Walmart to End Sales of E-Cigarettes

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: New York Times




Walmart said on Friday that it would end sales of e-cigarettes at its locations in the United States, as medical concerns about the effects of vaping rise along with sicknesses and deaths seemingly linked to the habit. “Given the growing federal, state and local regulatory complexity and uncertainty regarding e-cigarettes, we plan to discontinue the sale of electronic nicotine delivery products,” the nation's largest retailer said in a statement on Friday. The company will continue to sell the devices until its current inventory of e-cigarettes is exhausted.

Walmart’s decision came a day after medical authorities said that the number of vaping-related lung illnesses had risen to 530 probable cases, and a Missouri man became the eighth to die from the mysterious ailments. Investigations are underway by the Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration and state health departments.

On Sunday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York announced emergency regulations to quickly ban the sale of flavored e-cigarettes, and state health officials approved the ban on Tuesday. Michigan announced this month that it would also prohibit such products. Last week, the Trump administration said it would move to ban the sale of most flavored e-cigarettes.

Walmart had raised the minimum age for tobacco products to 21 earlier this year, and had said in May that it would also no longer sell “fruit- and dessert-flavored electronic nicotine delivery systems.” Juul, the most popular e-cigarette company in the country, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/20/business/walmart-vaping-e-cigarette-sales.html

[Behind the Aegis]

1. But ACTUAL cigs...OK! Guns? OK!

[The Liberal Lion]

5. To be fair

I think they (Walmart) did say they were going to stop selling guns, but I don't have the link.
As for Cigarettes, I'm not for banning them even tho I vape. But here's the rub:
We know cigarettes cause a lung illness
Many of them in fact
It's not mysterious
In fact they are well known
We don't ban those, we merely put a warning label on them and let people make their own decision. As it should be.
As for this "mysterious" e-cig illness
They know what the illness is
They already named it
It's called lipid Pneumonia
And the only thing that they found could have been the cause
Is called Vitamin E acetate
This chemical was ONLY found in the black market THC cartridges
Of which they can't regulate or control

So yeah, let's blame traditional, nicotine based e-liquid
And let's call it "mysterious"

We are living in times that is best called the era of a crock of sh*t

Great post on your part.

[pwb]

2. Perhaps ban all smoking until we know which methods are good for us?

[Newest Reality]

3. Sounds good...

How about a lucrative black market to go with that? It's a business opportunity!

[jpak]

11. Make Tobacco a Schedule 1 drug - like MJ

and see what happens...

[The Liberal Lion]

4. That's funny

I didn't know that Walmart sold black-market THC cartridges.

Truly, America is in the throes of an idocracy.

Will winter come already?

[trueblue2007]

6. good !!!!!!!!!!!!

[marble falls]

7. Now stop selling cigarettes and snuff.

[JonLP24]

8. Big tobacco has to be behind this odd crackdown

[crazytown]

9. Ding Ding Ding

Dodgy, contaminated THC liquid sold on the streets is implicated in a few deaths, to the reaction is to ban / restrict tobacco alternatives?

[obamanut2012]

12. 100% this - IQOS and Phillip Morris

E-cigs gone, IQOS and other "tobacco vapor cigarettes" can be sold by Big Tobacco. Big Pharma will be coming after our legal THC carts soon, too.

[OilemFirchen]

10. History doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes.

On September 29, 1982, a "Tylenol scare" began when the first of seven individuals died in the Chicago metropolitan area after ingesting Extra Strength Tylenol that had been deliberately contaminated with cyanide. Within a week, the company pulled 31 million bottles of tablets back from retailers, making it one of the first major product recalls in American history.

As a result of the crisis, all Tylenol capsules were discontinued, as were capsules of other brand names. Retained by McNeil's president, Joseph Chiesa, new product consultant Martin Calle of management strategist Calle & Company conceived the world's first tamper-resistant gelatin-enrobed capsule called "Tylenol Gelcaps", which proved to resuscitate the 92% of capsule-segment sales lost to the recall. The tamper-resistant, triple-sealed safety containers were placed on the shelves of retailers 10 weeks after the withdrawal, and other manufacturers followed suit. The crisis cost the company more than $100 million, but Tylenol regained 100% of the market share it had before the crisis. The Tylenol murderer was never found, and a $100,000 reward offered by Johnson & Johnson remains unclaimed.[citation needed]

Before the poisonings, Tylenol brands held around 35% of the US market for acetaminophen and in the immediate aftermath, fell to 8%. Within a year sales had rebounded to the prior levels.[9] J&J's handling of the crisis has been widely cited as an example of optimal crisis management.

1982 Chicago Tylenol murders

[Polybius]

14. I remember hearing about that in 1982 when I was a little boy

Never found the murderer? Wow.

[bucolic_frolic]

13. Walmart continues to flex its muscle

even though most of us here disagree with its political leanings, they have done things that are more green and progressive than people realize. They have squeezed their suppliers to reduce packaging waste, sourced produce locally to reduce transportation costs and pollution, stated they will end gun or ammo sales, and now vapes. If they'd just stop selling plastic junk.