E-Cigarettes and the Burdens of History: Children, Bystanders and the American War on Nicotine

Abstract

AbstractAlthough e-cigarettes arrived on the American market in 2006, they remained unregulated at the federal level until 2022, when the Food and Drug Administration issued an order that JUUL, which once commanded some 75 per cent of the vaping market be removed from the American market. The period between introduction of e-cigarettes and FDA regulation was marked by fierce debate as states and cities sought to fill the regulatory void. Proponents of e-cigarettes embraced a harm reduction perspective, seeing in the new products a safer albeit not safe alternative to combustible cigarettes. Yet virtually the entire American public health establishment asserted that e-cigarettes threatened the 40-year effort to bring smoking to an end. In the battles over evidence and ethics, adolescents and non-vaping bystanders, as opposed to smokers, emerged as focus of concern.