After much debate over the regulation of electronic cigarettes, otherwise known as e-cigarettes, the sellers of the popular nicotine vapor devices will finally have some rules to follow. In recent years there has been growing concerns about adolescent e-cig use, due to the fact that more high schoolers use e-cigarettes than traditional forms of tobacco. While many argue that the devices are considered to be safer when compared to cigarettes, nicotine is still addictive and can cause health problems.
On Monday, new rules from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) went into effect, hereby banning sales of e-cigarettes to minors, HealthDay reports. The new mandates also apply to:
- Cigars
- Pipe Tobacco
- Hookah Tobacco
The eagerly awaited rules require e-cigarette makers to submit their products to the FDA for review before the devices can go to market, according to the article. After years of making billions of dollars, hand-over-fist, with little to no oversight, e-cig manufacturers and nicotine e-juice makers are now required to put warning labels in their ads and on the packaging the devices are sold in. What’s more, they will also have to disclose to the FDA all the ingredients used in making the nicotine juice which the e-cigarettes vaporize for user inhalation.
“Youth use e-cigarettes more than any other tobacco product on the market today, serving as an entry point to more traditional tobacco products and placing kids at risk to the harms and addiction of nicotine and other tobacco products,” said Harold Wimmer, national president and CEO of the American Lung Association. “Ending the tobacco epidemic is more urgent than ever, and can only happen if the FDA acts aggressively and broadly to protect all Americans from all tobacco products.”
Making it more difficult of teenagers to acquire e-cigarettes is of the utmost importance. After decades of labeling marijuana the “gateway drug” that leads teens and young adults to try other more dangerous narcotics, it is now widely agreed upon that both alcohol and nicotine products are the first addictive substances that teens use. Those who use nicotine at a young age are at an exponentially greater risk of using harder drugs. Naturally, this often leads to teenage substance use disorders which, if left untreated, can be the beginning of years of illness and heartache.
If you have a teenage daughter, ages 13 – 17, who has been abusing mind altering substances, please contact Cottonwood Tucson. Our Sweetwater Adolescent Girls Treatment Program was created to assist teenage girls and their families recover and make necessary changes to improve the quality of their lives.
