FDA considers drug therapy to fight teen vaping problem

The Food and Drug Administration is considering drug therapy to combat teen vaping, but doctors, parents and teens themselves are pressing the FDA to make it more difficult for young people to get vaping products.

“Strong tobacco control policy aimed at keeping these products away from adolescents may be more effective in achieving adolescent cessation than medical interventions,” said Dr. Susanne Tanski, a member of the tobacco consortium of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

“Indeed, it is likely that nothing FDA does to advance tobacco dependence treatment for adolescents will be as powerful or effective as addressing the availability of flavored e-cigarette products that are attracting and sustaining youth use,” Dr. Tanski said Friday during a public hearing at the FDA’s campus at White Oak, Maryland.

The agency convened health professionals, parents and teens to discuss the role of drug therapies to eliminate electronic cigarette and other tobacco use by young people — a situation the U.S. surgeon general has called an “epidemic.”

The percentage of teenagers who smoke is at its lowest level ever, at 5 percent. But the number of teens who vape has risen faster over a one-year period than it has for any other illicit substance. An estimated 3.6 million teens reported using e-cigarettes in 2018, a 78 percent increase from the previous year, according to the National Youth Tobacco Survey.

Additionally, more teens have reported being addicted to nicotine and their vaping devices — predominantly Juul, a USB-size tool that uses cartridges filled with a flavored, liquid-nicotine mixture equal in strength to a pack of cigarettes.

“I used to [use Juul] and I’ve stopped using it, but it’s hard because it’s just everywhere,” Philip Fuhrman, 15, told The Washington Times at the FDA event. “That’s one of hardest reasons to stop is because it’s so accessible — online, in stores, all of my friends have it so if I really need to try and find one I can.”

Philip, who first used a Juul in eighth grade, said its mint flavor coupled with the nicotine head rush that attracted him the most.

The FDA has stopped short of a strict ban on mint and menthol vaping products, noting that e-cigarettes have helped adults quit smoking. But the agency has banned the sale of other youth-targeted flavors, cited more than 1,300 stores for selling devices to underage children and issued social media warnings about the dangers of vaping.

Health professionals and anti-smoking advocates argue that banning mint and menthol would pose little harm to current adult cigarette smokers.

“We’re specifically advocating at this moment on the federal and national level and on state levels for a flavor ban,” Meredith Berkman, co-founder of the grass-roots Parents Against Vaping E-cigarettes (PAVE), said at Friday’s FDA event.

“Everybody wants to reduce harm,” said Ms. Berkman, whose teen son has used Juul products. “We don’t want to ban the vape. We don’t want to ban the Juul.”

Meanwhile, the FDA is considering medications to curb teen vaping, though no drug therapies have yet been approved for young people. Current treatments for adults include skin patches, chewing gum and lozenges, and prescription medication for nicotine replacement therapy.

Kelly Kinard, a mother from North Carolina, sent her 14-year-old son to an inpatient substance abuse treatment center in California to break his Juul addiction. Her story was profiled in The Wall Street Journal, and since then, she said she has heard from parents across the country echoing her experience.

“At first we thought he had some undiagnosed psychiatric issue, because of the way he was acting and then we connected it with, oh wait, he started Juuling and that’s when the behavior changed,” she told The Times.

“My son’s symptoms were severe and unusual, I thought, at the time. I thought they were unusual, but now, hearing from parents all over, they’re not as unusual. It’s just that the parents aren’t talking about them because there’s a feeling of shame when you’re good kid, suddenly isn’t acting so good.”