By Timothy S. Donahue

Top Takeaways:

• Retail crackdown: Alaska AG Stephen Cox warned more than 1,500 tobacco retailers to stop selling illicit vapes and nicotine pouches.
• Growing state action: Alaska joins a growing number of states that use retailer warning letters to target unauthorized nicotine products.
• FDA focus: The letters direct retailers to verify products against FDA-authorized marketing orders.

Alaska Attorney General Stephen J. Cox has launched a statewide enforcement effort to remove unauthorized vaping products and nicotine pouches from retail shelves, sending warning letters to more than 1,500 tobacco retailers and distributors.

The letters advise businesses to immediately review their inventories and ensure they are not selling electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) or oral nicotine pouches that are not authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The attorney general’s office said many of the products sold in Alaska originate in China and entered the U.S. market without completing the FDA’s premarket review process.

“Flavored disposable vapes and nicotine pouches found in convenience stores, smoke shops, and grocery stores around Alaska are largely manufactured and imported illegally into the United States from China,” Cox said in a statement. “The companies that manufacture these products have not undergone the FDA-mandated marketing order process, so they cannot be sold in our State.”

The warning letters include FDA lists of authorized products and instruct retailers to stop displaying, selling, shipping, or distributing products that have not received marketing authorization. The attorney general’s office said that only 39 e-cigarette products and 26 nicotine pouch products have received FDA authorization to be sold in the United States.

The state framed the action primarily as a youth-protection initiative, arguing that many unauthorized products are sold in fruit and candy flavors and use packaging or marketing designed to appeal to minors. The office also cited concerns about disposable devices containing lithium-ion batteries and reminded retailers that discarded products should be treated as hazardous waste.

“Retailers and distributors are now on notice that the Law Department takes the health of our youth very seriously,” Cox said. “We will vigorously enforce Alaska’s laws designed to protect them. Retailers and distributors must not sell or distribute e-cigarettes or nicotine pouches that have not received FDA approval.”

The action reflects a broader trend among state attorneys general to curb sales of unauthorized nicotine products through retailer-focused enforcement. Rather than targeting manufacturers alone, states have increasingly warned distributors and retailers that they may face legal consequences for selling products that lack FDA marketing authorization.