From the Community | Vaping is only growing and our children will pay the price

On June 20, the Supreme Court delivered a decision that should alarm every parent, educator and public health official in America. By ruling that vape companies can challenge FDA denials in favorable courts, the justices granted a legal shortcut to an industry that’s addicted to something far more dangerous than nicotine — profit at the expense of children’s health.

As someone who researches tobacco marketing with Stanford Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising (SRITA), I’ve spent years studying how these companies target young people: bright colors, fruity flavors, trendy aesthetics and social media posts that blur the line between an ad and a vibe. In my work with SRITA, we’ve analyzed hundreds of vape ads using models barely out of high school, scenes of parties and friendship and even candy-themed packaging — tactics nearly identical to what Big Tobacco used to hook teens on Marlboros in the 1980s. It’s not subtle. It’s strategic.

And it’s working.

The 2024 National Youth Tobacco Survey found that 1.63 million kids — 5.9% of all U.S. middle and high school students — were current e-cigarette users. Over a quarter (26.3%) of those kids were using them daily. Another 38.4% reported vaping on at least 20 of the past 30 days. That’s not experimentation, it’s addiction.

More than 87% of youth e-cigarette users are hooked on flavored products, mostly fruit, candy or menthol flavors – flavors the FDA has not authorized for sale, yet remain widely available in gas stations, corner stores and online. The most popular brand? Elf Bar, a disposable vape that’s supposedly illegal, but still dominates the market through a thinly disguised rebrand: EBDESIGN.

Let me be clear: Elf Bars are not niche. In 2024, 36.1% of youth vapers reported using them far more than legacy brands like JUUL. This is a crisis, and our federal response is collapsing under the weight of missed deadlines and industry lawsuits. The FDA, under court order, was supposed to finish reviewing e-cigarette marketing applications by Sept. 9, 2021. It missed that deadline, and the one set for June 2024. 

In short, the FDA has denied marketing for millions of flavored e-cigarette products, yet they remain on shelves due to ongoing litigation and lack of enforcement. Many companies exploited another loophole — switching to synthetic nicotine to avoid regulation altogether. Congress closed that gap in 2022, giving the FDA clear authority to eradicate those products. But still, they remain.

In my research, I’ve studied how vaping ads lean into youthful emotions — happiness, success, belonging — while ignoring the real stakes. The U.S. Surgeon General has confirmed that nicotine harms adolescent brain development, affecting memory, attention and learning. Today’s e-cigarettes often deliver nicotine levels equal to 20 packs of cigarettes.

And the risks aren’t just developmental. In the past year alone, poison control centers reported more than 7,000 e-cigarette-related exposures, nearly 90% involving kids under five. 43 resulted in hospitalization.

We are not protecting children. We are enabling an industry that markets to them, poisons them and then blames “bad choices” when their lungs give out.

What’s most disturbing is how closely this all mirrors the playbook of cigarette advertising. At SRITA, I’ve reviewed decades of ads that once claimed “More Doctors Smoke Camels Than Any Other Cigarette.” Today, we see influencers pushing nicotine bars with rainbow lights and hashtags. Different era, same deception.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We’ve made progress before. We taxed and restricted cigarettes out of every corner store and school locker room. But this time, the tools we’ve built — like FDA oversight — are being undercut by litigation, missed deadlines and now, a Supreme Court ruling that lets vape companies pick their judges.

To fix this, Congress must step up where agencies have failed. We need a nationwide ban on all flavored e-cigarettes, including disposables and synthetic nicotine products. We need to close enforcement loopholes that allow illegal products to linger for years. And we need a public health message that speaks directly to youth, not just in warnings, but in accountability for the corporations profiting from their addiction.

As someone who’s watched friends struggle to quit vapes they picked up at 14, I cannot stay silent while an entire generation is hurt by a system that saw profit more clearly than pain.

This is not just about policies. It’s about kids. And right now, they are losing. Because if legal technicalities are more powerful than science, justice and children’s health, then we’ve already lost far more than a court case. We’ve lost a generation.

Abhinav Anne is a youth advisor to the World Health Organization, where he advises on global initiatives related to nicotine addiction, youth mental health and children’s health equity. He is also a research assistant at Stanford University, working with the Stanford Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising (SRITA) Institute, where he studies the tactics used by tobacco and e-cigarette companies to market addictive products to adolescents. His work focuses on youth-targeted advertising, regulatory policy and the intersection of public health and behavioral science.

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