Justin Leventhal is a senior policy analyst for the American Consumer Institute, a nonprofit education and research organization.

Quitting smoking isn’t easy. I started smoking when I was 18 years old – legal at the time – and continued for the better part of two decades. For the last five of those, I was actively trying to quit. After cutting back and attempting to go cold turkey didn’t work, I tried nicotine gum. At the time, no vaping products had been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

That changed in 2021, when the FDA began authorizing some vaping products. After trying more traditional methods for two more years, I decided to give vaping a chance. Only two flavors had been approved: tobacco and menthol. Having never liked menthol, I tried the tobacco-flavored vape, which I found disgusting. I quickly switched back to smoking.

Then I tried a flavored vape – yes, one of those sweet fruit flavors – and after five years of failed attempts to quit, I was cigarette-free within two months.

But that avenue of ending a dangerous habit has been shut down.

Flavored vapes are better for us than cigarettes

In April, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the FDA can continue to reject flavored vaping products – even ones that meet the same safety standards as vapes it already approved. Just because the FDA can deny adult smokers access to effective tools to quit doesn’t mean it should. Unfortunately, the FDA seems intent to continue doing just that.

The second Trump administration has an opportunity to reverse course and undo the flavor ban he imposed during his first term. Flavored vaping products have repeatedly outperformed other methods of quitting smoking. And the studies keep coming.

A growing body of research, including studies from the Annals of Internal Medicine and the London South Bank University, consistently finds that flavored vapes with supportive text messages help smokers quit more effectively than any other method.

Other research from the National Institutes of Health shows that flavored vapes are more effective even without including outside support.

Major health institutions like the Royal College of Physicians and journals such as Nature have found that vaping is substantially less harmful than smoking.

Smokers like me lost an effective tool to quit

Helping smokers switch from combustible cigarettes to safer alternatives could prevent thousands of deaths a year and reduce health care costs for patients and public health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid, according to a groundbreaking study from the American Consumer Institute, where I work as an economist.

Despite this, some critics point to studies suggesting that vaping flavored vapes can be particularly dangerous due to higher concentrations of lead and other toxic chemicals in some flavored vapes. Other critics have pointed out that some chemicals used for flavor can increase the danger from heavy metals.

However, the products highlighted in these studies are not federally approved, and the FDA should have weeded them out of the market.

Rather than focusing on banning safe products, the FDA should focus on protecting consumers. Instead, they leave them to guess which brands meet the legal risk standards and which don’t.

As with other misguided bans, the prohibition on flavored vapes didn’t eliminate them from the market; rather it created a black market with unknown risks for the same people the FDA thought it was helping.

Even when 18-year-olds could legally buy tobacco products, there were concerns about youth nicotine use, just as there are today. The modern concern put forward by the FDA – and many others – is that flavored vapes are designed to appeal to kids.

The concern is understandable but misguided. Another study we did on the issue found that youth nicotine use is declining, even as vaping has largely replaced smoking among underage nicotine users. While underage users do choose vapes over cigarettes, overall nicotine use has fallen, and without the supposed “gateway” to more kids smoking.

The FDA has the ability to give legal access to a smoking cessation method that could be a lifesaving tool for adult smokers like me. By approving flavored vapes under the same safety standards as the tobacco and menthol flavor vapes that the FDA already allows, it can give adult smokers access to regulated lower-risk alternatives ‒ and starve unsafe black market products of customers.

The only thing standing in the way of regulated access is the FDA itself. Its failure to approve flavored vape products that meet safety standards puts lives and health at risk.

The second Trump administration should direct the FDA to stop stonewalling flavored vapes and allow those that meet safety standards. During his reelection campaign, President Trump promised to “save vaping,” and now is his chance. Smokers deserve better than the status quo, and so does America’s public health.

Justin Leventhal is a senior policy analyst for the American Consumer Institute, a nonprofit education and research organization. For more information about the Institute, visit www.TheAmericanConsumer.Org or follow us on X: @ConsumerPal

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Flavored vapes helped smokers like me quit. Trump should lift the FDA ban. | Opinion

Reporting by Justin Leventhal / USA TODAY

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