MUST WATCH: WHAM Exposes Dangers Of Illicit Nicotine Market

A powerful must-watch investigation conducted by WHAM-TV, the Rochester, NY affiliate of ABC, lays bare the real-life consequences of the illicit nicotine market.  The piece not only distinguishes between regulated and unregulated products, but it makes the case for stepped-up enforcement efforts, and, importantly, the need for increased authorizations by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to provide more legal and regulated products for adult consumers.

In the expose, reporter Lisa Fletcher discusses the, “chilling new risk in a vaping market flooded with products that have no safety oversight.”

Fletcher notes the FDA “has only authorized 39 vaping products designed to help smokers quit” and that “none of those {authorized products} pose these safety hazards” of the unregulated market.

According to Fletcher, authorized products make up less than one percent of the total vaping market.”

Brett Poulin, assistant professor in the UC Davis Department of Environmental Toxicology, observes that, “all of the top selling vaping devices are illicit.”

The segment concludes with a sit-down with David Oliveira, a former employee at FDA’s Center For Tobacco Products (CTP), who, the reporter notes, laments that millions of adult smokers trying to quit combustible cigarettes are, “unwittingly using cheap, unapproved vaping devices which are poisoning them with every puff.”

Here at Regulate Smarter, we agree. Until the FDA authorizes more legal options for adult consumers, bad actors will remain incentivized to fill the market with illicit alternatives.