Walmart to End Sales of E-Cigarettes as Vaping Concerns Mount

Sep 20, 2019 · 138 comments
Barbara Litrell (Sedona AZ)
Good for Wal Mart leading the way. Now get rid of the guns that are killing 109 people PER DAY (2017), also probably Wal Mart customers!
Joe B. (Center City)
“Vapor Madness” grips the world. Mass hysteria ensues. Reminds one it’s predecessor “Reefer Madness”. The more it is condemned, the more the kids want it.
dutchiris (Berkeley, CA)
The time to quite smoking (that's really what vaping is) is now. The industry will jerk you around, make you anxious, reassure you that products are safe, add flavors, delete flavors, with never any end to it, and the only way to protect your habit is it drop it. You are running the show. You can do it, and it's worth doing.
Bill Kearns (Evansville, IN)
"Thank you for smoking", volume two.
Shanda (Portland, OR)
I wish Juul ecigs were never invented. Juul screwed us adult vapers by creating a product that was easily mistaken for things other than ecigs and by marketing to teens. Now the rest of us have to worry that flavors will be banned and for those of you who seem to think the flavors are only used by teens you're wrong. I've been vaping for 10 years and have always vaped the same flavor (caramel candy) and any other vapers I know vape flavors as well. Just like adults who drink flavored alcohol and I don't see the FDA pulling cotton candy vodka off the shelves.
J.Sutton (San Francisco)
I've now given up any form of vaping for the rest of my life. they don't really know what causes these illnesses and death; they just have theories. I'm not touching it again.
Donald Forbes (Boston Ma.)
A step in the right direction. How about guns?
Jerome S. (Connecticut)
Just ban it. Just ban it! Why didn’t we think of it earlier? It’s so delightfully simple! It’s such a simple solution I hardly even have to think about it! And since we’re banning e-cigs, let’s ban the regular cigarettes, too, with their continental body counts. And, of course, the alcohol - in fact, there are whole REAMS of legislative models for banning alcohol from last century! We can do it, folks! You can bet we’re gonna come for the guns, and also let’s snuff out all that legalized cannabis buzz while we’re at it. Definitely, definitely no more Tylenol allowed either! Then we can ban the most dangerous object in public life: PRIVATE AUTOMOBILES!
LA Woman (LA)
Guns and cigarettes are a Walmart staple.
Aristotle (USA)
Amazing how fast they ban e-cigarettes with no definitive proof it kills people and only a few have died. Yet cannot make the connection and do the same for guns?
Bruce1253 (San Diego)
Smoking in general and Vaping in particular, is how Nature culls the herd.
Lynn Russell (Los Angeles, Ca.)
Bravo! Step one on the checklist Walmart. I have never need to but would never patronized your store because your business philosophy undermines your employees. Please look into that. And while you are at it, please discontinue the sale of guns. Then you will receive an award for entering the path of consciousness.
AJ (Trump Towers sub basement)
Taking action on guns and vaping? American companies could(and do!) much worse than Walmart. That Walmart’s actions are so rare in corporate America (see JPMorgan, MIT {not a corporate, but a behemoth} and others on Epstein), remains sad.
Buster (Willington CT)
Wow what an interesting development. Yet Walmart leaves conventional tobacco products on the store shelf. Really? Conventional cigarette smoking kills almost 500,000 Americans every year, let me say that again, 500,000 Americans, you know dead before their time. If Walmart really cared about people conventional tobacco would be gone too. But that sweet product placement deal with big tobacco would impact the bottom line. Don't be fooled, Walmart is about $$$ first.
Mike (NYC)
“We are not scientists,’’ said Lyle Beckwith, senior vice president of government relations at the trade group. “We are retailers. Our job is to sell legal products responsibly.” I wonder if Lyle has a teenager at home. Is he telling his family 'it's ok to vape because it hasn't been outlawed yet and the evidence is not yet complete?' Probably not. The retail industry wants to squeeze every last drop of profit out of this until the regulatory hammer falls. And while I feel for the small vape shops that sprang up almost overnight, please don't tell me that you need to make a living selling poison to people. It's great to see that while it took decades to wake up the average american smoker, it took less than five years for vaping to get the same treatment.
voyager2 (Wyoming)
The illusion of conscience with access to cheap public relations blitz. There is no way for Walmart to repair its tarnished reputation without paying its workers, providing health benefits, and paying taxes.
