WASHINGTON – The Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) has announced an extension of the comment period on the agency’s proposed deeming regulations. The public will now have August 8 to submit written or electronic comments on the proposal. Comments can be submitted electronically at www.regulations.gov.

Released in April, the FDA’s proposed rule would prevent minors from purchasing e-cigarettes and give the agency authority over e-cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco, nicotine gels, hookah and dissolvables. The FDA proposes including the additional items in several provisions that apply to regulated tobacco products, such as age and identification requirements to restrict sales to youths under 18 and prohibitions on free samples and vending machine sales.

In March, NACS issued a statement of position that encourages stores selling e-cigarettes to adopt, as a best practice, a policy of treating these products as age-restricted, subjecting them to the same age-verification procedures as those applicable to tobacco products.

The proposed rule does not include restrictions on online sales or television advertising. The FDA is also not banning flavoring, as many cigars and e-cigarette products come in flavors such as peach and cherry. Such restrictions would require separate rulemaking.