FDA issues warning letters to companies who continue to sell unauthori - Northland Vapor Company

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FDA issues warning letters to companies who continue to sell unauthorized vape products

March 11, 2020

FDA issues warning letters to companies who continue to sell unauthorized vape products

and guess what? They are all convenience stores and gas stations. Yesterday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued 22 warning letters to online and brick and mortar retailers across the country who sell flavored cartridge-based eLiquid systems and products, advising them that selling these products which lack marketing authorization, is illegal.

As announced earlier this year, the FDA is prioritizing enforcement against flavored, cartridge-based products other than tobacco or menthol flavors, for whatever sense that makes. The FDA is also looking to tackle other vape products for which the manufacturer has failed to take adequate measures to prevent underage access, or companies that have been promoted to children, because remember this whole thing started because nobody was thinking of the children!

Under these new policy guidelines companies that do not cease manufacture, distribution, and sale of these unauthorized tobacco products risk FDA regulatory actions ranging from warning letters to injunction, including seizure and/or civil money penalty actions.

Interestingly the targets of these letters were quite geographically specific, but perhaps much less interesting is the fact they are all major chains of convenience retailers.  The following retailers received a warning letter:

  • 7-Eleven (#35433J), DC
  • 7-Eleven, (#27905E), DC
  • 7-Eleven, Baltimore, MD
  • 7-Eleven (#34577), Hialeah, FL
  • Chevron / Food Mart, Houston, TX
  • Citgo/The Filling Station, Waupaca, WI
  • Citgo/Quik Mart, Stone Mountain, GA
  • Conoco, Aurora, CO
  • Covington Food Mart/Shell, Lithonia, GA
  • Marathon, Arlington, TN
  • Mobil, Mundelein, IL
  • Pilot Travel Center 149, Stanton, TN
  • Shell, Houston, TX
  • Shell, Stone Mountain, GA
  • Sunoco/Food Mart, Fort Myers, FL
  • Tiger Mart, Columbia, MO

An odd list, right? It's almost like they told their regional FDA agents to go drive around and look for any store selling mango Juul pods still.  Will anything come of these letters? Probably not.  Is this just the FDA signalling that they are still attempting to be relevant now that the vape scare is basically dead and overshadowed by the hottest virus going around the globe?  Most certainly.



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