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US: Florida Files Complaints Against Vaping Companies

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Ashley Moody, Florida Attorney General, has announced that her office is taking legal action against two vaping companies in the state since they are marketing their products to minors. The Attorney General’s office has added that they are investigating 19 other vape businesses in Florida. The complaints against Lizard Juice LLC and Creative Vape Labs INC, assert that these companies are selling their products to minors and they are not verifying the customer’s age properly. 

Ashley Moody said “The investigation showed the defendants used marketing tactics including labeling similar to some children breakfast cereal products and video games giveaways to entice children to buy their addictive products,” and she has added, “As a mother, I’m angered and appalled at this blatant attempt to attract minors to addictive products.” 

The Attorney General has aimed to stop any marketing that targets minors and in addition to this, she said that the aim of the action against two businesses is to prevent the use of cartoons in the advertising of the products that contain nicotine. The Attorney General’s office has said that they are investigating 19 other vape companies, as part of an investigation that was originally started in October.

Vape Shops Play a Key Role in Smoking Cessation

Meanwhile, a study that was made in 2019 has stated that vape shops actually play an important role in supporting smokers who switch to safer products such as e-cigarettes and snus.

The aim of the study titled, “‘I Felt Welcomed in Like They’re a Little Family in There, I Felt Like I Was Joining a Team or Something’: Vape Shop Customers’ Experiences of E-Cigarette Use, Vape Shops, and the Vaping Community,” is to understand smokers’ experiences of vaping and vape shops and the extent to which smoking cessation advice is should be provided by these outlets. 

The researchers had conducted telephone interviews with 22 customers who were recruited in vape shops in the East Midlands region of England and analyzed the smoking histories of the participants, the reasons why they were using e-cigarettes, the role of vape shops in their e-cigarettes use, and if smoking cessation was discussed in vape shops or not.

The results of this study had indicated that the participants regarded e-cigarettes as a tool for quitting smoking and shown very positive experiences of vaping. In addition to this, the participants said that vape shops play a key role in their positive experiences since vape shops provided access to a large variety of high-quality and safer products and reliable information and advice of these products for them.

All of this information and studies point out one specific thing. Safer products such as e-cigarettes are the products that people tend to use when they quit smoking. Some groups believe that banning vaping will be increasing the number of smokers which is worse than anything else. In addition to this, it can be added that most e-cigarette users never go back to smoking. This research also shows that most smokers regard vape shops as a quitting tool.