A study released last month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found a 46.6% increase in the monthly unit sales of e-cigarettes between 2020 and 2022. The number of brands available also increased, as did the sales of flavors that appeal to youth, such as candies, desserts and fruits.
Robin Koval, president and CEO of Truth Initiative, said in a CDC news release that the "tobacco industry is well aware that flavors appeal to and attract kids, and that young people are uniquely vulnerable to nicotine addiction."
"While we are encouraged by FDA's recent actions to curb unlawful marketing of flavored e-cigarettes," Koval said, "we all must work with even greater urgency to protect our nation’s youth from all flavored e-cigarettes, including disposables."
Truth Initiative is a nonprofit public health organization committed to combating tobacco use and nicotine addiction.
The CDC study published June 22 reported total sales in January 2020 of 15.5 million units, increasing to 22.7 million units in December 2020, the CDC states in a press release announcing the study. During that same period, e-cigarette brands jumped from 184 to 269, an increase of 46.2%, according to the release. The decrease in sales of prefilled devices (75.2% to 48%) and increase in sales of disposables (24.7% to 51.8%) was attributed to the Food and Drug Administration's announcement in January 2020 that it would enforce regulations against pre-filled flavored e-cigarettes, according to the release.
“The surge in total e-cigarette sales during 2020-2022 was driven by non-tobacco flavored e-cigarette sales, such as menthol, which dominates the prefilled cartridge market, and fruit and candy flavors, which lead the disposable e-cigarette market," Fatma Romeh, a health economist at the CDC foundation and lead author of the study, said in the release. "Data from the 2022 National Youth Tobacco Survey also highlight the popularity of these flavored e-cigarettes among U.S. middle and high school students."
The study reported also on which brands were the best-selling, with Vuse, JUUL, Elf Bar, NJOY, and Breeze Smoke as the top five selling e-cigarette brands in December 2022; Elf Bar emerged as the most popular disposable brand in the United States, according to the news release. Elf Bar (now marketed as EBDESIGN) was the top disposable brand among a youth age 16 years to 19 years old in the U.S. in August 2022, and was responsible for driving recent, sharp increases in e-cigarette use among youth age 16 to 19 in England, the release reports.
The study examined retail sales data from Information Resources, Inc., and included only Universal Product Code (UPC) sales from brick-and-mortar retailers. The age of purchasers and sales information from tobacco speciality businesses, vape shops and online retailers was not included in the data, according to the CDC.
"The dramatic spikes in youth e-cigarette use back in 2017 and 2018, primarily driven by JUUL, showed us how quickly e-cigarette sales and use patterns can change," Deirdre Lawrence Kittner, director of CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health, said in the release. "Retail sales data are key to providing real-time information on the rapidly changing e-cigarette landscape, which is essential to reducing youth tobacco use."
