Vaping with flavors versus having to vape without them: The difference might sound trivial. But people whose lives have been transformed by tobacco harm reduction see it as existential.
“The importance of flavors in nicotine vapor products for cessation cannot be overstated,” Marc Slis told Filter.
He should know. After years of smoking two-and-a half packs of cigarettes a day, it was caramel and “kiwi melon” flavored vapes that helped him quit—when nothing else had. There’s a good chance these flavors saved his life.
Slis went on to help many other people do the same, while running a vape shop in Michigan. And his sentiment is echoed by countless others who have quit smoking in the very same way.
To have the best chance of widely replacing cigarettes, a safer nicotine alternative needs to match, or preferably surpass, that pleasure.
People don’t smoke because it’s deadly. They smoke because they find it comforting and pleasurable. To have the best chance of widely replacing cigarettes, a safer nicotine alternative needs to match, or preferably surpass, that pleasure. And most people greatly prefer sweet or fruity vapes to their tobacco-flavored or flavorless counterparts.
It amounts to a simple harm reduction recipe. But the United States is a hostile landscape. The benefits of flavored vapes have been obscured and denied by vociferous, well-funded anti-vape groups, who equate their availability with youth uptake—and even with smoking.
They’ve gotten results. Over five years ago, Massachusetts became the first state to impose a flavor ban. California, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Utah have since followed.
The FDA and the Courts
At the federal level, meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has included only one non-tobacco flavor—menthol—in its limited authorizations of vaping products to date. To receive authorization, a manufacturer is meant to demonstrate that its product is “appropriate for the protection of public health.”
The fact that teenagers, like adults, prefer flavored vapes is used to argue that they don’t meet this standard—despite their potential impact on the smoking that costs the best part of half a million US lives each year.
Unauthorized products continue to be widely sold—and to eat into cigarette sales—as the FDA has effectively ceded control of the market. But the lack of regulation is far from ideal. And the constant threat is that access will be further eroded.
“It’s messy at the state level—not just because of the usual tobacco control-driven flavor bans, but also due to state-level PMTA registries.”
The FDA didn’t authorize the first menthol products under its Premarket Tobacco Product Applications (PTMA) process until 2024, though Juul was a recent high-profile addition. And the agency’s reluctance influences state-level policies.
“It’s messy at the state level—not just because of the usual tobacco control-driven flavor bans, primarily pushed by Democrats, but also due to state-level PMTA registries, which often enjoy bipartisan support,” explained Gregory Conley, former legislative director of the American Vapor Manufacturers Association and a longtime vaping advocate.
“These registries effectively ban any vaping product that didn’t meet FDA deadlines for marketing applications,” he told Filter. “In other words, if a product wasn’t already on the market by FDA’s 2016 cut-off date and didn’t file an application by the 2020 deadline, it’s banned.”
“These bills effectively outlaw synthetic nicotine products, flavored disposables, and numerous other vaping products unless they secure FDA authorization,” Conley continued. “Given the FDA’s chronic delays in authorizing new products, and considering millions of adult vapers now rely on flavored disposables, these restrictions pose a serious threat to their ability to remain smoke-free.”
The chaotic PMTA process has seen millions of vaping-product applications rejected, leading advocates to infer that the FDA has imposed a de facto flavor ban, after giving false hope to manufacturers that authorization was achievable if the correct procedures were followed. Evidence that the FDA previously overruled its own scientists’ recommendations in blocking menthol products bolsters that belief.
In 2024 a federal appeals court found the FDA had led flavored-vape manufacturers Triton and Vapetasia on a “wild goose chase.” Reversing the FDA’s marketing denial orders (MDOs) to those companies, the court said the FDA acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” when it denied them authorization.
The Supreme Court ruling “affirms that courts will generally defer to the FDA’s scientific judgments regarding product authorizations.”
However, in April the Supreme Court found that the FDA’s actions when issuing MDOs to the two companies were not arbitrary or capricious, and that the FDA should be able to block flavored nicotine products it deems likely to attract minors.
Conley called that decision “disappointing.”
