The increased amount of online e-cigarettes sales has driven, Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer, on October 31, to fill a complaint in California state court and blame California-based e-cigarette Company for selling vaping products to minors. Investigators discovered that the company was targeting minors by posting youth vaping on social media accounts and also, making their packaging more friendly to underage children resembling fruit-flavored cereal, donuts etc. Not only that but the company also didn’t use age verification systems as supposed to do. Investigators easily gained entrance by using fake e-mails and ordering via internet vaping products.
Also, in California city attorney’s office filed suit against a vaping retailer. In this situation company sold e-cigarettes and e-liquids in violation of FDA regulatory requirements. Specifically, the supposed health warnings were missing from the labels of the products. The suit was about company’s violated California’s Unfair Competition Law, its Safe Drinking Water, and the Toxic Enforcement Act, as well as the State’s Stop Tobacco Access to the Kids Enforcement Act.
The result of the suits didn’t take long to appear. One company removed all e-liquid products from its website and another one entered into a stipulation requiring compliance with the STAKE Act and proper age verification. Practically, the company required a copy of ID for online orders and also verified the customer’s information from a database to configure that the customers were 21 years of age or older and finally, placed a phone call before shipping any tobacco products. A compliance report every 60 days was essential for demonstrating compliance with the STAKE Act.
FDA and state regulators are in charge of policing the sale of vaping products in minors. This may be a very first step for minimizing the number of sales to underage, by enforcing age verification systems for online sales.
