Commentary: The FDA's about-face on flavored vapes will prove deadly for kids

The decline in youth smoking is one of the great public-health achievements of the 21st century, celebrated by conservatives and liberals alike, yet the White House is now in the process of endangering it. Unless it reverses course, millions of American children will suffer the consequences.

Tobacco-related death and disease do not discriminate by party. Everyone knows someone who has been affected by the ravages of tobacco use, but thanks to smart policies that have dramatically cut smoking rates, those stories have become less common.

Twenty-five years ago, nearly 30% of US high school students smoked cigarettes. By 2024, that number had fallen to 1.7% - an astoundingly large decline. Unfortunately, there's more to the story.

Hiding in that progress is the rise of e-cigarettes, or vapes. About 8% of high school students use them regularly. Of those who do, 9 in 10 are using flavored e-cigarettes. Most have already tried and failed to quit.

Those statistics are deeply troubling, since the list of potential harms from e-cigarettes is long: lung damage and respiratory illnesses, heart disease, impairment to young people's brain development, and other health problems, given the toxic mix of chemicals they contain. But the dangers don't stop there.

Using e-cigarettes makes teens three to four times more likely to smoke traditional cigarettes, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Tobacco industry executives know this, of course, and they know the best way to hook teens is with sweet and fruity flavors.

In 2019, President Donald Trump promised to crack down on this problem with "strong rules and regulations" - and to his credit, he did. The Food and Drug Administration banned flavors other than menthol and tobacco in 2020, and it made an enormous difference, helping to dramatically cut high school vaping rates. But after the tobacco industry's backroom lobbying and political donations, the FDA recently reversed course on flavored products without even conducting a scientific review.

The industry claims that only those ages 21 and older can legally buy any tobacco product. But that's laughable, given how easy it is for children to get around restrictions.

In fairness, the industry does make one valid point: The administration has failed to stop the flow of flavored vapes from China and other countries that are sold illegally here. Yet the way to deal with that problem - as with the smuggling of fentanyl - isn't to legalize their production and sale. It's to get tougher and smarter in cracking down on them. Instead, the government is doing the opposite: giving up.

The FDA will now effectively stop policing the black market, allowing unregulated products full of toxins to poison children. And it will also start allowing e-cigarette companies to sell their products before the agency has undertaken scientific reviews of them, further increasing the likelihood that Americans will consume dangerous levels of hazardous chemicals.

These moves threaten to undermine 25 years of progress on smoking, much of it spurred by actions our administration took in New York City that spread across the country (and the world). We dramatically reduced smoking rates through a variety of strategies, including higher taxes, enforcement against the black market, support for cessation and an indoor smoking ban.

Back then, tobacco companies argued that the smoking ban would destroy the city's hospitality industry. Instead, it boomed. Bar and restaurant owners who initially opposed the ban quickly came to love it, because it attracted more customers who spent more money.

Today, the tobacco industry is making even more spurious arguments, including claiming that it's in the business of helping people quit smoking. If you believe that, then I have a bridge to sell you.

It's true that there is some evidence e-cigarettes can help smokers quit, but it's not sweet and fruity flavors that smokers crave. It's nicotine. And the best way to reduce nicotine addiction is through prevention, which requires banning flavored vapes to keep kids from picking up the habit.

Parents have long warned their children against accepting candy from strangers, to keep them safe from predators. Tobacco companies offering flavored vapes is the new version of that old lesson - and disgracefully, government is getting in bed with the predators.

The good news is: The American people don't need to wait for Congress to act. Six states - both blue and red - have adopted bans on flavored vapes, as have more than 200 small towns and big cities. The bans have won bipartisan support because parents don't want their children using e-cigarettes, and they know that keeping flavors off the market is essential to keeping their kids addiction-free.

Tragically, if Congress doesn't step in to restore the FDA's ban on flavored e-cigarettes, more children will become addicted to nicotine, more will contract serious diseases, and more will die early and painful deaths. They deserve much better than that, and it's up to all of us to make sure that our elected representatives stand up for them - and stop selling them out to the tobacco companies.

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Michael R. Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News, and the founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies.

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