Agustin Rodriguez of the Troutman Pepper Tobacco + Nicotine team will attend the Food and Drug Law Institute 2024 Enforcement Conference on Wednesday, December 10-11, in Washington D.C. Members of our team will also attend the FDLI Holiday Party on December 10th.
Agustin will speak on a panel
In October, the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled that a law restricting the packaging of e-cigarettes violates the state constitution’s free speech protections. The decision illustrates the utility of free speech arguments against packaging requirements and the importance of state constitutions in regulatory challenges generally.
Bryan Haynes, Agustin Rodriguez, Michael Jordan and Zie Alere will be in attendance.
Bryan will be speaking during the “Recent State Regulatory and Enforcement Activity: Filling Gaps or Impeding Progress” panel. The panel will discuss recent measures enacted by state and local legislators and regulators to combat the illegal e-cigarette
In September, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) told industry that it would begin enforcing the agency’s cigarette graphic warning rule in December 2025 in an enforcement policy outlined in a short guidance document. Although a federal district court previously found the rule unconstitutional, an appeals court reversed that decision and the final rule is now in effect. In its guidance, FDA says that it will not begin enforcing until December 2025 at the earliest, but we believe it likely that the rule might yet again be postponed or vacated, as it remains the subject of ongoing litigation.
In August, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a new proposed rule that would require importers of electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDS) products to provide an FDA-issued submission tracking number (STN) to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for imports of such products. This rule could result in the denial of entry for ENDS imports for which the manufacturer has not submitted a premarket tobacco product application (PMTA) to FDA.
Agustin Rodriguez is attending the Third Annual New Approaches Summit on September 23 during UN week in New York City, which will focus on how policy, innovation, and technological advancements can collectively prevent 1 billion tobacco-related deaths this century.
Agustin will be participating on a panel discussion titled “Chevron, Triton
Agustin Rodriguez and Bryan Haynes will be attending the upcoming Tobacco Science Research Conference in Atlanta, GA, from September 8 to 11.
This year’s conference is focused on “Tobacco Harm Reduction: What Have We Learned and How Do We Move Forward?”
Agustin will be participating in a panel discussion on
On August 27, the New Jersey Attorney General (AG) and the Division of Consumer Affairs announced that the state had issued notices of violation and $4,500 civil penalty demands to 19 retailers across New Jersey for allegedly selling banned flavored vapor products. This is New Jersey’s first public enforcement of the state’s 2020 flavor ban, and New Jersey joins a number of other state AGs taking similar action across the U.S.
We recently had the opportunity to attend, and present at, the industry portion of the 2024 Federation of Tax Administrators Tobacco Tax Annual Conference in Mobile, Alabama.
Presentations at the conference included topics of interest to state tobacco tax administrators and industry (the agenda is located here). The conference was well attended by both industry members and state and federal agencies responsible for enforcing tobacco and nicotine laws. Our team has attended this conference for several years and it always provides a great opportunity for collaboration between government and industry, and this year was no different.
In August, a group of tobacco companies filed a petition for certiorari at the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking review of a lower court’s holding that the First Amendment does not prohibit the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from requiring graphic warnings on cigarette packs. As we noted in prior coverage, the March 2020 FDA rule at issue would require new textual, health warning statements alongside color, photorealistic images displayed on the top 50% of the front and rear panels of cigarette packs and the top 20% of cigarette advertisements.