THE FUSE

According to recent estimates, up to 86 percent of all e-cigarettes on the U.S. market are illicit (Truth Initiative, 2024), meaning their ingredients and production are not subject to any health or safety oversight and do not have marketing authorization from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This may seem like a Wild West scenario, unprecedented in its lack of oversight, except it’s not. The FDA didn’t gain the authority to regulate cigarettes until 2009, and prior to that, nothing but a tobacco company’s reputation enforced quality control (Berman, 2018).