America’s leading food and drug regulator might ban online sales of e-cigs — a move that could threaten brands like Juul

By Erin Brodwin, Business Insider, September 25, 2018

With comments from Nicholas Chadi

At a breakfast meeting with journalists on Tuesday, Food and Drug Administration commissioner Scott Gottlieb said the agency is considering a ban on online sales of e-cigs. The move would include barring popular e-cig startup Juul, recently valued at $15 billion, from selling its products over the internet.

Juul, which currently dominates the e-cig market, has faced a growing backlash from public health advocates and researchers over claims that it marketed to teens. […]

Nicholas Chadi, a clinical pediatrics fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital, spoke about the Juul at the American Society of Addiction Medicine’s annual conference in April.

“After only a few months of using nicotine, [these teens] describe cravings, sometimes intense ones. Sometimes they also lose their hopes of being able to quit,” Chadi said. (Read more)