Anyone paying attention to the current state of vaping knows that snarl words like “illicit” and attacks on "Chinese vapes" are being hurled at the e-cigarette industry without context. 

It may sound threatening and it is. This is just another campaign to deny adult vapor consumers access to the products they prefer, at the risk of funneling them back onto combustible cigarettes. 

Why is the US Is Being Flooded By Illicit Chinese Vapes?

The FDA’s Premarket Tobacco Application process combined with state and local laws have gutted the US vaping industry. This distortion has worked out in the favor of the tobacco-industry, which had both the legal wherewithal to navigate the process and a vested interest in not cannibalizing cigarette sales with appealing and affordable vaping products.

These regulatory victories may have favored the tobacco industry but they have not protected American jobs or adult vapor consumers.

Just the same, Big Tobacco and Juul rely on Chinese hardware, batteries, and e-liquid ingredients. Despite their robust tobacco-based financial base and premium pricing, all of the major, prefilled pod kit vaping brands have moved their manufacturing overseas. All of their hardware is manufactured in China or Indonesia. 

The FDA’s Premarket Tobacco Authorization scheme has driven American-made nicotine e-liquids made by American companies from the market, denying American retailers products to sell to American adult customers. 

As the fate of popular US-made vaping products has hung in the balance for almost a decade at this point, smaller businesses have been forced to cut production and close.  

US-Assembled Disposables and Other Inconvenient Facts

Not all disposable vapes are made in China. Fifty Bar is a US product. The original 16ml Fifty Bar, the Fifty Bar 20K, the Fruitia x Hill Fifty Bar 20K, and Hidden Hills x Fifty Bar 20K models are all topped off with US-made e-liquids. 

The deindustrialization of the US over the last 50 years, rise of Chinese manufacturing, and growing reliance on batteries, rare metals and electronics made in China are beyond the scope of this vaping article. Suffice it to say, the "Cheap Chinese" concern is a red herring. 

US Made Fifty Bar

Fifty Bar is assembled in Thousand Oaks, CA. This new and state of the art facility is dedicated to the assembly of a high-quality product and their curated collection of adult-friendly flavors.

Notably, Fifty Bar offers a variety of popular Beard Vape Co. flavors that were highly regarded in the refillable vape pod and vape mod market.

The FDA's decision to destroy American vape juice formulators has left few survivors and Beard has adjusted to market preferences by reformulating some of these classics for disposable vape platforms. And yes, PMTAs were submitted. 

The e-liquids in each Fifty Bar are formulated in the US by American masters. Vuse liquids merely states their limited selection of tobacco flavors are"Blended in the US" with no further elaboration. 

Most Disposable Vape Users Are Adults

Vast majority of disposable vape customers are adults. With teen vaping declining, the FDA should now focus on approving vaping products for adults. Disposable vapes are not driving underage use which is at a 10-year low. But they are impacting the bottom line of some interested parties with skin in the game. Here are some slides from a pair of Altria revenue calls with shareholders. 

 

Adults of All Ages Prefer Characterizing Flavors

While the rate of less popular artificial tobacco flavors does increase incrementally with age, naturally these are also individuals who would have smoked longer, characterizing flavors dominate. 

Imagine the numbers if there were no flavor bans or an executive order to remove flavors from popular prefilled pod kits in a 2020. 

 

Characterizing Flavors Work

The vast majority of American adult vapor consumers prefer "characterizing flavors" in their vapes and reject artificial tobacco flavors.

Studies have found characterizing flavors are also the most useful vaping products for the other "C" word. 

 

"Kid-Friendly Flavors" Are Just Popular Artificial Flavors

The allegedly "kid-friendly" fruit and beverage inspired vape flavors simply reflect the most popular flavors used in every consumable product. Whether it is hard seltzer, soda, mouthwash, mints, kombucha, iced tea, or cannabis edibles you will find blueberry, strawberry, grape, watermelon and the typical disposable vape flavors highly represented. What you will not find at the grocery store are shelves full of products flavored like fake tobacco.

 

Teen Vaping Hits 10 Year Low

Underage vaping has dropped to 10-year lows according to the CDC. The surge of teen vaping has been receding for a half decade now. Really it is the cigarette industry that is suffering due to the wave of "illicit" nicotine products. 

Cigarette Sales Increase In Areas With Vape Flavor Bans

In areas where flavored vapes are restricted, studies have shown a sharp increase in cigarette sales. Vape flavor bans increase cigarette sales.

 

Disposable Vapes Are FAR Cheaper than Big Tobacco's Pod Kits

Disposable vapes cost far less per ml than the tobacco industry's and Juul pod systems. Whether it is intentional or not, the tobacco-industry and Juul sell e-cigarettes at a premium price point that does not uncut combustible cigarettes, even though they could clearly have their prices slashed.

The Vuse Alto with its Chinese made battery and e-liquids poured into imported Chinese pods in the US costs 4x what a Fifty Bar does per ml. 

FDA Has Only Approved A Couple Dozen Tobacco Industry Applications 

The FDA's ineffective premarket tobacco authorization (PMTA) scheme has rejected tens of thousands of applications submitted by American companies and approved flavors and devices manufactured by the Tobacco industry, with menthol being the only non-tobacco flavor accepted. What this creates is a United States with a lot of shuttered businesses and fewer options for adult consumers looking to make the switch. 

 

 

The FDA Has Approved a Whole Bunch of Cigarettes

Keep in mind that the 34 vapor products include different strengths and flavors of tobacco-industry manufactured pods. 

