“Puff Bar,” the new teen vape fave

It is estimated that 2.05 million American youth use electronic cigarettes (“e-cigs” or “vapes”).

The epidemic of youth nicotine vaping has resulted in long-overdue regulatory crackdown by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In 2020 the FDA began banning most flavored vape cartridges. ( 85 % of middle and high school e-cigarette users favor flavored products).

“The agency had nearly wiped out the use of flavors in devices like Juul, once the teenage favorite, that could be refilled with pods in flavors like crème brûlée and mango. Jumping into the breach, though, companies like the teen favorite Puff Bar are selling disposable devices filled with candy flavors and tobacco-free or synthetic nicotine.” (NY Times 3/8/22).

Puff Bar offers flavors like Banana Ice and Cool Mint.

The new “tobacco-free” vape devices and products using synthetic nicotine have been exploiting the regulatory gap that gives the FDA the authority to regulate tobacco products.

“These companies like Puff Bar and others are deliberately driving their trucks of poison through this huge loophole,” said Meredith Berkman, a founder of Parents Against Vaping E-Cigs. (NY Times).

Puff Bar, originally a tobacco-based product, had been banned by the FDA in 2020. Purchased by two Southern California businessmen, Nick Minas and Patrick Beltran, Puff Bar was reformulated to use synthetic nicotine.

"It kind of looks like a Juul device and, you know, it has flavors and it tastes good, it's easy, it's disposable," Beltran said. "So I think it was just very appealing to the mass consumer market as the next step past what a Juul device is." (CBS News 11/19/21).

Puff Bar is now the teen favorite (26.1 %), replacing the iconic Juul brand. (CDC/ 2021 National Youth Tobacco Survey).

In April 2022 new legislation was enacted giving the FDA the authority to regulate NTN (non-tobacco nicotine).

(Patrick Crouse0