Robert (Upstate NY)
A typical smoker usually knows how much he/she smokes, but a typical vaper doesn't have the same bench mark for their use of the product. A vaper who uses a pod per day is possibly using as much product as a smoker has uses two (possibly more) packs a day. As to the gun control comments that have seeped into this discussion. The reality is, that in this country, we have a patchwork of laws that vary considerably from one state to the next. The result of which, there is no clear standard of legality from one state to the next (i.e. one state might allow for a certain type of gun that is illegal in their nearest neighbor). A common set of standards would, at least, put everyone on the same page for gun control. It could even make it a requirement to be trained in the use of firearms before a license to use a weapon is issued. To the best of my knowledge no such law now exists in these United States. Here, you can obtain a firearm before you know how it works - Sort of like buying a car and then learning how to drive it.
Bradley Stein (Miami Beach)
Well thought out. Well done.
Benicia (CA)
"Walmart plans to keep selling e-cigarettes until it exhausts its current inventory, which could last until January.''
Angela (Midwest)
Irrespective of what Walmart is doing. is vaping an upper middle class phenomenon? Or white middle class phenomenon? It seems that when white suburban kids end up in the hospital or dead it becomes a national emergency. Resources are allocated to the problem and governing bodies deliberate about banning the product.
Harriet Katz (Cohoes N’y)
Another way to put smoke in your lungs. 20 years from now people will be suing the vaping companies. Isn’t this something about assumption of risk?
Joe B. (Center City)
Um, Harriet, it is not smoke. But it is another way to ingest nicotine or thc/cbd.
LARealist (Los Angeles, CA)
Yet they still sell regular cigarettes, which without any doubt kill millions? How ridiculous.
Attorney Lance Weil (Oakley, Ca.)
What is up with the Walton's? America over money? Keep it up and all of America may go shopping at your store nixing Amazon.
Alan (Columbus OH)
@Attorney Lance Weil But Amazon will have electric vans, which will all run on natural gas or coal for their entire lives. But at least it is not gasoline! It is a lot like the environmental version of vaping to avoid smoking.
JanTG (VA)
Guns are OK though.
Melissa (New York)
What about guns?
Lynn (New York)
Go Walmart! Who would have thought?!
Oh My (NYC)
JUUL should be investigated. This is scourge that needs to be shut down now.
J.Sutton (San Francisco)
@Oh My There's the marijuana vaping too which is big.
Dan (SF)
And yet they still sell guns. SMH.
C Touloukian (Lenox Ma)
Smart marketing move Walmart...I’m thinking about liking you less everyday
L. Hoberman (Boston)
Does Walmart sell regular cigarettes?
J.J. Hunsecker (American in London)
@L. Hoberman "A [Walmart] spokesman said the retailer would continue to sell traditional cigarettes."
Lleone (Brooklyn)
It’s not the vape pen that kills, it’s the user! How dare anyone infringe on our rights!
Calleendeoliveira (FL)
Don’t Vape But go ahead and buy a gun.
Jeanyy (Anderson,IN.)
But by God we will still sell guns!
Agarre (Undefined)
So glad we've outsourced our Food and Drug Administration to Walmart.
mls (nyc)
Fine. Now let 'em stop selling cigarettes. And guns.
Joe B. (Center City)
And family size Cheetos.
BS (NYC)
Why is any new addictive substance now associated with death and hospitalization allowed to be sold at all. People lived without vaping for millions of years until 2013. Ban it now. Half of all high school graduates are becoming nicotine addicts. Nicotine has no benefits. Inhaling heated chemical into your lungs is intuitively not a good idea. Don’t be stupid. Do the right thing.
Peter (NYC)
Wal-Mart is so concerned about the health impact of e cigarettes that it will stop selling them "when it's inventory runs out ". In the meantime it is ok if more people get sick or die!!
Alan (Columbus OH)
@Peter As vile as many companies behave, expecting one to burn a huge quantity of inventory that remains legal to sell and that they are not getting sued over is a bit too much to ask. They also do not want to punish their customers who need time to find another store should they not take the clue and quit.
MIKEinNYC (NYC)
Great idea. Don't just get rid of the flavored versions of this lethal junk, get rid of it all. It has zero redeeming value. Ban it.
