given the fact that the FDA does not have the authority to raise the smoking age, it is “unclear how the Trump administration could pursue such a policy.”
