Public health researchers at the University of California, San Diego tested 78 online retailers’ compliance with federal and local regulations regarding flavored e-cigarette products. For most people, the answer was no.
To prevent young people from becoming addicted to tobacco, Congress took two steps in 2020 to prevent minors from purchasing e-cigarette products online while posing as adults. It prohibited e-cigarette sites from delivering through the U.S. Postal Service and required delivery by any delivery method. The service they used to verify the recipient’s identity.
California added its own twist that year, banning most flavored tobacco products. Although the ban did not specifically target online sales, San Diego is one of several local governments that have enacted laws to eliminate potential loopholes.
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, California State University, San Marcos, and Stanford University decided to test how well these protections worked. If the results in San Diego are any indication, they’re barely working.
The team lined up eight pairs of adults to purchase flavored nicotine e-cigarette products from 78 online retailers in October 2023. Each team placed two identical orders from each retailer, with one buyer ordering from within San Diego and the other from within San Diego. Another city in San Diego County has no specific restrictions on the online distribution of flavored e-cigarettes. For each order, we requested delivery by postal service, if available.
Ideally, the researchers would have canceled it completely — given the state’s ban on the sale of flavored e-cigarettes, none of the 156 orders were delivered, and of course the post office There should have been no delivery by. Failing that, at least the number of buyers in San Diego would have been zero, given that the city explicitly prohibits the online sale of flavored e-cigarettes.
And even if those measures failed, they should have at least checked each buyer’s ID upon delivery to ensure they were not underage.
More than two-thirds of purchasers were successful in obtaining flavored e-cigarettes, including nearly 70% of purchasers in the city of San Diego, the study published online Monday by the Journal of the American Medical Assn. showed. Again, the sale may be explicitly prohibited, the study said.
Of the successful deliveries, 80% were processed by the Post Office, which should not have delivered them, the study found. Another 9% came from services like UPS and FedEx, which have policies prohibiting the delivery of tobacco products.
Ultimately, 93% of deliveries were completed without verifying the age of the buyer. The investigation found that in most cases, the items were dropped off without any interaction between the buyer and the delivery person. Additionally, in only one case did the delivery person scan the buyer’s ID, as required by federal law.
“These results demonstrated that noncompliance with age verification, delivery, and flavored tobacco regulations is widespread among online tobacco retailers,” the study authors wrote.
The authors also acknowledged that they examined sales in just one county. However, the county has some of the strictest tobacco control laws in the country.
Eric Reese, assistant professor at UCSD and director of the Tobacco Electronic Commerce Institute, said in a statement that online sales of e-cigarettes is the largest and fastest-growing segment of the tobacco industry.
“While brick-and-mortar stores have long-standing surveillance systems in place to help enforce the law, online retailers do not have those systems in place,” Reese said, adding, “The results of this study show that surveillance “This highlights the need to strengthen the system,” he added. Supervision and enforcement of online tobacco retailers. ”
Representatives for the e-cigarette industry trade group Vapor Technology Assn. and e-cigarette advocate Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Assn. did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday. Both groups oppose banning flavored e-cigarettes, arguing that e-cigarettes are a safer way to smoke than cigarettes.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, are especially unsafe for children, teens, and young adults.”
Although e-cigarettes remain the most popular form of smoking among minors, the number of middle school and high school students who say they currently vape will increase by 2023, according to a new study by the CDC and Food and Drug Administration. It decreased rapidly from 2024 to 2024.
