Attorney General Bonta Urges FDA to Reverse Guidance Easing Sales of Flavored E-Cigarettes

OAKLAND — California Attorney General Rob Bonta yesterday joined a bipartisan coalition of 21 attorneys general in submitting a comment letter urging the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to abandon draft guidance that would ease approvals for flavored e-cigarette products, widely understood to disproportionately worsen youth addiction. Federal law requires that all e-cigarette products receive authorization from the FDA before they can be legally marketed or sold in the United States. The FDA had authorized only tobacco and menthol flavors until May 5, 2026, when it approved two fruit-flavored products. Despite such limited authorization, the market remains flooded with hundreds of thousands of unauthorized flavored products sold in violation of state and federal law. Compounding their previous failures, on May 8, the FDA issued a press release announcing it would not prioritize enforcement against vapes and nicotine pouches marketed without necessary FDA authorization.

“What happened to ‘Make America Healthy Again’? The Trump Administration has failed to deliver lower costs for working families — and, once again, it is failing to safeguard public health,” said Attorney General Bonta. “E-cigarettes are highly addictive and pose significant health risks, with flavored products disproportionately drawing in younger users. My fellow attorneys general and I are calling on the FDA to reverse course and prioritize public health over industry interests.” 

Two months ago, on March 11, FDA released draft guidance that would ignore years of evidence and ease the path to approval for certain flavored products. The guidance opines, ignoring FDA’s own science and history, that certain flavors such as coffees, tea, spices, menthol, and mint are “lower risk” flavors for youth addiction. In reality, extensive research shows that flavored products of all kinds are favored by youth over unflavored tobacco.  

Many jurisdictions have enacted flavored tobacco bans. For example, in California, Senate Bill 793 (Hill, 2020) banned flavored tobacco products (subject to certain exceptions) and tobacco product flavor enhancers. Assembly Bill 3218 (Wood, 2024), which went into effect on January 1, 2025, amended the flavor ban by expanding the definition of flavored products, expanding enforcement power, and creating an Unflavored Tobacco List (UTL). The UTL is a list of unflavored tobacco products that are lawful for sale in California. The Attorney General published the UTL on December 31, 2025.

Attorney General Bonta recently co-led a bipartisan coalition of 25 attorneys general and the City of New York in sending letters to nine major credit card and payment processing companies urging them to take stronger action to prevent the unlawful sale of tobacco and nicotine products, particularly e-cigarettes, online and at brick-and-mortar stores. He also joined a bipartisan coalition of 22 attorneys general in submitting a comment letter to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services supporting continuation of the National Youth Tobacco Survey, which is an annual study that assesses smoking and vaping among middle and high school students.

Joining Attorney General Bonta in sending today’s letter are the attorneys general of Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wisconsin.