Bloomberg Vows to Ban Flavored E-Cigarettes, Fight Tobacco

(Bloomberg) -- Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg vowed Wednesday to ban all flavored e-cigarettes and move to reduce tobacco use and nicotine exposure.

The former New York mayor said the move was necessary to protect children who he says are targeted by tobacco companies with products designed to attract them.

“Today one in four high school students are addicted to vaping and it’s a brand new thing. It’s so bad,” he said on ABC’s “The View.”

President Donald Trump made a similar pledge after a wave of respiratory illnesses and deaths linked to vaping, but later stepped back from the move, allowing menthol flavored e-cigarettes and any liquid flavorings that are not in a cartridge to remain on the market.

”President Trump promised to remove flavored e-cigarettes from the market back in September, but instead he has bent over backwards to protect the tobacco lobby’s profits,” Bloomberg said in a statement released by his campaign. “We need a leader who will stand up to the industry and protect our children’s health.”

Bloomberg released a new television ad faulting the Trump administration’s e-cigarette policy. He said he would direct the Food and Drug Administration to prohibit the sale of all flavored e-cigarettes and all menthol-flavored tobacco products, raise the federal cigarette tax by $1 per pack and increase taxes on other products like cigars and chewing tobacco.

Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.

To contact the reporter on this story: Magan Crane in Washington at mcrane19@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Michael Shepard

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