Teens Find a Big Loophole in the New Flavored Vaping Ban - Policy Loophole Drives Disposable Flavor Switch

Aug 24, 2026

A flavored e-cigarette ban targets most products, yet a policy loophole permits mint, dessert, and fruit flavors to remain available in disposable devices, enabling many teens to shift from Juul to single-use vaping products. Students report that disposables are cheaper, widely accessible, and come in familiar flavor profiles, with higher nicotine exposure than earlier devices. School leaders describe the trend as hard to police, while lawmakers criticize the exemption as insufficient to prevent nicotine addiction.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryHealthcare

FormatPDF

Pages2

Reading Time5 min

AccessFree to download

Overview of the flavored vaping ban

The loophole enabling continued flavors

Teens switching to disposable products

School enforcement challenges

FDA, lawmakers, and youth vaping data

2/5/2020 Teens Find a Big [https://nyti. ms/2OdgMLS](https://nyti. ms/2OdgMLS) Loophole in the New Flavored Vaping Ban-The New York Times Teens Find a Big Loophole in the New Flavored Vaping Ban The policy allows mint, dessert and fruit flavors to continue to be sold in disposable e-cigarettes, prompting many teens to switch from Juul to those devices. By Sheila Kaplan Jan. 31, 2020 The Food and Drug Administration is banning most ﬂavored e-cigarettes, but that isn’t keeping banana ice, sour gummy or cool mint out of the hands of McCracken County High School students. Blame a policy loophole. When the Trump administration decided to prohibit fruit, mint and dessert ﬂavors in reﬁllable cartridge-based ecigarettes like Juul, it carved out a few exceptions to mollify the vape shop owners and adult consumers who complained. The muchpublicized exemption allows menthol and tobacco ﬂavors. But a footnote on page 9 of the new policy permits all ﬂavors to continue to be sold in devices that cannot be reﬁlled and are designed to be disposed of after the ﬂavored nicotine has run dry. Teenagers have caught on fast. “Students were telling me that everybody had gone to Puff Bars, which are disposable,” said Lauren W. Williams, a teacher at McCracken, near Paducah, Ky.“The one we conﬁscated here this week is Banana Ice. Students are not using Juuls anymore because no one wants menthol or tobacco” Juul Labs, the San Francisco-based company that dominates the e-cigarette market, has been widely blamed for igniting the youth vaping epidemic with its fashionable, sleek devices and ﬂavors like mango, mint and creme. The company was feeling so much pressure it voluntarily discontinued all its ﬂavors but menthol and tobacco last fall. But the holes in the government’s ﬂavor ban have merely opened the door to an array of competing brands that produce disposables, like Puff Bars, blu, Posh and Stig. The pre-charged, pre-ﬁlled devices are made by domestic companies and imported from China. Some have a higher nicotine level than Juul. “It’s rampant,” Kristina Rodgers, the principal of Roosevelt High School in Seattle, said of the rising use of disposable vaping devices. “We’re still back on Juul,” Ms. Rodgers continued, describing school administrators’ approach to policing teen vaping. But, she said, the students tell her,“ʻJuul’s so yesterday, we’ve moved on ’ ” She concluded: “Teens are very savvy and if they are addicted, they are going to do what it takes to continue a habit that is now plaguing their lives” Daniella Roth, a high school junior in Newport Beach, Calif., started vaping mint and other ﬂavored Juuls when she was in tenth grade. About ﬁve months ago, she said, she switched to Puff Bar, which she buys from other students. Costing between $7 and $10 per disposable ecigarette, Puff Bar is cheaper than Juul. “For me it wasn’t about it being easier to get, it was more cost-effective. I’d have to save up $30 to buy a pack of Juul pods,” Daniella said. “Puff came out as the new popular thing that every single kid was doing and I hopped on that fad,” she explained.“They have ﬂavors like the Juul ﬂavors. It’s basically like smoking a Juul ” Daniella said she is trying to quit, but has not yet succeeded—although she is down from vaping all day long to taking just a few hits in the morning and a few more before bed. If she doesn’t vape, she said,“I get all shaky” Bennett Kelly, a high school senior from Costa Mesa, Calif. has also switched to Puff Bar. “They have the best ﬂavoring,” he said.“They have the most nicotine content,” He also smokes cigarettes, and says that rather than replacing traditional cigarettes, the e-cigarettes increase his cravings to smoke. “It just feeds the habit,” he said. If you are vaping, he said,“you’re going to gradually want a cigarette” Bennett said that he believes teenagers would stop vaping if the ﬂavors were not available. “If people just sold straight tobac

FAQs

What loophole allows flavored vaping to continue after the new FDA ban?

A footnote permits flavored e-cigarettes to keep being sold in devices that are not refillable and are designed to be disposed of after the flavored nicotine runs out.

Why did many students switch from Juul to disposable vaping devices?

Students report the disposables are cheaper and offer flavor options similar to the flavors they previously used, making them more cost-effective and appealing.

How do educators describe efforts to control teen vaping?

Administrators say they are still focused on Juul, but students say they have moved on to disposable brands, making enforcement harder.

Aug 24, 2026

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