The Supreme Court heard arguments today over the FDA's regulation
of flavored vaping products after their use spiked among teens.
Officials here in Illinois say it's been a struggle to
keep illegal E cigarettes from reaching young people.
WGN Sean Lewis has the story for us from Lurie
Children's Hospital.
Well, good evening.
It was good timing today by Illinois Congressman Raja Krishnamurthy
today having this press conference into a possible congressional investigation
into E cigarettes, the same time as that Supreme Court
hearing was happening into the FDA's jurisdiction over E cigarettes
and related products.
Tonight, as the Supreme Court considers the FDA's jurisdiction over
e-cigarrete products and sweet vaping flavors, we are not going
to allow them to be the targets of these e-cigarrete
makers or Big Tobacco any longer.
Illinois Congressman Russia Krishnamoorthi is vowing to push back against
one of the biggest sources of those products, China.
The vast majority of new vapes that have entered the
market are being illegally imported from China and these vapes,
we have no idea what they contain.
Right now, the FDA has only approved 34 tobacco and
menthol E cigarettes.
All other vapes, the thousands of flavors, the numerous SKU's
or skews that are on the market in places like
Chicago and throughout the country are illegal today.
The FDA has denied more than a million applications for
sweet vaping products, but many are still showing up in
stores and cracking down, says Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart,
is a challenge.
You go into these stores, they're everywhere and they're in
every conceivable package you can imagine.
And they really are.
I mean, unless you're an idiot, you can see right
away they're set up in a way where it's immediately
going to catch kids eyes.
An adolescent who was not smoking was never going to
smoke.
This is introducing nicotine, which is so addictive and so
powerful and we don't know what the long term consequences
of e-cigarrete use are.
And while regulations have drastically cut down on use by
kids, which peaked in 2019, Krishnamoorthy says he'll stand in
the way of Chinese manufacturers and US importers who continue
to try and skirt the law.
At the end of the day, we must remember this.
Our kids are not for sale and we do have
a full list of those FDA approved E cigarettes and
vaping products on our website, wgntv.com.
Downtown Tonight, Sean Lewis, WGN News.