“The ruling affirms that courts will generally defer to the FDA’s scientific judgments regarding product authorizations,” he said. “This underscores the pressing need for Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary to implement substantive reforms to the product authorization process that can endure beyond their tenures.”
However, “by remanding the case to the Fifth Circuit, the Court made clear that the FDA cannot ignore legal requirements—specifically, the agency’s failure to consider the companies’ marketing plans, which it had previously indicated would be a significant factor in its evaluation, Conley explained. “The Fifth Circuit must now determine whether this oversight constitutes a harmless error or a significant legal misstep.”
Trump: “I Saved Flavored Vaping!”
As court battles continue, some believe that flavored vapes might have a brighter future under President Donald Trump. During the last presidential election campaign, Trump claimed, of his first term, “I saved flavored vaping!”
Unsurprisingly, that’s a distortion at best.
In 2019, Trump wanted to pull all flavored vapes off the market, calling them “a new problem in the country.” This was downgraded to a partial ban on flavored pods in January 2020.
Tim Andrews, director of consumer issues at Americans for Tax Reform, said that Trump’s climbdown, like his election-campaign claim, was politically motivated. “Harm reduction is not only good policy, with the potential to save 6.6 million lives in the USA over the next decade, it is also good for politics,” he told Filter.
“When one party threatens to ban the device that saved your life, and one promises to continue allowing you to purchase it, it is obvious who you would vote for.”
Media outcry has ensured that much of the public associates vapes—and flavors in particular—with youth use. But relatively few opponents of vaping will vote on that issue alone. In contrast, polling has shown vapers to be highly motivated single-issue voters.
“This is understandable,” Andrews said. “When one political party threatens to ban the device that saved your life, and one promises to continue allowing you to purchase it, it is obvious who you would vote for.”
Something like 20 million US adults vape—more than enough to potentially tip an election.
It was this realization, rather than any notion of harm reduction, that was the driving force for Trump’s U-turn on flavored vapes. Andrews said that Trump “wisely backtracked” once he was presented with evidence that it could cost him the presidency. “Remembering the lessons from this, he made the strategically smart decision to court the vaping vote in the last election.”
Self-interested as Trump’s stance was, Andrews said he hoped the administration would follow through on it by fast-tracking authorization of reduced-risk alternatives to cigarettes.
Conley wouldn’t be drawn on how hopeful he was about Trump’s government, but similarly noted that, “If President Trump is going to meet his campaign pledge to save flavored vaping, we need genuine reforms to make the PMTA process transparent, achievable and predictable.”
Yet there remain huge political pressures against wider acceptance of flavored vapes. Influential groups, such as the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK) and Parents Against Vaping e-Cigarettes (PAVE), have long framed flavors as responsible for youth vaping. Credulous or cynical media have been all too willing to chase clicks by telling horror stories, and countless politicians have jumped in to score points for “protecting youth.”
Youth, Adults and the Evidence
What’s the reality of the relationship between flavored vapes and youth vaping?
Arielle Selya is a behavioral scientist with a background in adolescent substance use and addiction. The idea that flavors are to blame for youth vaping, she explained, was based on surveys showing that youth who vape overwhelmingly use flavored products.
“But that doesn’t necessarily mean that flavors caused youth uptake, or that banning flavors would reduce youth uptake,” she told Filter.
“Flavor bans have the intended goal of reducing youth vaping, and there’s evidence they accomplish this to some degree, but it’s important to also think about indirect effects.”
Dr. Selya pointed to data from a 2023 paper that showed youth give a variety of reasons for vaping—and flavors aren’t particularly high on the list. Curiosity and “because a friend used them” were the most common reasons (35-40 percent of youth who currently vape) while flavors came in at just under 20 percent.
“Flavor bans usually have the intended goal of reducing youth vaping, and there’s evidence that they accomplish this goal to some degree, but it’s important to also think about the indirect effects of flavor bans,” Selya said. “After all, youth were using tobacco cigarettes in greater proportions 20 years ago.”
Selya noted a range of evidence suggesting that youth smoking and vaping are inversely correlated, and that flavor bans have been followed by increases in cigarette sales.