Joe B. (Center City)
Yeah, and alcohol, too. Especially flavored vodka. Oops, guess we tried that. Didn’t work out so good.
Meg Riley (Portland OR)
Does Walmart have a new PR firm? No e cigs but guns and bullets are fine to sell. Please.
Greg (Sunnyvale, California)
I welcome this action by Walmart. Such voluntary action is faster than waiting for appropriate regulations and laws, but those are needed, also. Why do we allow anyone to sell harmful addictive substances for profit? This is a corrupt business practice that takes advantage of the impaired ability of addicted customers to resist buying a harmful product. The opportunity to profit from such sales should be eliminated and criminal penalties should be consistent with the harm being done.
Blackrobe (Canada)
While thousands of Americans are gunning each other down in the streets, Walmart is banning vaping, why not ban McDonalds thousands die of obesity related issues each year as well?
Brown (Southeast)
@Blackrobe It's possible to chew gum and walk at the same time. Reasonable gun control laws also need to be enacted now.
Cal (Boston)
Great. Now stop selling guns?
Peter Siemes (Texas)
Why is it so easy to ban e-cigarettes that only seem to make people in the US sick, while all of Europe is unharmed. How about showing the same rigor and unison banning guns?
RS (NYC)
Walmart is doing the right thing. Thank you Walmart.
moonmom (Santa Fe)
I wish Walmart would ban the sale of all guns. Now that would truly make a difference in student death rates!
Why Me (Anywhere But Here)
I guess the vaping lobby isn’t as powerful as the gun lobby.
Mark Singleton (Houston)
15 years ago when consumers could afford to buy cigarettes by the carton Walmart probably owned 75% plus of the cigarette carton market and maybe sold up to 30% or more of all cigarettes bought in the U.S. Today Walmart's tobacco products market share maybe only 4%. They have been wanting to stop selling reduced risk tobacco products because Walmart customers aren't buying them. However, they could not risk the public relations fallout of not offering a reduced risk alternative. The current vaping news was too good for Walmart to pass up. They can stop selling reduced risk tobacco products, which aren't profitable for them to sell and look like the good guys at the same time. Ain't life in Bentonville sweet.
J.Sutton (San Francisco)
@Mark Singleton Whatever their motives, it's the right thing to do.
Laura (Olympia)
I'm sorry, I'm missing something here. Because of a few hundred cases of illness, and well under 100 deaths, vaping products are suddenly so toxic, huge chain stores must pull them immediately from their shelves, as the whole nation experiences moral panic. And those same stores, or similar ones, sell guns of every description without blinking, while hundreds of people commit suicide or shoot others with those very dangerous products. Is it that vape-product producers (who I guess are kin to Phillip Morris and other cigarette manufacturers) are no longer powerful lobbyists? Is it because science finally called PM and associates out on the hazards of their products and they can no longer get an ear in Washington? But we somehow haven't managed this on the manufacturing lobbyist group called the NRA?
Pierre D. Robinson, B.F., W.S. (Pensacola)
@Laura I do not understand Walmart to be immediately removing the stuff from their shelves. I believe they are going to sell out their inventory. And I consider that to be unconscionable. They can afford to take the hit and destroy thr inventory.
slogan (California)
@Laura I’ve thought the same thing. My conclusion is that e-cigs are far newer phenomenon and so easier to get rid of, it’s a genie that is only part way out the bottle. Tobacco and guns - genie has been out of the bottle for too long to easily return, both much more ingrained in society, plus guns are mentioned as a right in the constitution so there is that complication.
jimframe2009 (US)
What a country. Puritanical. Follow the herd. Short sighted. I'm a 50 year pack a day addict. Switched to Juul. Still an addict, but my odds are on the rise. I hope.
J.Sutton (San Francisco)
@jimframe2009 For a change, someone in this country is trying to prevent preventable deaths. I see nothing wrong with that whatever.
Brown (Southeast)
@jimframe2009 I stopped a 2 pack a day addiction to cigarettes 30 years ago. It was a fight to unhook from the addiction but I did it. Nothing "puritanical" about wanting to steer young people away from this madness. Good for Walmart and the TV networks who are backing away from this immoral industry.
