By Timothy S. Donahue

Top Takeaways:

• Regulatory Capture Threatens Small Businesses: Tony Abboud, executive director of the Vapor Technology Association (VTA), highlighted how current FDA regulations favor large tobacco companies, marginalizing small and independent vaping businesses.
• Misinformation Undermines Harm Reduction: Abboud emphasized that disinformation campaigns, particularly those linking flavored vapes to fentanyl, have distorted public perception and hindered the adoption of vaping as a harm reduction tool.
• Call for Science-Based Regulation: The VTA urges the FDA to establish clear, science-driven standards for vaping products to ensure adult smokers have access to safer alternatives while protecting youth.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration must do better. Tony Abboud, executive director of the Vapor Technology Association (VTA), issued a scathing rebuke of the FDA’s approach to vaping regulation, accusing the agency of enabling monopolistic control and abandoning science in favor of politics.

Speaking on June 5 at the Next Generation Nicotine Delivery 2025 forum in Miami, Abboud warned that current policy is systematically eliminating small and mid-sized businesses from the legal nicotine market.

“What we’ve witnessed is regulatory capture,” Abboud said. “The FDA’s premarket tobacco (product) application (PMTA) process has created a barrier so high that only the biggest and best-capitalized companies can get through. If you’re a small, independent vapor company, you’re out.”

Abboud characterized the PMTA process as both prohibitively expensive and legally questionable. He argued that the FDA has failed to establish objective, affordable scientific standards, leaving companies to navigate a bureaucratic maze with little transparency and years-long wait times.

He also took aim at a disinformation campaign he says has weaponized public fear—specifically, unsubstantiated claims that Chinese-made flavored disposable vapes are laced with fentanyl. “This narrative is dangerous and false, and it has been used to justify bans and enforcement actions that have nothing to do with actual public health,” Abboud said.

The VTA leader traced much of the current crisis to the 2019 EVALI (e-cigarette, or vaping, product use-associated lung injury) outbreak and the ensuing political panic, which he said had little to do with nicotine vaping but was nevertheless seized upon by anti-vape groups, lawmakers, and corporate interests. The pressure culminated in President Trump’s partial flavor ban in 2020—limited to pods and cartridges—but the policy opened the door for further crackdowns.

“Flavors hook kids—that’s the line, right?” Abboud said. “It’s a simplistic and pernicious narrative, but it works. And it’s being used not just by public health groups anymore—it’s being echoed by major players in our own industry, now that they have their golden ticket.”

Abboud said these “golden tickets”—FDA marketing authorizations—have created a protected class of products, while every other flavored vapor product, regardless of consumer demand or harm reduction potential, remains off-limits. “The goal has shifted from promoting public health to eliminating competition,” he said.

He urged regulators and industry leaders to stop enforcing what he called “a broken system” and instead focus on building a science-based regulatory framework. That means developing transparent, uniform standards for testing and reviewing nicotine products and comparing them against combustible cigarettes—not other unapproved vapor products.

Abboud also warned that without reform, the illicit market would continue to grow, undermining the very consumer protections regulators claim to support. “Government can’t enforce a full ban—we’ve seen that again and again,” he said. “If we don’t fix this system now, we’re just going to have a bigger mess later.”

In his closing remarks, Abboud called for unity within the vaping sector and a renewed focus on consumer needs—especially adult smokers seeking harm reduction tools. “The future of vaping belongs to innovators, to people who serve their communities and reduce harm,” he said. “We need a diverse, competitive market—not one engineered through regulation to protect monopolies.”