The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given an official thumbs up for the continued marketing and sale of five controversial Juul e-cigarette products, including tobacco- and menthol-flavored products. This baffling decision, released July 17, places children’s health squarely at risk. Juul is widely considered to have played a leading role in the massive rise in teen use of e-cigarettes, which rose 70% between 2015 (when Juul launched) and 2020. Juul not only created products that caused significant harm to youth and children across the United States, it specifically targeted the nation’s kids. Juul has faced and settled over 5,000 U.S. vaping lawsuits totaling $1.1 billion, including a $462 million deal with New York’s Attorney General in 2023.
Like many tobacco companies before them, Juul aggressively marketed to children and young adults, buying ads on children’s television networks and failing to prevent minors from buying their products. In 2018, Juul made as much as an estimated $650 million from youth sales, about 40% of the company’s total revenue that year. As a concession to mounting public and legal scrutiny, Juul pulled its youth-friendly flavored products from the shelves the following year.
Why FDA’s action matters for kids
FDA’s recent action officially approves five previously contested e-cigarette products for sale. Products like these have been widely and correctly blamed for causing a youth vaping epidemic.
FDA’s decision to allow Juul to sell its menthol product is especially worrying, as there is a long and well-documented history of tobacco companies adding menthol to their products to appeal to young people. In fact, the FDA has a history of denying marketing applications for other menthol-flavored e-cigarettes citing this very reason: “non-tobacco-flavored e-cigarettes, including menthol flavored e-cigarettes, have a known and substantial risk with regard to youth appeal, uptake and use.”
The only thing that should enter the lungs of children and young people is clean, unpolluted air — at home, in school, and everywhere else. The Trump Administration has made it clear that they are very willing to sacrifice the health of children by cutting programs that improve indoor air quality and giving huge tax breaks to the biggest polluters in the country while cutting clean energy investments. Now they’re giving free reign to one of the most addictive products ever sold in the U.S. by a company guilty of aggressively targeting children and young adults. This is a shameful decision that puts the profits of one company over the health of America’s children.
U.S. agencies in charge of combating youth smoking are in danger
The decision to let these products run free in the market coincides with actions by other government agencies that compromise children’s health and undermine their protection from tobacco. The Administration has cut staff throughout the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), including in the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products (CTP). CTP is losing significant staff, which will continue to hobble the agency’s enforcement efforts against illegal e-cigarette products that target children in their marketing.
The Trump Administration is also attempting to eliminate the Office on Smoking and Health (OSH) at the Centers for Disease Control. To combat youth tobacco use, OSH staff have worked with state and local health departments to identify and implement effective strategies to reduce youth e-cigarette use and assist youth who are addicted to nicotine. The office has conducted critical research on youth tobacco product use, which is essential for understanding the scope of the problem and developing effective responses. OSH also administers the National Youth Tobacco Survey, which collects vital information on current and emerging trends in youth tobacco use. Eliminating OSH would reverse the country’s progress in preventing kids from using tobacco products. What our kids need instead is a robust public health response to prevent e-cigarettes and other tobacco products from placing a new generation at risk for nicotine addiction and tobacco use.
The HHS report Make America Healthy Again, released in May 2025, does not include smoking as a chronic health issue for children despite decades of research confirming that smoking kills more people than alcohol, AIDS, car accidents, illegal drugs, murders, and suicides combined. Today, 2.25 million high school and middle school students smoke and 38% of kids aged 3-11 are exposed to secondhand smoke. It is not possible to address chronic health threats to children without specifically and aggressively taking action against tobacco use.
What the government should be doing
Instead of approving the marketing of e-cigarette products with a proven history of attracting, addicting, and harming children, the FDA should instead support full funding for OSH, fully staff the CTP, establish a prohibition on menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars, and pursue a reduction in nicotine in tobacco products. Until the Administration takes these and other steps, it is clear that they are not serious about protecting our children from the harms of tobacco and the companies that target them. Regardless of the lip-service they give the issue.