Appeals Court Says FDA Can Regulate E-Cigarettes Like Other Tobacco Products

A federal appeals court said this week that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) can regulate e-cigarettes like it does other tobacco products including conventional cigarettes, The Washington Post reports.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said e-cigarettes are “indisputably highly addictive and pose health risks, especially to youth, that are not well understood.”

The court said it disagreed with the industry’s stance that the ban on distributing free samples of tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, is unconstitutional and violates the First Amendment. “Given the relatively unknown and potentially grave risks of e-cigarettes to all users, and their extraordinary allure to middle and high school students, we cannot agree,” the judges wrote.