Jaime Fernandez (Los Angeles)
That’s nice. What about getting serious and ending gun sales? It’s all smoke and mirrors with these corporations.
Peter (Orlando)
Thank goodness they did this. Now they can focus more on selling guns.
Russell (Chicago)
Bootlegged THC cartridges are putting people in hospitals? Quick, ban the legal alternative!
Dan (SF)
There is no SCIENCE behind these knee-impulsive reactions.
karen (Florida)
Kudos to Walmart. Hope others will follow.
Kyle (Austin)
Mysterious lung disease. Not sure what's going on but a public health crisis waiting to happen. Walmart: "We'll ban them! We don't exactly what's going on but we must save the young generation!" Guns, they kill thousands. This is an unprecedented phenomenon in unprecedented time. Mass killings motivated by hate and we KNOW this and have know this for years! Walmart: "Let's learn a little more and we'll get back to you."
Rick Gage (Mt Dora)
"Attention Walmart shoppers: You will no longer be able to access vape pens because they have been linked to one casualty but we will continue to sell Guns and ammunition in our Merchants of Death section located on aisle three."
Pfoltz (North Carolina)
Must we rely on large retailers to protect our health and safety? Thank you Walmart.
Don Dufresne (Marin County, Calif)
Obviously vaping has no political lobbying group. So, it's easy to stop selling e-cigarettes. Therefore, Walmart takes the easy way out. Doesn't take guts to stop selling them. Takes real guts to stop sell guns that have killed hundreds of thousands of lives over just a few years. This isn't one giant step for mankind. Big deal.
Jessica (Ct)
Why only it's US stores? Oh right, it's not about doing the right thing. It's about appearing to do the right thing.
Mary (wilmington del)
Never shopped in a Walmart, they killed too many Mom and Pop stores but I really applaud this decision. Sometimes, profit isn’t the only thing.......
Chuck (CA)
but they will still sell cigarettes, nicotine gum, and nicotine patches. Not to mention alcohol. This is political hypocrisy, hiding behind the need to disconnect the store brand from a currently emotional reporting and discussion in the news and on the internet. Vaping cartridges have NEVER been legal to sell to minors.. so that dog does not hunt.
Imagine If Obama Did It... (Stowe, VT)
Gun deaths are killing Americans at a rate of 90 people a day but Walmart continues to sell guns. So we all know they don’t care about people - they care about sales and politics. So obviously vaping wasn't making them enough money or they wouldn’t have stopped selling them.
Alan (Columbus OH)
@Imagine If Obama Did It... A gun is very WYSIWYG. What you see is what you get. If you kill someone with it, you pretty much know exactly what you are doing when you do it. Even in an accident you have done something wildly negligent. There is no subtle process eroding your free will. Addictive products are not this way. Decision processes get interrupted with sometimes fatal consequences, and young people are especially vulnerable because their brains are neither fully developed nor experienced with long term decisions.
Objectively Subjective (Utopia's Shadow)
I guess vaping supplies aren’t as profitable as selling real tobacco and guns. Way to be public spirited, Walmart.
Lee (Santa Fe)
So, Walmart will discontinue sale of E-cigarette products "as soon as current inventories are exhausted." If this corporate money-grubbing weren't so pathetic it would be amusing. Now that the severe health implications of "vaping" are known, Walmart is just terribly concerned so long as it doesn't cost them one penny of profits.
Paul Galat (NYC)
"Walmart said on Friday that it would stop selling e-cigarettes at its stores in the United States . . ." Right, but they are delighted to profit off the lives of vulnerable people outside of the USA. Nice!
dr. c.c. (planet earth)
If Walmart or other retailers really wanted to get serious about improving health, they would stop selling tobacco cigarettes. In contrast to the 8 deaths total from vaping, cigarettes cause 400,000 deaths a year. But the MSM, including the Times, has become so sensationalistic, that they make those 8 look more important than the 400,000 a year.
Alan (Columbus OH)
@dr. c.c. No one thinks cigarettes are safe or non-addicticve. That is not true of vaping, and this makes it a much more dangerous product.
Jpguy (Jamaica Plain, Ma)
If walmart was really concerned about the health of the nation they would stop selling guns.
