TUESDAY, Nov. 12, 2024 (HealthDay News) — If you think federal restrictions on the sale of tobacco products make it nearly impossible for your teen to buy vapes online, new research suggests you’re wrong.

In 2020, the Law prohibiting the online sale of electronic cigarettes to children banned the shipping of e-cigarettes and vaping products through the U.S. Postal Service and introduced an ID scanning requirement to accept deliveries of these items. But if sales of flavored tobacco products have increased limit In eight states and nearly 400 cities or counties, these regulations do not fully cover online shopping, the researchers report.

“We knew there was a well-established system for monitoring brick-and-mortar retailers’ compliance with tobacco policies, but one did not exist for online sales,” said the author of the study. Rachel Haratisaid a former research coordinator at the University of California San Diego School of Public Health. CNN. “We therefore wanted to develop a method for systematically monitoring online compliance.”

For the study, published Monday in the journal Open JAMA NetworkResearchers examined attempts to purchase nicotine-flavored vaping products on 78 websites and have them delivered to private homes.

What did they discover?

Out of 105 deliveries, delivery staff scanned the recipient’s ID only once. Most products (78%) were delivered without delivery interaction, 16% spoke with delivery personnel without an ID check, and only 5.7% had their ID verified but not scanned.

“These results demonstrated widespread non-compliance with age verification, shipping, and flavored tobacco restrictions among online tobacco retailers,” the researchers wrote in their study. “Jurisdictions should consider whether to allow online tobacco sales and, if permitted, ensure that retail policies such as flavor restrictions unambiguously cover online sales.”

Researchers noted that about 80% of orders were delivered by the United States Postal Service (USPS).

“There is a federal law that states very clearly that the USPS cannot be used to ship tobacco products, but it is clearly still used frequently,” Harati said. “Health experts should advocate for more systematic compliance assessments among online retailers, to avoid access for young people.“

In 2019, Congress raised the legal age for purchasing tobacco products ages 18 to 21, including requiring retailers to verify photo ID.

However, “the age-screening technology on these websites doesn’t actually work,” said Thomas Carr, national policy director for the American Lung Association. CNN. “People won’t tell the truth when they get older, and it’s remarkably easy for kids to get tobacco products sent to them through the mail. In physical stores, you have an employee who can verify the identity and examine the person, which you cannot do online.

Vaping products use a liquid solution containing nicotine, a highly addictive substance. This makes these products difficult to stop, especially when they have fruity flavors that appeal to young people.

“Young people are particularly susceptible to the addictive properties of nicotine,” Harati explained. “Their brains are still developing and forming neural networks that regulate their emotions, and nicotine has a big impact on these networks. »

In August, the American Lung Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and several other health organizations exhorted the United States Food and Drug Administration to close these online loopholes.

“Banning the sale of tobacco altogether, or placing additional restrictions on how products are delivered to people, may contribute to making e-cigarettes more difficult to purchase,” Carr said. “Reducing the attractiveness of products can also help.”

More information

The CDC has more on protecting teens from dangers of vaping.

SOURCE: Open JAMA NetworkNovember 12, 2024; CNN