By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York sued several large e-cigarette manufacturers, distributors and retailers on Thursday, saying they fueled a youth vaping epidemic by selling products with cartoonish packaging and flavors such as Baja Slushie, Strawberry Cereal Donut Milk and OMG Blow Pop.
Letitia James, the state’s attorney general, is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in civil fines and damages from 16 corporate and individual defendants for gross negligence and creating a public nuisance by selling fruit- and candy-flavored vapor products to impressionable children.
James said the defendants did this despite knowing the health risks, and despite a 2020 state law that bans sales of flavored vapor products and requires vape purchasers to be at least 21. She also called the sales illegal under federal law.
“The vaping industry is taking a page out of Big Tobacco’s playbook: they’re making nicotine seem cool, getting kids hooked, and creating a massive public health crisis in the process,” James said in a statement.
The defendants include Demand Vape, a Buffalo, New York-based distributor of Elf Bar, the most popular e-cigarette among middle and high school students according to last year’s National Youth Tobacco Survey.
Another defendant is Puff Bar, a Glendale, California-based company whose namesake e-cigarette topped the survey in 2022.
Collectively, the defendants “have convinced the public that flavored e-cigarettes are casual fun,” according to the complaint filed in Manhattan federal court.
Demand Vape and Puff Bar did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Many vaping companies market e-cigarettes to adults as an alternative to traditional cigarettes.
E-cigarettes have been the most used tobacco product among U.S. children since 2014.
According to the 2024 youth tobacco survey, 5.9% of middle and high school students, equal to 1.63 million children, reported using e-cigarettes currently. Nearly nine in 10 users reported using flavored products.
In December, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on whether the Food and Drug Administration lawfully blocked two e-cigarette companies from selling flavored vape products with such names as Jimmy The Juice Man Peachy Strawberry and Suicide Bunny Mother’s Milk and Cookies.
A federal appeals court ruled in January 2024 that the FDA denial had been arbitrary and capricious. Seven other federal appeals courts had sided with the agency in similar cases.
Regardless of the outcome, James, a Democrat, may be trying to plug a hole if the FDA pulls back on oversight.
Republican President Donald Trump vowed during his 2024 campaign to “save vaping,” despite supporting a ban on flavored vaping products during his first White House term.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)
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