All other vape products, Yost said, including those sold in Ohio, are illegal.
Yost said he has filed complaints against three Ohio businesses for “selling illegal vapes, failing to disclose the illegality of these products, and misrepresenting their authorization status,” which he said are unfair or deceptive practices under the Ohio Consumer Sales Practices Act. He added the complaints were filed after the three stores continued to sell illegal flavored vapes in defiance of a warning latter sent from the attorney general’s office in April.
The attorney general said unauthorized vaping devices pose a significant public health threat, saying harmful chemicals found in vapes include formaldehyde.
He also said vapes are the most-used tobacco products among U.S. middle- and high-school students.
Citing tightly controlled sales data, the Associated Press reported in June 2023 the number of different electronic cigarette devices sold in the U.S. had nearly tripled driven by a wave of unauthorized disposable vapes from China.
The AP reported that, although the FDA effectively banned all flavors except for menthol and tobacco from cartridge-based e-cigarettes in 2020, the policy excluded disposable vapes, a decision which the previous director of the agency’s tobacco program Mitch Zeller said was made by the Trump administration without the FDA’s input.
The result, Zeller said, is entrepreneurs can send their logo and flavor requests to Chinese manufacturers and quickly have thousands of unauthorized disposable vapes.
“You don’t have any idea what is in those vape cartridges,” Yost said. “This is a consumer protection issue, particularly when it comes to our youngsters that are still developing, the idea these unregulated, unauthorized vapes are on the market is a real danger.”
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