The vaping crises in the United States : a regulatory failure?

Abstract

The popularity of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) has been steadily rising over the last decade. It is estimated that today around 41 million people vape worldwide. Despite this striking increase in usage, for a long time e-cigarettes attracted only limited attention from the general public. Recently things have changed, however, with e-cigarettes regularly occupying the headlines of major newspapers around the world. This new “popularity” of e-cigarettes is connected with the outbreak of a vaping-related illness (the so-called “E-cigarette or Vaping Product Use-Associated Lung Injury” or EVALI) in the United States (US), which has already led to 64 deaths and more than 2,700 hospitalised patients. The EVALI outbreak has also coincided with alarming news about the growing popularity of e-cigarettes among American teenagers. These two vaping crises demand that we reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of e-cigarette regulatory regimes in order to understand how to prevent the repetition of similar events in the future.