With hundreds of unlawful e-cigarettes on the market within the U.S., each the Trump and Biden administrations have vowed to crack down on the illicit fruit- and candy-flavored vapes that maintain explicit enchantment to minors. However a brand new authorities report suggests legislation enforcement efforts by the Division of Justice lag far behind the scope of the issue.
Most DOJ enforcement actions between fiscal yr 2022 and financial yr 2025 — 50 out of a complete of 88 — have been so as to add the names of distant e-cigarette sellers to an inventory of unauthorized companies, in keeping with the report from the Authorities Accountability Workplace. The second-most widespread sort of enforcement actions (20 out of 88) famous within the report have been injunctions to cease authorized violations.
The GAO report was targeted on actions that concerned the DOJ, so these tallies don’t take into consideration enforcement actions just like the seizure of greater than 6 million unlawful merchandise by the Meals and Drug Administration and U.S. Customs and Border Safety between 2024 and 2025. To place these seizures in context, a big seizure of $76 million price of merchandise in 2024 — 3 million vapes — equated to about 4% of China’s e-cigarette exports to the U.S. in a single month, stated Steven Xu, an adjunct assistant professor on the College of Waterloo who research e-cigarettes.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Unwell.), who requested the report, stated it exhibits that rather more work must be achieved to fight the general public well being risk posed by unlawful vapes.
“This GAO report helps make clear FDA and DOJ’s failure to guard youngsters from a lifetime of nicotine habit. Regardless of court docket mandates and congressional deadlines, hundreds of harmful, kid-friendly e-cigarettes are nonetheless in the marketplace illegally,” Durbin stated. “FDA and DOJ should use their enforcement instruments as an alternative of cowering to the tobacco trade.”
FDA transfer on flavored vapes rattles public well being consultants
That sentiment was shared by Kathy Crosby, president and CEO of the anti-nicotine habit nonprofit Fact Initiative. “The GAO report underscores a regarding mismatch between the dimensions of unlawful e-cigarette gross sales and the precedence being positioned on tackling this problem on the federal stage,” she stated, including: “The burden of closing this enforcement hole mustn’t fall on states. It is a nationwide drawback that requires a coordinated federal response, backed by the complete weight of federal regulatory and enforcement authority.”
The Division of Justice didn’t reply to a request for remark.
About 6,000 e-cigarette merchandise are offered within the U.S. as of June 2024, in keeping with the newest knowledge accessible from the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention. Simply 41 of these merchandise have to date been approved on the market by the FDA, from the manufacturers Glas, Logic, Juul, NJOY, and R.J. Reynolds Vapor Firm. Nearly all of unlawful vapes in the marketplace are made in China and imported illegally into the U.S., then offered in every single place from comfort shops and fuel stations to tobacco outlets. In 2025, e-cigarette exports from China to the U.S. topped $10.6 billion.
Whereas youth vaping charges have fallen within the U.S. lately, public well being consultants warn that latest knowledge exhibits 1.6 million youngsters are nonetheless utilizing e-cigarettes — and that they’re drawn to sweet-flavored varieties that haven’t been approved by the FDA exactly due to considerations over their outsize attract for younger individuals.
In June 2024, in recognition of the exploding black marketplace for unlawful e-cigarettes, the federal government fashioned an inter-agency activity power geared toward stepping up enforcement in opposition to unlawful vapes, led by the DOJ and FDA and together with Customs and Border Safety, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and the Federal Commerce Fee.
The FDA’s capability to take motion independently in opposition to the tide of unlawful vapes is proscribed to warning letters and pursuing civil cash penalties, stated Mitch Zeller, who led the FDA’s tobacco division from 2013 to 2022. The whole lot else entails different companies. His greatest takeaway from the report is that the FDA “has not gotten the help from legislation enforcement companies, beginning with the Justice Division, that’s wanted to aggressively implement in opposition to illicit vaping merchandise.”
The truth that the most important class of actions taken by the DOJ was placing unauthorized on-line e-cigarette sellers on an inventory to be distributed to carriers just like the U.S. Postal Service was additionally “disappointing,” Zeller stated.
The overwhelming majority of illicit vapes are offered in bodily areas like fuel stations, comfort shops, and vape outlets, stated Xu. “There’s a mismatch between DOJ’s sources and the precise retail panorama,” he stated by way of electronic mail.
Final month, a gaggle of congressional lawmakers requested the Trump administration to give attention to the problem of stemming the tide of unlawful vapes throughout commerce negotiations with China. In terms of enforcement actions, Zeller stated, he thinks the only most impactful choice could be to go after the middlemen — the wholesalers and distributors chargeable for getting unlawful imports of e-cigarettes to sellers.
“It’s very laborious to maintain the stuff from coming into the nation. There’s simply too many ports,” Zeller stated. “And on the again finish, with retailers, we’re speaking about probably tens of hundreds, if no more.” Only one or two huge enforcement actions going after the highest middlemen chargeable for transferring the vaping provide from entry factors to shops and warehouses, he stated, “may do quite a bit to wash up the market.”
STAT’s protection of continual well being points is supported by a grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies. Our monetary supporters should not concerned in any choices about our journalism.