Hal Paris (Boulder, colorado)
Walmart is all of a sudden becoming a good neighbor? Hope so. Not going to bet on it. Banning gun magazines and now e-cig's. OK. I'm glad because in the 50's, 60's and 70's corporation's actually were good neighbor's....mostly because of unions, and it was good for business....until Reagan showed up. Down hill and money hungry since. Maybe corporations are aware that Trump won't be around long, but we sure will. Anyway, it's a good start. Kudo's Walmart....keep up the good work in community and you will be greatly rewarded. Then you just have to share your money fairly with those who work for you.
Steve Mills (Oregon)
A positive move. Less than I would ask of them, but still the right thing to do. People who smoke cigarettes know they are killing themselves. Vaping is thought to be relatively harmless by comparison. Now we know it is not.
Jais (Canada)
I find it hypocritical to pull e-cigarettes but still sell tobacco products, guns and alcohol, all more deadly, all killing people for years. An other one of Walmart’s two faced decisions, done to prevent backlash but communicated about being about health.
Richard Drandoff (Portland Oregon)
“Traditional” cigarettes kill hundreds of thousands times more than e.cigarettes. Where is the sense of urgency here, or are McConnell and his toadies unconcerned because they take many millions from the tobacco lobby? This country’s priorities are absolutely backwards.
Ian (Texas)
I really wish you guys would stop publicizing the junk facts behind the "vaping" illnesses. People have been using these products for over a decade, and now all of a sudden there's an outbreak of (overwhelmingly young people) getting sick from "vaping". It's from WHAT they are vaping, not vaping in general. This is like telling people to stop eating food cause there's e coli in romaine lettuce. Millions of adult use ecigs to help them not smoke combustible tobacco. Now a bunch of teens get there hands on black market THC pods and get sick from them, all of a sudden we want to outlaw things that are saving adult exsmoker's lives. Think about that, this article is probably going to make someone who would've otherwise quit smoking, continue.
Brooklyn Dog Geek (Brooklyn)
8 deaths related to vaping/e-cigs this year. So far this year over 10,000 have been killed by guns. Spare us, Wal-mart, and anyone else wringing their hands with false concern over e-cigarettes.
MissyR (Westport, CT)
Who knew Walmart could be on the right side of history? Good for them. Money talks!
poppop (NYC)
When is Walmart announcing that they no longer sell beer and cigarettes?
Milo (Chicago)
are they also banning cigarettes?
Aegius (Boston)
The ignorance of the media is astonishing. Virtually all the sicknesses were related to THC vaping due to homebrew illegal manfacturing using vitamin e acetate. To somehow suggest that that nicotine vaping is as or more dangerous than cigarettes is negligent.
William Stapleton (Florida)
I hope it isn’t Walmart’s plan to push sales outside the US, in order to maintain profits. Reminds me of cigarette manufacturers pushing cigarettes in the developing world when cigarettes in the developed world took a hit. This led to distressing images like this: https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/110918014417-nr-bilchik-child-smokers-00002730-story-top.jpg
SteveH (Zionsville PA)
Wow, less than a dozen dead, and several hundred sickened. On what appears to be black market products. If we only reacted like this to REAL problems....
WJBrock (NYS)
See? Government regulation does work!
Bob G. (San Francisco)
Teenagers making the break from childhood have always taken up smoking. Now with vaping there are so many more ways to hide what they're doing, including no tell-tale smoke that lingers. And vaping is so much more fun than smoking, what with flavors and THC additives. I don't know how many times you have to vape to become addicted to nicotine, but as years go by it seems reasonable to expect that many of these kids will become adult nicotine addicts. Hats off to Big Tobacco for figuring out a new way to replace all those dying old smokers with new nicotine addicts.
Al (Idaho)
Good. Tobacco and nicotine, along with alcohol kill hundreds of thousands of people prematurely every year. What's next, pay and benefits that their employees can live on? We can dream.
apatnola (new Orleans)
I can only applaud this decision. all smoking threatens our health.
BMUS (TN)
The only reason Walmart, or any retailer, not to mention republican lawmakers are getting on board the anti vape wagon is because Trump came out against it when he found out Barron was vaping. One over privileged child of an over privileged man-child is caught vaping and we need major regulation yesterday. Thousands of children dead from gun violence and mass shootings, Trump and republicans need permission from the NRA to even talk about action.
