NYC Ban on Flavored Vaping Products Will Create New Black Markets & Keep Smokers Smoking

New York, NY — Just now, the New York City Council voted to approve a citywide ban on the sale of flavored vaping products, otherwise known as e-cigarettes, except in tobacco flavors. Mint and menthol vaping products are included in the ban, although menthol cigarettes will remain available for purchase across New York City.<c/div>

Contrary to rhetoric employed by members of the council, legal flavored vaping products have no connection to the lung illnesses that have claimed lives in New York and across the country. Indeed, the CDC has made clear that the focus of their investigation is not store-bought nicotine vaping products, but illicit contaminated THC cartridges.

Earlier this month, the New York Times editorialized against blanket bans on vaping products, pointing out that “because these black market products are a leading suspect in the lung-injury outbreak, product bans are more likely to exacerbate this crisis than to mitigate it.”

Nicotine vaping products have been estimated by Public Health England and the Royal College of Physicians to be at least 95% less harmful than smoking combustible cigarettes. Flavors are used by the vast majority of adult users and have been shown to be extremely important in facilitating the move from cigarettes to vaping by adult smokers. A study of over 20,000 adult vapers published last year in the Harm Reduction Journal concluded that “restricting access to non-tobacco e-cigarette flavors may discourage smokers from attempting to switch to e-cigarettes.”