 

Lobbying Groups Have Misinformed Public About Vaping

As a rule of thumb, it is usually wise to refrain from trusting any group that includes the word "Truth" in their name. But the impact of Michael Bloomberg's hundreds of millions of dollars and the lobbying efforts of groups like the Orwellian-named Truth Initiative are impossible to ignore. This is where we stand. A majority of adults thinks vaping is as harmful as smoking. 

 

UK Supports Vaping to Quit Smoking for Public Health

The UK's willingness to support vaping to quit smoking and research showing vaping to be 95% safer than smoking has been a voice in the wilderness.

 

Nicotine Pouches Filled Void Created By Flavor Bans and Misinformation

The combination of misinformation, flavor bans and a broken approval process has distorted the market beyond recognition. Nicotine pouches, ZYN being the most popular, have fortunately arrived to fill the void. 

Democrats friendly to THC products, many of which not only have "candied" flavors but are actual candies, have turned their attention to these synthetic nicotine pouches. With rates of youth use even lower than vaping, efforts to create a moral panic have failed thus far.

Make no mistake, the same forces dedicated to destroying adult access to e-cigarettes now want pouches destroyed. This puritanical approach, demanding total nicotine abstinence or pharmaceutical intervention, would get you laughed out of the room if it was suggested for any other risky but legal adult behavior. 

This prohibitionist approach compares unfavorably with the public health policies adopted by Sweden, which is the first country to be declared smoke-free. They have promoted Snus and nicotine pouches as a smoking alternative and achieved great results. 

FDA Regulations Restrict Age-Gating Technologies 

The PMTA froze vaping technology with a Deeming Rule on products released after 2016 and the extended September 2020 deadline effectively killed the use advanced technology to reduce under vaping using geographic and age gating. 

 

FDA PMTA Process Faces Challenge In Supreme Court

The capricious and arbitrary nature of the PMTA process is currently being decided by the Supreme Court. FDA v. Wages and White Lion Investments, L.L.C., dba Trion Distribution, et. al.

 

PMTA Registry Laws Written to Benefit Tobacco Industry

State PMTA Registry laws are written so that products from the tobacco industry, many of which have also not been officially approved, are permitted despite being in the same boat as millions of other "illegal e-cigarettes" awaiting authorization and approval.

 

Nicotine Vaping Cleared In EVALI Outbreak of 2019

Vitamin E acetate, which was the cause of the EVALI lung disease outbreak in 2019, are not present in any commercially available US nicotine vapes. As the CDC explained, conveniently on the Friday before Christmas 2019 so that the news media largely missed the story, this viscous oil is not actually compatible with the VG/PG formulas in e-cigarettes.

 

Vaping Heart Attack Study Debunked and Retracted

A tremendous amount of research has been conducted since the FDA Deeming Rule and PMTA scheme were developed.

Splashy studies that fed the moral panic have also been debunked. The most prominent on this list was a study that linked vaping with heart attacks. The scandal surrounding this flawed study and its author Stanton Glantz is worth a read. 

 

Absurd Fentanyl Myth

The absurd claim that fentanyl has been found in disposable vapes should not even be countenanced. Yet here we are. Vaping has been successfully linked in the eyes of the media with minors. A deadly fentanyl packed brand vape killing children would greatly exceed the the Tylenol cyanide scare if it ever did occur. All we have is an unsubstantiated statement made in a local newspaper.

Quoted was a single school principal who claimed heroin and fentayl were being “injected” into electronic nicotine systems. Was it being done by heroin addicted children? Did it occur at all? That is where the story ends.

Not to put too fine of a point on this, but the morgue would be stacked with corpses if manufacturers who produce millions of vaping products were introducing opioid initiates to fentanyl in vaped form.

Addiction to fentanyl, prescription painkillers and heroin are tremendous scourges that must be addressed. Stopping these drugs from destroying lives should be a priority. But this myth, that multi-million dollar businesses are introducing fentanyl into their commercially available nicotine vapes, ranks somewhere on the plausibility scale of the Chief Wiggum's "California Cheeseburger" on the Simpson's. 

   

Back to Chinese Vapes

There is no question that there are Chinese companies manufacturing high-quality vaping products that are far more affordable and desirable than the gas station pod kits of the tobacco industry, which are often manufactured in the same industrial complexes in Indonesia and China.

Vaping batteries and mass produced products moved en masse to China a decade ago. These jobs were being sent abroad before Juul had even hit the market. 

Adult vapor consumers and businesses looking to buy competitive and affordable products for American adults should only engage only with reputable websites and that procure vape products directly from master distributors or the manufacturer. 

Vaping.com only agrees to do business directly with licensed manufacturers and distributors. It is unfortunate that regulations destroyed so many e-liquid producers and the FDA has designs on driving the entire segment extinct. 

 

Declines in smoking rates have started to stall ; if we're going to help more adults quit combustible cigarettes we have to embrace harm reduction and offer adult smokers modified risk nicotine products that don't have same risks as combusting tobacco 1/2 https://t.co/l3a1zmffqc

— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) February 26, 2024

 

 

Trusted Chinese manufacturers, such as Heaven's Gate that supplies Europe and much of the world with affordable and reliable vaping devices, are not only committed to producing high-quality and safe products but also demonstrate a willingness to comply with international safety and manufacturing best practices. That these products have proven more desirable and affordable than the tobacco-industries pod systems has kicked off another round of lobbying. As always, it is adult vapor consumers and those who are considering making the switch who lose.