The latest seizure of flavored vapes and e-cigarettes is a drop in the bucket
California recently seized more than $1 million worth of flavored tobacco products,the latest crackdown in the state's struggle to enforce its ban on flavored vapes and e-cigarettes.
The California Justice Department worked with policein various locations by sending in people to pose as buyers interested in flavored nicotine products, the attorney general's office said Wednesday.
Among the204 targeted retailers, 7% sold to people who were underage.
Vapes werethe most popular tobacco product among high schoolers in California in 2023, according to the state government's Youth Tobacco Survey.
The alarming rise in youth exposure to nicotine, particularly though vaping and e-cigarette demands urgent and decisive action," California Attorney General Rob Bonta said.
But the recent confiscations of flavored nicotine, amounting to at least 50,000 units, is a very small fraction of what is being sold.
The sales of flavored e-cigarettes rose to22.7 million units across the U.S. in Dec. 2022,an increase of nearly 47% fromJan.2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Is California's ban on flavored vapes and e-cigarettesworking?
California's ban on flavored tobacco products, namely vapes and e-cigarettes, has been in effectsince Dec. 2022.
But it is still common throughout California for smoke shops to sell flavored vapes and e-cigarettes, local news outlets report.
"The black market is alive and well in California,"Richard Marianos, retired Assistant Director of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives,told ABC7in March 2023.
Flavored vapes can also be easily bought online and shipped into California from other states.
What is California doing to enforce its ban on flavored vapes and e-cigarettes?
Local police in countiescontinueto crackdown on smoke shops illegally selling flavored nicotineand the stateis promising more funding to help.
In 2024, the California Department of Justice said it awarded$28.5 million to 76 local government agencies throughout the state to help them curb the sales of flavored e-cigarettes and vapes.
Since 2016, the the state's justice department has awarded $212 million local governments to enforce California's tobacco laws.
Photo Credit: Consumer Affairs News Department Images
Posted: 2024-10-24 12:14:23
