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U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown
Big Tobacco’s
New Assault on Our Children
Protecting our children from the dangers of tobacco products has always
been a challenge — and now Big Tobacco has a new product it is actively
peddling to children and teens. E-cigarettes are the new frontier in
tobacco companies’ quest to get kids addicted while they are young.
After just a few years on the market, minors’ use of e-cigarettes has
now surpassed their use of traditional cigarettes. According to a
report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and
the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s own Center for Tobacco
Products, in the past year, e-cigarette use has tripled among teens.
This is in large part because we have failed to regulate these
addictive products.
It has now been over a year since the FDA issued proposed tobacco
safeguards. These rules would give the agency the same regulatory
authority it currently has over cigarettes to other unregulated tobacco
products, like e-cigarettes and hookahs.
These safeguards are critical for public health, yet they have
languished with the Administration for more than a year. One year is
too long to wait.
Until these rules are finalized, e-cigarette companies — which are
often owned by traditional Big Tobacco companies — will be able to
freely advertise their products to our children.
Now that they are no longer allowed to advertise traditional tobacco
products to children, these tobacco companies are taking advantage of
the new, unregulated world of e-cigarettes to advertise their products
directly to kids.
These companies sponsor youth-oriented events, and air ads on TV and
radio aimed at teens. And they’re using new advertising platforms on
social media to get to kids where parents often aren’t looking.
E-cigarettes and their refill liquids come in thousands of different
flavors, like gummi bears, sweet tarts, and fruit loops. Gummi Bears?
Fruit Loops? Sweet Tarts? These are candies that young children – not
just teens – receive at Halloween.
The shameful e-cigarette marketing tactics employed by tobacco
companies are aimed at encouraging a new generation to use tobacco. And
as the CDC’s study shows – their tactics are working.
It is past time for the FDA to regulate these dangerous products before
more children and teens get hooked on e-cigarettes.
But rather than pressure the FDA to strengthen and finalize these
safeguards, the U.S. House of Representatives is moving forward with a
plan to exempt most e-cigarettes already on the market from any
oversight. This would create a large and dangerous loophole.
E-cigarettes are still tobacco products. Right now they’re being used
by the tobacco industry as a gateway cigarette for our children, and
that has to stop.
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