State Health Commissioner Howard Zucker is promising a sweeping crackdown on flavored e-cigarettes that are marketed to teens, as pressure mounts for New York to ban the sweetened nicotine products.
“We are concerned about this. There’s a lot of marketing to children of this and we need to tackle it,” Zucker told the Public Health Council on Oct. 11.
Vaping company Juul’s products come in flavors such as mango, mint, and crème brûlée, which critics say are aimed at kids.
A bill is gaining steam in the Legislature to ban flavored e-cigs, which are surging in popularity among the young.
The 2017 biannual survey of Big Apple high-school students found that 17.3 percent of them had used e-vapor products in the prior 30 days. The number using conventional cigarettes was 5 percent.
“Vaping e-cigarettes is definitely a gateway to smoking real cigarettes,” said Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal (D-Manhattan), who will move to pass her legislation to ban flavored vaping products in the 2019 legislative session. “We have to take concrete steps to stop young people from getting hooked on e-cigarettes.”
She said Gov. Cuomo has signed her other bills into law to discourage vaping, including amending the Clean Indoor Air Act to ban e-cigarette use in public spaces such as restaurants, bars and schools.
“I expect the administration will support a ban on flavored e-cigarettes,” she said.
Rosenthal said she recently met with reps from e-cigarette giant Juul to urge them to voluntary pull flavored vaping liquids from the market.