Put more fight into stopping kids from getting hooked

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As a Minneapolis City Council member and advocate for community health, I have spent the past two decades working to improve public health outcomes in the city and in Minnesota. Before serving on the council, where I champion better health outcomes from the dais, I spent 15 years at NorthPoint Health and Wellness Inc. working as the director of health policy and advocacy. There, my team and I focused on increasing public education around the harms of tobacco and advocating for policies to prevent youth tobacco use. This issue is personal to me — I lost my dad to tobacco use.

I am proud of the progress we’ve made to reduce youth use of traditional tobacco products like cigarettes and cigars. Minneapolis and Minnesota have a long history of leading the nation in this work, with groundbreaking policies like restricting the sale of flavored tobacco products. These polices served as a model for other cities and for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which eventually adopted many of the policies we piloted right here in Minnesota, making them nationwide requirements.

While we have made great progress in deterring young people from using traditional cigarettes, we have simultaneously witnessed an alarming rise in youth usage of electronic cigarettes — also called vapes. According to the 2024 Minnesota Youth Tobacco Survey released by the Minnesota Department of Health, 79.6% of Minnesota students who vape reported experiencing one or more signs of dependence, such as intolerable cravings and reaching for their e-cigarette without thinking about it.

The best thing we can do to curb youth nicotine use is to prevent children from picking up a vape in the first place. Our efforts to stop youth vaping are being threatened by manufacturers who are importing illegal, disposable vapes with kid-friendly flavors like “strawberry ice” and “blue razz.” These manufacturers are flagrantly flouting existing laws and regulations, daring the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to act. So far, the FDA has struggled to answer the call.

Under the Tobacco Control Act (TCA), the FDA is responsible for regulating the e-cigarette market to protect public health. In 2020, the FDA required that all e-cigarette products apply for and receive regulatory approval to remain on the market. Any product without authorization is on the market illegally. To date, the agency has not authorized any e-cigarette products that are not tobacco- or menthol-flavored. This should mean fewer e-cigarettes being sold in U.S. stores. However, more than 5,800 unique disposable products are still being sold in numerous flavors and formulations — a 1,500% increase from early 2020.

More than 2 million kids used e-cigarettes in 2023, including 10% of high school students and 4.6% of middle school students, up from 3.3% in 2022. Among middle school and high school students who currently use e-cigarettes, 89.4% used flavored e-cigarettes.

The city of Minneapolis has done its part to reduce youth tobacco use. But we can’t do this alone. The FDA must step up its efforts to halt the illegal sale of flavored e-cigarettes. Any action we take at the state and local level will be blunted as long as the FDA fails to take meaningful enforcement measures against illegal vapes.

Our Minnesota congressional delegation must take action to compel the FDA to prioritize the removal of illegal, flavored vapes from the market and ensure that our regulatory framework effectively protects the next generation from a potential lifetime of addiction to nicotine.

LaTrisha Vetaw represents Ward 4 on the Minneapolis City Council.