FLAVORED VAPES ARE BACK — While top tobacco regulators dawdle over the e-cigarette industry’s fate, another class of vape is quietly restocking the market with unregulated, flavored products — and it’s drawing in a growing number of kids, POLITICO’s Katherine Ellen Foley writes. The problem? To users, these vapes are identical. But because of an obscure loophole, they skirt the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory umbrella. Unlike traditional cigarette and vape products that contain tobacco-derived nicotine — an addictive stimulant — these vapes contain lab-made nicotine. That difference puts synthetic vapes beyond the FDA’s reach, which means that manufacturers freely sell fruity- or dessert-flavored products popular among teens. While these products are only legally available to adults over 21, that hasn’t stopped teens before: A 2021 survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 28.6 percent of middle and high school students who vape used a synthetic nicotine brand called Puff Bar. “Whatever drops in the bucket they’ve made to try to combat youth e-cigarette use, synthetic nicotine has completely undermined it,” Natalie Hemmerich, a senior staff attorney at the Public Health Law Center, who focuses on federal tobacco policy, said. The FDA insists it’s looking into the issue, but it’s a growing concern for antismoking advocates and lawmakers. Puff Bar pivoted to synthetic — or tobacco-free — nicotine in early 2021, after the FDA ordered it to stop selling its tobacco-derived flavored products in 2020. The backstory: Patrick Beltran, the chief executive officer and co-founder of Puff Bar, said the move is meant to serve their adult customers looking for an alternative to cigarettes. “Adults like the flavors,” he said. “Just because we have flavors doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re marketing to kids.” Beltran said that if kids are using his product, it’s because vendors aren’t checking their age or they’re getting it from someone else. “It's like kids, now, and how they get alcohol,” he said. “You go to any high school party, there’s gonna be alcohol there.” THE LAST BATTLE OF GIANTS — Retiring Sens.Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) andRichard Shelby (R-Ala.) are laying 35 years of experience working together on the line, hoping to cut a massive deal on government spending to avoid the string of stopgap funding patches and shutdown threats that have plagued Congress for months. Few are particularly upbeat about their prospects. But if anyone can overcome election-year partisanship, it’s the Appropriations Committee leaders, POLITICO’s Burgess Everett and Jennifer Scholtes write. “If you wanted the plainest Exhibit A for the argument that it’s a good idea to have members serve a long time together, it’d be these two,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), a member of the Appropriations panel, said. The stakes: Leahy and Shelby have just a few weeks to determine whether their negotiations succeed or fail, meaning they would have to keep the government on inefficient autopilot or, in the worst-case scenario, risk a shutdown. Already, another short-term stopgap is in the works to avoid a Feb. 18 shutdown, carving out a bit more time for the crafty senators to cut a deal. The Senate’s spending leaders have had their spats, including in the past year. Shelby blocked action last fall on funding bills, demanding the two parties first strike a grand deal on overall spending levels. “They both like to spend money,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said. Shelby is “a master negotiator … I’ve watched him buy rugs over in the Middle East. He's really good.” Next year, a massive shift awaits the exits of Leahy and Shelby, who have served a combined 82 years in the Senate — the vast majority of them together. They will likely be replaced atop the plum spending panel by Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine).
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