On this date in 1933, Americans ratified the Twenty-First Amendment to the Constitution, officially repealing the Eighteenth Amendment that had ushered in Prohibition of alcohol just 14 years prior. Many of us will toast the occasion the same way Americans did in 1933: with a good drink. If you're so inclined, you may also want to light up a smoke while you still can. Ninety years after the end of one era of Prohibition, we are gradually creeping into a new one forbidding the sale of tobacco and/or nicotine. And just as in that previous era, these laws are encouraging illicit markets, forcing ..read more

Remember the "epidemic" of underage nicotine vaping? For years, activists, politicians, and public health officials have been warning that a surge in e-cigarette use by teenagers would hook a generation of young people on nicotine and encourage them to smoke. That never happened, as new federal survey data confirm. But policies adopted in response to that overblown threat continue to undermine the harm-reducing potential of vaping products by making them less attractive to current and former smokers. According to the latest National Youth Tobacco Survey, which is overseen by the Centers for D ..read more

The Biden administration's flavored cigarettes and cigars ban, currently under final review by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), will soon make it illegal to buy or sell menthol and flavored tobacco products in the United States. Having announced its intention to prevent people, especially children, from becoming addicted to cigarettes and other drugs, Biden's FDA will have to grapple with the consequences of their chosen method. A similar ban in Brazil gives us a window into the probable outcome of Biden's flavored cigarettes legislation. In 2012, after a series of court battles, Brazi ..read more

Legal restrictions on the flavors of nicotine vaping products are associated with increased cigarette purchases, according to a new paper that analyzes retail sales data from 44 states. For each fewer 0.7-milliliter nicotine pod sold in jurisdictions with such policies, the analysis found, consumers bought 15 more cigarettes. "That tradeoff," the authors note, "equates to over a pack more cigarettes per pod for the size of current leading products" such as the Vuse Alto, which uses 1.8-milliliter pods. The substitution effect identified by this study underlines the folly of trying to protect ..read more

Many local jurisdictions have adopted laws banning the sale of flavored vaping products (i.e. vaping products with flavors other than tobacco). Additional cities, such as Cleveland, are considering whether to follow suit. The federal Food & Drug Administration has also refused to approve marketing applications for non-tobacco-flavored vaping products (aka ENDS or "electronic nicotine delivery systems"). All of these policies are largely justified on the grounds that non-tobacco flavors may appeal disproportionately to to non-smokers, and to youth in particular. The further concern is that ..read more

As part of what they say is an effort to curb smoking, French officials have proposed banning disposable vapes. "They create a reflex, a gesture, which children get used to, and then end up being drawn to tobacco," said Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne. Officials also said the ban would be good for the environment because the vapes would no longer be tossed away after they are used. The post Brickbat: Up in Smoke appeared first on Reason.com ..read more

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should abandon any efforts to inform the public that vaping is safer than smoking, says the American Lung Association (ALA).   Numerous public surveys show a consistent, widespread misperception that vaping nicotine is just as or more dangerous than smoking cigarettes. The problem is so extensive that correcting these false beliefs forms part of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) 5-year strategic plan.  Writing in the journal Addiction, Brian King, the head of CTP, stated: "Opportunities exist to educate adults who smoke cigarette ..read more

Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit concluded the Food & Drug Administration failed to conduct the proper analyses before rejecting some vaping product applications. The court's unanimous decision in Fontem US v. FDA upheld the FDA's denial of Fontem's application to market flavored vaping products, in line with prior D.C. Circuit precedent, but rejected the FDA's denial of Fontem's applications for unflavored products, and became the second circuit court of appeals to accuse the FDA of a "surprise switcheroo" when reviewing vaping product applications. This is all furthe ..read more

Cigar smokers have reason to celebrate as a federal judge has vacated the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) authority to regulate premium cigars. The ruling concludes years of litigation tracing back to the FDA's decision in 2016 to extend its authority under the Tobacco Control Act of 2009, imposing potentially burdensome regulations on the industry. Wednesday's ruling from Judge Amit P. Mehta in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia strikes down the FDA's 2016 deeming regulation, handing a decisive victory to cigar makers. The central issue of the case was whether ..read more

Food and Drug Administration regulation of tobacco products is supposed to help protect public health. Yet since the FDA endeavored to regulate electronic cigarette and other vaping products through its tobacco regulation program, Americans' understanding of the relative risks posed by various types of tobacco products has gotten worse. Today fewer Americans understand that vaping poses less risk than smoking, and this ignorance could have significant consequences for public health. In the new issue of Regulation, Jacob James Rich and I discuss this problem in our article "Uneducating Ame ..read more