San Francisco is the first city in the US to ban e-cigarette sales

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The city of San Francisco just passed a new ordinance that effectively bans the sales of e-cigarettes in the city. It’s not just brick and mortar sales either, with the city banning online sales that ship to any address within the city limits.

The city’s board of supervisors unanimously voted in favor of the new law, which states “no person shall sell or distribute an electronic cigarette to a person in San Francisco,” unless the product has FDA approval for its marketing.

To date, none of the e-cigs on the market have gone through the FDA approval process.

All e-cig sales in San Francisco are effectively banned

San Francisco’s board of supervisors want to wait until the Food and Drug Administration finds out the impact of vaping on public health.

That could be a long time coming, with the FDA only around nine months into its study. It also does nothing about stopping underage sales, driving the problem underground. The ban will also harm adults, both those who have swapped to e-cigs from tobacco and those who own or run stores.

• Sales of both flavored tobacco products (yes, your fruity blunt wraps are gone), and e-cigarettes. It does not ban vapes as long as the user is above 21 years of age
• To resume sales, e-cig manufacturers like JUUL will have to submit future products for premarket review by the US Food and Drug Administration
• Juul’s headquarters is in San Francisco. Awkwaaaaaard

With the FDA finally giving guidance to e-cig makers to move forward with seeking approval for marketing their products, the process will take time. Until then, there’ll be a whole lot less vape in the air of San Francisco.

What do you think? Agree with San Francisco’s ruling? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.