Michael Siegel, a professor of public health and community medicine at the Tufts University School of Medicine, similarly said that flavor bans had led to increased smoking rates in both adults and youth.
“It needs to be understood that e-cigarettes and tobacco cigarettes are economic substitutes,” Dr. Siegel told Filter. “Banning one will lead to increased use of the other.” While many youth vapers will simply find flavored vapes on the illicit market in the event of a ban, he said, some will switch over to combustible cigarettes—both scenarios representing the opposite of bans’ ostensible aims.
“We found that state restrictions on flavored e-cigarette sales yielded an additional three-to-four daily smokers for every five fewer daily vapers.”
A study published in JAMA Health Forum in December 2024 looked at data from 376, 963 people aged 18-29 in states with flavor restrictions. It found that although there was a 3.6-percent reduction in daily vaping, this came with a 2.2-percent increase in daily smoking, relative to trends in states without restrictions.
“We found that state restrictions on flavored e-cigarette sales yielded an additional three-to-four daily smokers for every five fewer daily vapers,” lead author Abigail S. Friedman, professor of health policy at Yale School of Public Health, told Filter.
When vapes have been estimated to be 95 percent safer than cigarettes, this would appear to be the definition of a public health own goal.
Curiously, however, this pattern wasn’t apparent in Maryland, where a ban was associated with decreases in daily vaping without increased daily smoking in the age group studied.
“While our analysis can’t pin down exactly what drove the difference in Maryland, that state’s flavor restriction differed markedly from other states’ policies,” Dr. Friedman noted.
“In particular, the Maryland policy exempted open-system devices and menthol flavors; that is, it only applied to disposable and cartridge-based vapes with flavors other than tobacco and menthol,” she said. “Most young adults who vape report using disposable e-cigarettes, but maybe those who would have switched to combustible cigarettes under a full flavor ban simply switched to a flavored open-system vape instead?”
Proponents of seeking common ground between pro- and anti-vape positions might find hope in such compromises. Yet others would still question the goal of reducing youth vaping at all costs.
“Among youth, there is no question that the proliferation of e-cigarettes has helped contribute to the near-disappearance of cigarette smoking.”
Smoking kills, while vaping regulated nicotine products have never been demonstrated to do so. And since the advent of vapes, youth smoking has reached an all-time low in the US.
Under the supposed “gateway effect” that tobacco harm reduction’s detractors claim—vaping leading people on to smoking—youth smoking rates would surely have risen after youth vaping peaked in 2019.
Siegel asserted that the population-level effect goes the other way. “Among youth, there is no question that the proliferation of e-cigarettes has helped contribute to the near-disappearance of cigarette smoking,” he said.
A pertinent question, amid evidence of “common liability” to youth nicotine use of whatever kind, is what youth who vape would have been doing instead, if vapes had not been available.
To tobacco harm reduction advocates, the public debate and the policies it drives have always disproportionately focused on youth vaping, associated with relatively few harms, rather than vapes’ role in mitigating the world’s biggest cause of preventable death.
And within this, the evidence that flavors in particular are key to adults who quit smoking is far more than just anecdotal.
“The further away smokers can get from the tobacco experience, including the tobacco flavor, the easier it is to stay away from smoking altogether.”
“Use of fruit and other sweet flavored e-liquids is positively related to smokers’ transition away from cigarettes,” concluded one study. Another found that tailored advice on selecting a flavor—a role long played by vape shops—greatly boosted people’s chances of switching to the less harmful option.
Again, it comes down to harm reduction being most effective when the safer alternative is enjoyable.
Adults’ preference is clear. One cross-sectional survey of 69,233 adults illustrated that US vapers overwhelmingly choose non-tobacco flavors. At the time of quitting cigarettes, 82.8 percent chose fruit flavor vapes. Dessert/pastry/bakery flavors or sweet/chocolate/candy flavors were also popular. But only 15 percent chose tobacco-flavored vapes.
“One reason for this is that the further away smokers can get from the tobacco experience, including the tobacco flavor, the easier it is to stay away from smoking altogether,” Siegel commented.
