Last updated on December 9th, 2015 at 01:59 pm
Ahead of some of the most sweeping changes to rules governing cigars and e-cigarettes, industry groups and health advocates have been meeting with White House officials to offer suggestions.
The federal Office of Management and Budget is conducting a final review of the new regulations, which move cigars and e-cigs under the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the first time.
According to the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS), as of Dec. 4, 21 meetings have been held to talk about the upcoming rules with more meetings set for December. NACS officials believe the new rules will likely not be ready until 2016.
Tobacco and electronic cigarette industry representatives have dominated the bulk of the meetings, especially because of a potential “grandfather date” for e-cigs in an earlier version of the rules. The proposed rules say that any tobacco product first on the shelves after Feb. 15, 2007, would need to retroactively apply for FDA approval.
Meanwhile, health advocates have pushed for release of the rules sooner.
“E-cigarette manufacturers have been on notice since at least 2011 that FDA planned to regulate their products, but they have taken advantage of the delay in regulation to introduce kid-friendly flavors, and now they want to limit FDA review of those products, which we think is absurd,” said Vince Willmore, VP of communications for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
However, according to NACS, the debate centers more on who has the power to change the grandfather date: the administration or an act of Congress. The FDA has noted it lacks the authority to do so because the date was set in the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009.
In March 2014, NACS encouraged stores selling e-cigarettes to adopt, as a best practice, a policy of treating these products as age restricted and subjecting them to the same age-verification procedures as those applicable to tobacco products.
