A report on nationwide e-cigarette use and advertising by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) shows that there was a drastic increase in the sale of menthol e-cigarette cartridges and flavoured disposable e-cigarettes in 2020. Incidentally, this increase came at a time when the federal government just banned flavoured cartridges that were found to be popular among young smokers. The finding therefore could mean that banning any one form of e-cigarette product just forced users to shift to an alternative product instead of causing a decline in vaping.
This report also found that there was a tremendous increase in the distribution of discounted and free e-cigarettes during the same period. This practice has been found to cause an increase in youth vaping.
According to FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection director, Samuel Levine, the FTC’s report “shows that youth are still at risk from flavoured or deeply discounted e-cigarettes.” He further adds that “marketers of e-cigarettes have proven skilful at evading FDA regulation and hooking youth on addictive products.”
The FTC has been providing data on smokeless tobacco sales since 1987 and those on tobacco sales since 1967. Recently the agency began reporting e-cigarette sales. There are two forms of e-cigarettes in the market today, cartridge products and single-use disposable ones. Cartridge e-cigarettes are rechargeable and can be used multiple times. Single-use e-cigarettes on the other hand are designed to be disposed of once used and can therefore not be refilled. In 2019 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned the sale of all flavoured e-cigarette cartridges except menthol-based products in the United States. This ban had an interesting impact on the sales numbers.
The FTC report found that the total e-cigarette sales in the United States decreased to $2.24 billion in 2020 down from $2.70 billion in 2019. The key findings of the report include:
A drastic shift from flavoured e-cigarette cartridges to flavoured disposable e-cigarettes: the report shows that with the ban on flavoured e-cigarette cartridges consumers shifted to flavoured disposable e-cigarettes which were not banned by the FDA policy. The data from the report shows that flavoured disposable e-cigarette sales represented 77.6% of all disposable product sales in 2020.
Significant increase in the sales of Menthol Cartridges: the reports also found a significant rise in the sale of menthol cartridges that were not banned by the FDA policy. The sale of menthol cartridges increased to 63.5% of all 2020 cartridges sales.
Increased e-cigarette discounting: the report also revealed an increase in discounting for e-cigarettes sold in the United States. Discounting costs rose to $182. 3 million. This represented a huge percentage of the advertisement cost by manufacturers.
Free e-cigarette samples doubled: data from the report shows that expenditure on the distribution of highly discounted and free e-cigarettes doubled in 2020. The distribution of deeply discounted or free e-cigarettes constituted the second largest expenditure for manufacturers in 2020.
This FTC report provides important data that if utilized will help protect the youth from the harmful effects of e-cigarettes. For example, banning flavoured e-cigarettes failed to have the desired impact as consumers simply shifted to alternative flavoured products. This means that banning e-cigarette products may not be the way to go. The FDA thus need to find more ways to discourage the youth from vaping products as the products have been shown to have a negative health impact on users.