“Regulators should consider the flavor choice of adult consumers, especially those who quit smoking, when preparing legislation on flavored e-cigarettes,” that 2023 study concluded.
It still hasn’t worked out that way.
What’s at Stake
Skip Murray (who, like Conley, has written for Filter) quit smoking with the help of “rainbow sherbet”-flavored vapes. As a former vape shop owner, she sees flavors as “vital” to adults’ smoking-cessation journeys.
Murray recalled how one elderly woman quit her lifelong smoking habit with the help of cotton candy e-liquid. When she first came to Murray’s shop requesting this flavor, Murray explained that she didn’t stock it, as it was seen as something being marketed to young people.
The woman replied: “Honey, you need to get with the program. We were too poor when I was a kid to afford cotton candy, so now I’m having it whenever I want and any way I want it. Now give me the sweetest thing you got, and I want cotton candy the next time I come here.”
“Many, especially those who have only recently quit smoking, or were still in the process of quitting, have returned to smoking.”
Murray stocked cotton candy from then on, especially for her 82-year-old customer who had quit smoking six months prior. Not everyone is as lucky.
“Many, especially those who have only recently quit smoking, or were still in the process of quitting, have returned to smoking,” Slis said, describing how former customers of his vape shop were dealing with living in states that have banned flavors.
Slis was forced to close his vape shop in Michigan—where a flavor ban was imposed, but ultimately blocked by the courts—after relentless misinformation slowed sales. He still keeps in contact with many of the people he helped to quit smoking.
“I also know quite a few who have friends, or family, who live in flavored markets buy and ship flavored products to them,” he said. ”The rarest response to flavor bans seems to be switching to the tobacco-flavored [vapes].”
“Some have begun purchasing flavored vapor products from the black market,” he continued, “especially in locations like NYC, or other large cities where flavored products can still be purchased through illegal storefronts that have persisted despite a ban.”
“There is too much at stake for vapers. Returning to smoking would be disastrous for their health; many of them will therefore go to great lengths to find flavored e-liquids.”
Studies show that “the demand for flavored e-cigarettes among vapers is simply too high to expect that if flavors are banned, they will all switch to tobacco-flavored products,” Seigel said.
“There is too much at stake for vapers,” he continued. “Returning to smoking would be disastrous for their health; many of them will therefore go to great lengths to find flavored e-liquids, including using the black market.”
The argument for banning flavors prioritizes youth vaping at the expense of harm reduction for those most at risk: the predominantly marginalized people who smoke. That’s objectionable in itself. Yet substantial evidence shows that these bans fail on their own terms—with youth (as well as adults) smoking more; and illicit markets booming, without consumer protections or age controls.
The availability of flavors represents nothing less than the health of adults who have smoked long-term, who have typically been unable to quit through any other means, and who typically find that cotton candy, or whatever else it might be, is the only thing that works for them. Smoking, if they continued, would kill about half of them.
As hopes for secure, long-term access to flavors in the US rest precariously on the courts, or on the Trump administration, or simply on illicit markets doing what regulators should be doing better, this needs to be recognized: It isn’t trivial. For many people, it is life-and-death.
Top photograph (cropped) and inset photograph by Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction via Flickr/Public Domain
R Street Institute supported the production of this article through a restricted grant to The Influence Foundation, which operates Filter. Filter‘s Editorial Independence Policy applies.
Dr. Selya is an employee of Pinney Associates, Inc. which consults to Juul Labs and Philip Morris International (PMI) on noncombustible nicotine products. She also individually provides consulting services on behavioral science to the Center of Excellence for the Acceleration of Harm Reduction (CoEHAR) through ECLAT Srl, which received funding from the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (now Global Action to End Smoking). Her commentary in this article is her own and these funders had no involvement. The Influence Foundation, the nonprofit which operates Filter, has received unrestricted grants from Juul Labs, Inc (previously) and PMI, as well as grants from Global Action to End Smoking. Joe Gitchell, the CEO of Pinney Associates, has made personal donations to The Influence Foundation. Filter’s Editorial Independence Policy applies.
