WASHINGTON: US regulators Thursday ordered sharp restrictions on sales of e-cigarettes, as national data showed a 78 percent single-year surge in vaping among young people, with two-thirds using fruit and candy-flavored products.
The proposed regulations announced by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would allow flavored e-cigarettes products to be sold in stores only, not online, and would also ban menthol in cigarettes and flavored cigars.
The changes will be open to a public comment period lasting until June before they would take effect.
“These data shock my conscience,” said FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, referring to the latest data from the National Youth Tobacco Survey.
“From 2017 to 2018, there was a 78 percent increase in current e-cigarette use among high school students and a 48 percent increase among middle school students,” he said.
“These increases must stop. And the bottom line is this: I will not allow a generation of children to become addicted to nicotine through e-cigarettes.”
The proposed FDA rules aim to restrict sales of all flavored vaping cartridges — other than tobacco, mint and menthol — to sales at “age-restricted, in-person locations and, if sold online, under heightened practices for age verification,” said an FDA statement.
The reason mint- and menthol-flavored e-cigarettes are not included is they are more popular with adults who may be using them to decrease or stop their use of traditional cigarettes.
“This reflects a careful balancing of public health considerations,” Gottlieb said.
“Data suggests that mint- and menthol-flavored ENDS are more popular are more popular with adults than with kids.”
At the same time, the FDA announced a proposal to ban menthol in combustible cigarettes and cigars.
“I’m deeply concerned about the availability of menthol-flavored cigarettes,” Gottlieb said.
“I believe these menthol-flavored products represent one of the most common and pernicious routes by which kids initiate on combustible cigarettes,” he said, adding that “menthol products disproportionately and adversely affect underserved communities.”
US orders restriction on e-cigarette sales; youth use surges
US orders restriction on e-cigarette sales; youth use surges
- The proposed regulations announced by the FDA would allow flavored e-cigarettes products to be sold in stores only, not online
Trump insists he struck Iran on his own terms
- “We are now a nation divided between those who want to fight wars for Israel and those who just want peace and to be able to afford their bills and health insurance,” Marjorie Taylor Greene posted on X.
- Rubio himself doubled down on Tuesday after meeting with US House and Senate members, while insisting that “No, I told you this had to happen anyway”
WASHINGTON, United States: President Donald Trump and his team scrambled Tuesday to reclaim the narrative on why he decided to attack Iran, after his top diplomat suggested the US struck only after learning of an imminent Israeli strike.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio alarmed Democrats — who say only Congress can declare war — as well as many of Trump’s MAGA supporters on Monday when he said: “We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action.”
“We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” Rubio told reporters.
Administration officials quickly backpedalled, insisting Trump authorized the strikes because Tehran was not seriously negotiating an accord on limiting its nuclear ambitions, and the United States needed to destroy Iran’s missile capabilities.
“No, Marco Rubio Didn’t Claim That Israel Dragged Trump into War with Iran,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted Tuesday on X.
At an Oval Office meeting later with Germany’s chancellor, Trump went further, saying that “Based on the way the negotiation was going, I think they (Iran) were going to attack first. And I didn’t want that to happen.”
“So, if anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand.”
- Had to happen? -
Rubio himself doubled down on Tuesday after meeting with US House and Senate members, while insisting that “No, I told you this had to happen anyway.”
“The president made a decision. The decision he made was that Iran was not going to be allowed to hide... behind this ability to conduct an attack.”
Critics seized on the muddied messaging to accuse Trump of precipitating the country into a war without a clear rationale, without informing Congress — and without a clear idea of how it might end.
They noted that just two weeks ago, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressed Trump again in Washington to take a hard line, in their seventh meeting since Trump’s return to power last year.
Some Republican allies rallied behind the president, with Senator Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, insisting that “No one pushes or drags Donald Trump anywhere.”
“He acts in the vital national security interest of the United States,” Cotton told the “Fox & Friends” morning show.
But as crucial US midterm elections approach that could see Republicans lose their congressional majority, Trump risks shedding supporters who had welcomed his pledge to end foreign military interventions.
“We are now a nation divided between those who want to fight wars for Israel and those who just want peace and to be able to afford their bills and health insurance,” Marjorie Taylor Greene, a top former Trump ally and a major figure in the populist and isolationist hard right, posted on X.
