Since 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been working to crack down on fruity-sweetened e-cigarettes that make teens vape nicotine, Reuters reported. But at least 20 brands still sell single-use devices like “Peach Blueberry Candy” and “Pineapple Strawberry” in liquor stores, tobacco stores and convenience stores in the United States.
Flavored disposable e-cigarettes account for a third of U.S. e-cigarette sales, up from less than 2 percent three years ago, according to a Reuters review of retail sales data.
The Reuters findings come from a dataset produced by Chicago-based market research firm IRI, which uses scanner data and other information to track retail purchases. The IRI dataset, which measures purchases between January 12, 2014 and June 12, 2022, provides a rare look at the rise of single-use flavored nicotine devices following the FDA crackdown on Juul Labs Inc.
There are also data showing for the first time that consumers have spent more than $2 billion on a new generation of disposable e-cigarettes in the past year, surpassing Juul in market share by about 3 percentage points since March.
The data was shared with Reuters by an unnamed individual outside the IRI.
As many as three brands with more than $3 million in weekly sales as of June 12, their representatives said their products contained synthetic nicotine, an addictive substance not derived from the tobacco plant, the data showed. It wasn’t under the FDA’s jurisdiction until Congress acted earlier this year. Both companies told Reuters they applied for FDA authorization in 2022.
