Tobacco 2024: Menthol Miss, Enhanced Enforcement, Youth Vaping Declines and More

A proposed menthol ban is delayed again. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) create a federal multi-agency task force to combat the illegal distribution and sale of e-cigarettes. And youth e-cigarette use drops to lowest level in a decade. All this and more made the headlines in 2024.

Click through to read the top news stories and trends from this year in tobacco …

The White House delayed its planned menthol cigarette ban earlier this year, the persistent question for the convenience-store industry now centers around what happens next? 

“Now that former President Donald Trump has been elected and will be installing his own leadership at HHS [Health and Human Services] and the FDA [Food and Drug Administration], one possible scenario is that his administration prevents the rules from being finalized, consistent with first term where he reduced federal regulations,” said David Spross, executive director of NATO, a tobacco retailing association based in Lakeville, Minnesota. 

The White House delayed its planned menthol cigarette ban following “immense” feedback and “historic” attention, according to a statement from U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra on April 26.

The final rules have been under review by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) since October 2023. This is step eight of the nine-step federal rulemaking process. 

In an effort to combat the illegal distribution and sale of e-cigarettes, this past June the FDA and the DOJ formed an interagency task force to emphasize an “all-government” approach regarding unauthorized vape sales.

The federal multi-agency task force includes various agencies, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. Postal Inspection Service and Federal Trade Commission (FTC).  The FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products Director Brian King said enforcement against illegal e-cigarettes is a “multi-pronged issue” that requires a “multi-pronged response.”

“This ‘all government’ approach—including the creation of this new task force—will bring the collective resources and experience of the federal government to bear on this pressing public health issue,” King said. 

The Food and Drug Administration, in collaboration with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), seized about three million units of unauthorized e-cigarette products, with an estimated retail value of $76 million. The products included various brands of illegal e-cigarettes, including Geek Bar.  The seizures were part of a July joint operation, which examined incoming shipments and prevention of illegal e-cigarettes from entering the country. 

As of Dec. 5, the FDA has authorized 34 e-cigarette products and devices.

E-cigarette use among U.S. youth dropped to its lowest level in a decade, according to the recently released data from the 2024 National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS).

The survey, from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), found the number of youth who used e-cigarettes in 2024 is “approximately one-third of what it was at its peak in 2019, when over 5 million youth reported current e-cigarette use,” the FDA said in a statement this past fall.

The agency noted that over the past year unauthorized Elf Bar products, which are a popular brand among youth, had a substantive drop in youth reporting use of this brand’s e-cigarette products. Under the Elf Bar brand there was a decline among U.S. youth use from 56.7% in 2023 to 36.1% in 2024, the agency said.

The findings of the NYTS were collected between Jan. 22 and May 22. 

The Food and Drug Administration advanced its proposed rule in mid December to establish a maximum nicotine level in cigarettes and certain finished tobacco products.

The proposed rule, Tobacco Product Standard for Nicotine Level of Certain Tobacco Products, was entered Dec. 10, into the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Regulatory Information Service Center (ROCIS) system, which is part of the standard OMB review of regulatory documents, the FDA said.

“A proposed product standard to establish a maximum nicotine level to reduce the addictiveness of cigarettes and certain other combusted tobacco products, when finalized, would be among the most impactful population-level actions in the history of U.S. tobacco product regulation,” the FDA said in a statement.

This  regulation is “misguided as cigarette smoking rates are already declining and at historic lows,” National Association of Tobacco Outlets (NATO) Executive Director David Spross told CSP. Spross said the regulation would “have consequences to licensed retailers which will include significant lost revenue, coupled with job losses across the country.”

The American Lung Association’s President and CEO Harold Wimmer issued a statement on the FDA's move, calling the proposal a game-changer in the country's efforts to eliminate tobacco use. 

“Making tobacco products non-addictive would dramatically reduce the number of young people who become hooked when they are experimenting," he said. "To fully address the toll of tobacco on our nation’s health and across all communities, it is critical to reduce nicotine levels to non-addictive levels in all commercial tobacco products, including e-cigarettes. The Lung Association looks forward to reviewing the proposed rule and providing our comments to FDA.” 

The FDA’s comprehensive plan was first introduced in March 2018 under then-FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb. The agency shelved those plans when Gottlieb left the agency in 2019.

The U.S. Supreme Court in late November said it will not hear a challenge to a 2020 Food and Drug Administration federal rule that would require graphic health warnings on cigarette packs and advertisements. 

The court’s decision leaves in place an earlier ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that upheld the FDA's proposed warnings. 

A federal appeals court determined in March that the FDA’s regulation that requires graphic warning labels on cigarette packages and advertisements is constitutional.

The graphic health warnings are part of the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which was signed into law on June 22, 2009, and gives FDA authority to regulate the manufacture, distribution and marketing of tobacco products, according to the FDA website. The Food and Drug Administration said it will not enforce the final rule until Dec. 12, 2025.  

Continued regulatory pressures, on-going cigarette declines and changing consumer dynamics has put tobacco at a nexus point, Boris Oglesby, executive vice president and practice leader of alcoholic beverages and tobacco at Chicago market research firm Circana, said in an education session at CSP’s Tobacco Plus Forum in Schaumburg, Illinois.

“Everybody wants to move consumers to a more reduced harm product and reduce combustibles, which are cigarettes and cigars, usage,” Oglesby said.

With increased focus, Oglesby said the convenience channel can support the tobacco industry’s desire to provide reduced harm products and moderate category performance. Signaling out one segment, Oglesby called modern oral tobacco the “industry darling.”

Goldman Sachs Analyst Bonnie Herzog shared at the September forum how convenience retailers are changing their tobacco sets to adjust to the evolving consumer. Herzog said retailers are allocating more space to oral nicotine products and e-cigarettes. 

“The future will be more space allocated, in my opinion, to smoke-free because I think ultimately that’s where consumers are going to continue to gravitate,” she said.  

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