After today’s discussion in the White House regarding the vaping epidemic that has led roughly 5 million children to use e-cigarettes, Bruce Lesley, president of First Focus on Children said:
“We reaffirm our strong support for the Administration’s original plan announced back in September to eliminate all flavored e-cigarettes, including mint and menthol, and we urge the Administration to implement this plan without further delay or backtracking in order to curtail the vaping epidemic that is harming our children.“
Lesley added, “For the Administration’s plan to effectively slow this epidemic, it must remove all flavors, affirm FDA oversight over these products, and apply the flavor ban to all retailers. As Senator Mitt Romney said, we must ‘put the kids first.’ We must not compromise their health.”
More than one-quarter of all high school students now “vape.” Of all kids who vape, 97% say they favor flavored varieties.
“We call on the president to recommit to protecting our children by sticking to his original plan to ban flavored e-cigarettes,” Lesley said. “The FDA has been trying to regulate e-cigarettes since 2008. But for these 11 years, industry, money, and politics have consistently outweighed the health of children. That must end.”
First Focus on Children, along with nearly 70 other health, education and children’s groups, called on the president earlier this month to swiftly implement his previously announced plan to remove all non-tobacco-flavored e-cigarettes, including mint and menthol flavors, from the marketplace both in retail stores and online.