San Francisco looks to ban e-cigarettes until health effects known

Seeking to curb teen vaping, officials in San Francisco have proposed a new law to ban e-cigarette sales until their health effects are evaluated by the US government.

The measure, if approved, would be the first of its kind nationally, preventing people from buying e-cigarettes online or at stores in the largest city in northern California, pending the Food and Drug Administration's evaluation of their impact on public health.

Such a restriction would build on the city's aggressive vaping regulations. Voters in 2018 upheld the city's first-in-the-nation outright ban on the sale of flavoured tobacco and flavoured vaping liquids.

But vaping proponents who say e-cigarettes help adult smokers quit packs of Marlboros argued the proposal would unfairly target vaping products.

San Francisco city attorney Dennis Herrera, one of the co-authors of the bill, which is yet to be approved, said reviews should have been done before they were sold.

"These companies may hide behind the veneer of harm reduction, but let's be clear, their product is an addiction," said Herrera.

He added that San Francisco, Chicago, and New York had sent a joint letter to the FDA calling on it to investigate the effects of e-cigarettes on public health.

Anti-vaping activists say companies are deliberately targeting young people by offering flavoured products.

In a statement, Juul said the city's proposed legislation would make it harder for adult smokers to buy e-cigarettes that could help them curb addiction. Doctors, however, say the nicotine in e-cigarettes can harm developing adolescent brains and lead to underage smoking.

In 2018, more than 3.6 million U.S. middle and high school students had used e-cigarettes over the past 30 days, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Juul added it has stopped selling flavoured products to retailers to discourage underage vaping but opposes San Francisco's plan.

"This proposed legislation begs the question — why would the City be comfortable with combustible cigarettes being on shelves when we know they kill more than 480,000 Americans per year?" Juul said in a statement.