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Disposable e-cigarettes dominate the world: US $2 billion market ignored by FDA

According to foreign reports on August 17, the disposable electronic cigarette market in the United States has grown from a retail footnote to a US $2 billion big Mac in just three years. Disposable e-cigarette products mainly manufactured by little-known manufacturers have rapidly dominated the convenience stores / gas stations of the e-cigarette product market.

The sales data came from IRI, a Chicago market research company, and was reported by Reuters today. The company obtained these data through confidential sources. According to Reuters, the IRI report shows that the disposable e-cigarettes have increased from less than 2% to 33% of the retail market in three years.

This is consistent with the data of the National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS) in 2020, which shows that the disposable use of school-age youth increased from 2.4% in 2019 to 26.5% in 2020. Due to the action of FDA, when most retail stores no longer provide flavored e-cigarettes based on cigarette cartridges, the disposable market grew rapidly.

FDA creates an unregulated market

Although it is not surprising for regular observers of the e-cigarette trend, the new IRI study confirms that the FDA’s focus is to prevent famous mass market brands such as Juul and VUSE from selling flavored e-cigarette products in e-cigarette stores and online sales of open system products – which simply creates a parallel gray market of little-known one-time brands.

Grey market e-cigarettes are like black market products, but they are not sold in underground illegal markets, but are provided in standard retail channels, where taxes are levied and age restrictions are observed.

The three-year growth period from 2019 to 2022 described in the IRI report is very important. At the end of 2018, Juul labs, the then market leader, was forced to remove its flavored cigarette cartridges (except Mint) from the market in response to what the tobacco control organization called the moral panic of the epidemic of youth smoking e-cigarettes.

Then in 2019, Juul also cancelled its peppermint flavor, and President Donald Trump threatened to ban all flavored electronic cigarette products. Trump partially backed down. In January 2020, the FDA announced new enforcement measures for electronic cigarette products based on cigarette cartridges and cigarette cartridges other than tobacco and menthol.

Blame puff bar

The crackdown on seasoning products sold in regulated markets matches the rapid growth of the one-time grey market, which is largely unknown to regulatory agencies and national news media. Puff bar, the first one-time brand to get attention, may become the spokesperson of the market, because it takes too much effort to track the deformed world of e-cigarettes in the gray market. It is easier to blame the brand, as many tobacco control departments have done.