JME (NY, NY)
How many people die from guns every day while Walmart continues to sells guns? Don't shop at Walmart or Jet or Sam's club. They are all a front for the support of gun suppliers at the cost of our children and families. Real families.
Noah (North Carolina)
I’m a family physician. Tobacco use kills hundreds of thousands of Americans every year, whereas the CDC has thus far confirmed just eight deaths associated with vaping. Yes, much needs to be done to further understand the possible harms of vaping, but if Wal-Mart really cares about nicotine’s harms, their focus should be a ban on TOBACCO sales.
Al (Idaho)
@Noah Dude, I understand your frustration but it is progress. Let's keep pushing for more changes. Every little bit helps.
MK (New York City)
This is hysteria. Millions of people around the world have been using nicotine pods in e-cigarettes for nearly 10 years and no "epidemic" of lung illnesses and deaths has been seen. Even the NYT reporting on this "crisis" relates that the vast majority of recent lung illness cases from vaping in the U.S. arose after people vaped THC, not nicotine. But apparently nobody is willing to find out exactly what the problem is and then regulate that problem. Instead, we're going to ban huge categories of e-cigarettes that adult smokers like me have been using successfully to quit smoking. Certainly restrict the access of children to any vaping products. You can do that easily without depriving responsible adults of a product that many doctors (including mine) recommend, not as "safe", but as a likely better alternative to cigarettes.
Midd America (Michigan)
If it's being marketed as a way to reduce smoking, sell it in the pharmacy - no rX needed but behind the counter as is done with meth-precursor antihistamines.
Derek Lomas (San Diego)
I agree, if that's where they also sell the cigarettes. Let's put alcohol back there, too. Did you know alcohol is also dangerous? The sun, too, causes cancer (unlike vapes). Won't fit behind the counter, but let's see what we can do.
WHM (Rochester)
These strong political moves by Walmart and recently by NYS on vaping are illustrations that often we can only get blunt and poorly thought out responses to serious public health problems. The vaping problem in the US is complicated; recently there are lots of lung disease cases due to vaping, the US public has become aware that nicotine vaping among teenagers is at epidemic levels , and there is pretty good evidence that companies like Juul have been using flavorings like menthol to increase teenage use of vaping. If laws and Walmart sales were driven by thoughtful, logical consideration we might see intelligent intervention. For example, eliminating advertising to teenagers and restricting flavoring of nicotine vaping might be considered, but such actions should be tracked to consider revising rules for unintended consequences. For example, if elimination of nicotine vaping severely impacted people using nicotine vaping to stop smoking, some nuance could be added to restrictions. If eliminating flavored vapes (NYS regulation) did little to slow teenage vaping, causing users to simply switch to non flavored vaping, some further regulations could be considered. If lung disease related to vaping turns out to reflect addition of toxic components to bootleg vaping supplies, that could be dealt with directly. However, banning or eliminating legal vaping might possibly increase use of dangerous street products. If so, regulations should be thoughtfully adjusted.
Paulo (Paris)
@WHM No, millions were addicted illicitly, JUUL and others acting unethically, if not criminally. Roll it back, it's not too late to prevent another generation falling victim to big tobacco.
Peter I Berman (Norwalk, CT)
What prevents Wal Mart from ending all sales of cigarettes, real and artificial ? Ditto for all guns and ammo ? And since Wal Mart is a major made in China retail sales outlet involving huge quantities of oil used in shipping goods to the US isn’t there a role for Wal Mart to encourage “clean shipping” in ocean going freighters ? Maybe we need to step up the pressure to demand that major corporations act in the greater public interest in areas such as public health and climate change. We should have learned something from encouraging cleaner auto emissions.
Brad (Oregon)
It appears Walmart is moving in a positive direction and without federal government leadership. Better late than never.
turbot (philadelphia)
The vaping illnesses and deaths are minuscule compared to real smoking. Where is the anti-tobacco outrage?
northeastsoccermum (northeast)
An outright ban is overkill. Get rid of the kiddie flavors and make the age of use 21, no advertising or social media. Force manufacturers to fund long term scientific studies (done by someone not affiliated with the industry) on the impact of vaping. They are safer than cigarettes but not necessarily safe, or at least we don't know for sure. Until then do everything to keep new users from getting hooked.
