VTA Statement: Response to FDA’s “Clarification” Evidencing Attempt to Ban Flavored Vapes

Published on January 6, 2025

WASHINGTON – January 6, 2025 – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) 11th-hour move on Friday to “clarify” its botched Christmas announcements is the clearest attempt yet that the outgoing Biden Administration is doing everything it can to ban flavored vapes. This decision is a direct attempt to shut down tens of thousands of small businesses selling flavored vapes and deny access to life-saving cigarette alternatives for tens of millions of Americans trying to quit smoking.

This final push to eliminate flavored vaping products is a condescending and reckless use of government power by those soon to be out of office. The amount of damage that the Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) Director Brian King is attempting to inflict at the tail of the Biden Administration is unconscionable. In doing so, King is advancing both his own and Big Tobacco’s interests, making these moves morally bankrupt and patently political.

This action blatantly ignores consumer choice and the dramatic public health benefits of vaping products. It is clearly being done now to sow fear and confusion and to create a regulatory disaster for the incoming administration, undermining President-elect Donald Trump’s promise to save the flavored vaping industry.

The FDA has misled American consumers for far too long about flavored vaping products. Unelected bureaucrats must stop manipulating American businesses and acknowledge the clear will of the American people expressed in the last election who depend on and need access to these products. Last-ditch efforts by this administration will not stop VTA from calling out this hypocrisy.

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