Oh My (NYC)
@northeastsoccermum There are NO studies that I know of that prove vaping is safer than cigarettes. Seems to me considering the numbers of immediate deaths that there is a HUGE problem with vaping.
MK (New York City)
@Oh My No. There's a recent, serious problem with some vaping which we don't know the extent of. People have been vaping nicotine in e-cigarettes for years in this country and in other countries without any reported "epidemic" of illnesses and deaths. Even this article reports that most of the illnesses arose after THC vaping, not standard e-cigarettes. Let's please find out the cause of the illnesses before banning products that adult smokers have been using successfully.
Derek Lomas (San Diego)
@Oh My did you know ~ 10 people die each day from swimming pools? And that over 80% of people who smoke will die from smoking related causes? We are talking about 0 deaths from the products they are removing and 8 deaths from unregulated black market products. Tell me about huge problems.
Mark Browning (Houston)
e cigarettes are probably safer than real cigarettes which still kill exponentially more people. Banning them outright will just make it more expensive to use them to stop smoking. There doesn't seem to be a real effort to find out if the e-cigs causing the illness were altered or adulterated some how like with vitamin E oil. Also, ambulance-chasing ads on TV about this tell me Walmart doesn't want a lawsuit.
Josh Hill (New London)
So they will continue selling a product known to be lethal -- cigarettes -- while banning e cigarettes, which most health authorities consider substantially less dangerous and which have allowed many smokers to quit? This is beyond ludicrous, as is the association of death that appear to have been caused by homebrew vaping products bought on the street -- many of them vehicles for THC -- with vaping products produced by the industry.
Paulo (Paris)
@Josh Hill Safer is not safe. Millions became addicted to vaping who had no association with smoking at all. Vaping companies are shills for big tobacco to capture a new generation.
ms (ca)
@Josh Hill My sense has been that people who use e-cigarettes continue to smoke them thinking they are "safe" instead of using them as a bridge to quit smoking ENTIRELY which is really the point of nicotine replacement products. Yesterday, one of the NY Times articles noted that 50% of people vaping continue to smoke cigarettes so I'm not sure how effective it really is as a way to stop smoking vs. "older" technology like nicotine patches, gums, etc.
Scott (Australia)
According to the CDC, alcohol is a factor in 4,358 deaths every year, on average, among people under the age of 21, so clearly alcohol should be banned completely. Oh wait, we tried that one time... 530 "probable" cases, some of whom have recovered and where the specific cause is unknown is hardly justification for demonizing something. While teenagers certainly have no place vaping, banning ecigs or flavored liquids is a hamfisted approach that will only exacerbate the situation. Seven or eight deaths have been linked to vaping, and bot even definitively....How many to the guns, alcohol and cigarettes that are still being sold at Walmart?
BS (NYC)
Alcohol is cultural - has been since the time before Christ. Nicotine is more addictive than alcohol and heroin for that matter. It’s been around since 2013. Let’s learn from past mistakes and not create another generation addicted to a harmful and useless chemical.
Paulo (Paris)
@Scott False equivalency. Alcohol is not addictive. Vaping companies illicitly addicted millions of kids to nicotine, you are right, they do not deserve regulation, they deserve jail.
SteveH (Zionsville PA)
Alcohol is most certainly an addictive substance. Physical withdrawal symptoms is the definition of addictive.
Dayib Atto (Chicago)
These devices were never meant to be used in this way, they were supposed to be used with real tobacco or real weed without the paper and other harmful additives, then somebody came up with these cartridges filled with junk.
Michael Scarborough (Atlanta, GA)
I'm guessing you don't know what ejuice is...
marrtyy (manhattan)
For whatever it's worth... In the last week or so Walmart our largest retailer seems to be acting more responsibly with the stoppage of AR guns and e-cigs. Good for them. Good for all of us.
Derek Lomas (San Diego)
@marrtyy except ecigs save lives and guns don't. It's a wash.
Rosiepi (SC)
@marrtyy For the people of America, it's worth is immeasurable!
dairyfarmersdaughter (Washinton)
Good to hear. However people will buy this stuff online or from other outlets. The Genie is out of the box. The FDA allowed this product on the market without proper vetting. That is a failure they need to answer for.
Josh Hill (New London)
@dairyfarmersdaughter It wasn't the FDA's choice --they wanted to ban it but lost in court. Also, e cigarettes are substantially safer than tobacco cigarettes, so it would be senseless to prohibit the sale of the first while allowing the second to be sold at the corner store.
Dolly Patterson (Silicon Valley)
Yea for Walmart! I'm so impressed they've taken this stand and their recent stand on guns. My 19 yr old son has been intensely addicted to vaping nicotine and also smokes pot occasionally. I've been v worried about him. He hates himself for this addiction and we've both tried several times to help him stop, to no avail.
WHM (Rochester)
@Dolly Patterson You and your son would be ideal people to include in decisions of what to do about vaping. If society as a whole decides that addiction to nicotine vaping is super dangerous, they need to decide what to do about restricting nicotine vaping as well as the related issues of smoking cessation as well as vaping with the less addictive THC. As with gun control, we are unlikely to get anything useful from those who fear guns or smoking so much that they adopt a prohibition zealotry to the problem. You and your son could also help us think about the concern that millions of nicotine addicted teenagers may be driven to illegal vaping products if vaping becomes illegal. These are not insoluble problems if we could get thoughtful people (i.e. not politicians looking for re-election) trying out ideas and tracking if the ideas help or make things worse.
Derek Lomas (San Diego)
@Dolly Patterson he is 19? And vapes and smokes pot occasionally? He is normal. Make sure he is working -- but otherwise enjoy your time together -- even where you have differences of opinion. Many successful people vape and smoke pot. It's normal. Better, even, than cigarettes and alcohol.
music observer (nj)
While I think this is great news, I wonder how much good it will do, when they still allow cigarettes to be sold. We allowed vaping products to be sold with zero regulation, there are no laws governing things like nicotine content, there were no requirements for vaping to go through human trial testing to see if it was safe, in large part because cigarettes themselves have little or no regulation, other than taxes and the legal age to buy them. E cigarettes were originally sold as a means to allow smokers to switch from the noxious chemicals in cigarettes that cause so many problems, but what they turned into was simply legal sale of another addictive drug, where it wasn't just people hooked on smoking using it, it became new generations. Maybe, just maybe, it is time to cut or fish bait and ban tobacco products of any kind. If e cigarettes are to be sold, they should only be sold to current smokers trying to quit, as part of a program to get them off of nicotine. And before someone plays the prohibition line, tobacco is not the same, despite recent studies, which are controversial and not without bias, alcohol in moderation has either health benefits or is relatively safe, tobacco doesn't have that. The only reason tobacco products are sold is because of the tobacco farmers and the tobacco industry owning the politicians, it is not because of freedom, it isn't because vaping is safe, it is pure greed.
Dolly Patterson (Silicon Valley)
@music observer ANYTHING will help. Teens can buy nicotine for vaping much easier than they can buy cigarettes.
@waritalks (San Antonio, TX)
Vaping has been thought to be a safer alternative to traditional cigarette smoking. The evidence is mounting that vaping has serious health consequences. It is particularly concerning that youth have been the target of marketing of vaping products. Walmart and other major retailers not selling vaping products is a start. In addition more scientific research and more federal and/or state regulation of sales is needed.
Dangermouse (United States)
No, the evidence hasn't been mounting, and that's the issue. A rash of bad thc carts does not equal evidence of anything except substandard quality control, and Wal-Mart doesn't even sell those products anyways.
Jay (Sachtjen)
@Dangermouse exactly, this is an issue with bad carts, not vaping. let's look at all the facts first before making rash decisions otherwise the ACTUAL problem will only get worse.
WHM (Rochester)
@@waritalks This comment includes such cliche banalities that it is hard to judge. For example, "The evidence is mounting that vaping has serious health consequences" is so opaque as to be useless. Many articles about vaping stress that scientific study is just beginning so we do not know if there may be some fourth order health consequences (e.g. general vulnerabilities of the lung). True, but not very interesting. Millions of teenagers addicted to nicotine, if true, is a first order concern. Is it possible to help that, and will the most obvious approaches (e.g. banning all legal vaping) simply drive teenagers to the black market.? Vaping of THC seems unrelated due to its lesser addictive potential. Is it something we should address? It has been argued that state laws are ideally exploring things we might want to consider nationally. For that to be true we need to try things and then closely track whether or not they help the problem, being ready to revise the laws or regulations if they fail.