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Nick Ramos

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Nick draws on years of military leadership, project management, and legal experience to help clients solve difficult business problems from a legal perspective. His practical advice enables clients to navigate regulatory compliance and licensing issues, complex investigations, and high stakes enforcement actions that arise under state and federal law.

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The Virginia ABC will assess a regulatory scheme for liquid nicotine, with the consultation of stakeholders, and issue a report and recommendations.

On April 12, the Virginia General Assembly enacted House Bill 2296 and Senate Bill 1350, incorporating recommendations of Governor Glenn Youngkin to have the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority (ABC) “assess” a potential licensing scheme for liquid nicotine manufacturers, distributors, and retail dealers, as well as administrative and enforcement matters relating to liquid nicotine licensing, age verification, product verification, and advertising restrictions. These bills effectively instruct the ABC to tell the Virginia General Assembly whether and how the Commonwealth should regulate liquid nicotine. The ABC’s report and recommendations are due by November 1, and will be informed by stakeholder input. The enactments specify that the ABC will conduct its assessment “in consultation with stakeholders, including public and community health organizations, retailers, tobacco and vaporized nicotine companies, and wholesalers.”…

Continue Reading Stakeholders’ Input Welcome: Virginia ABC to Assess Options for Regulating Liquid Nicotine in the Commonwealth

This is the third post in our multipart series evaluating the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) response to the Reagan-Udall Foundation report (the Report) on the operations of the Center for Tobacco Products (CTP). If you missed our prior posts on the Report and FDA’s response, check them out here, here, and here.

In this segment of our series evaluating FDA’s response to the Report (which can be found here and here), we review a subset of the Report’s recommendations and responses from two CTP Task Forces—Cross Cutting and Regulation and Guidance.…

Continue Reading Inside FDA’s Response to Reagan-Udall Foundation Report: Spotlight on the Cross-Cutting and Regulation and Guidance Task Forces

Over the last several months, FDA and DOJ enforcement efforts have increasingly focused on manufacturers and distributors of vapor products covered by the Food, Drug, & Cosmetic Act and the PACT Act.

The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and Department of Justice (DOJ) are increasingly focusing enforcement efforts on electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS). Such enforcement priorities have been reflected in six DOJ complaints for injunctions and four FDA complaints for civil monetary penalties (CMP) against businesses dealing in ENDS without marketing authorization under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act). In addition, ENDS businesses have been receiving communications from DOJ’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) alleging violations of the PACT Act, and FDA has issued a substantial number of warning letters alleging ENDS businesses’ FD&C Act violations. Federal prioritization of ENDS enforcement has also been reflected in FDA statements in connection with its CMP complaints and the Reagan-Udall Foundation’s operational evaluation of FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products (CTP), which we have discussed here, here, and here.…

Continue Reading Federal Government Ramping Up Vapor Enforcement

Bryan Haynes, Agustin Rodriguez and Nicholas Ramos of the Troutman Pepper Tobacco Team will be attending TMA’s 2023 Conference and Annual Meeting. This in-person event will be held in Leesburg, VA from April 17-19, 2023. Hot topics will include discussions surrounding nicotine policies; federal, state, and local enforcement initiatives, FDA submission pathways, FDA tobacco…

The Troutman Pepper Tobacco Team was featured in part two of a two-part podcast on recent developments in the tobacco industry and what to expect for the coming year. In this podcast, Bryan Haynes, Agustin Rodriguez and Nick Ramos discuss tobacco excise taxes; challenges to flavor bans; FDA’s regulation of nicotine levels; potential bans on…

The Troutman Pepper Tobacco Team was featured in part one of a two-part podcast on recent developments in the tobacco industry and what to expect for the coming year. In this podcast, Bryan Haynes, Agustin Rodriguez and Nick Ramos discuss developments at the federal level, including important happenings at FDA, including leadership changes, the premarket…

The Oregon Legislature’s 2023 regular session kicked off with a bang for the tobacco industry when House Bill 2128 (HB2128) was introduced at the request of Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum who also happens to the be president-elect of the National Association of Attorneys General. If passed, HB2128 would replace Oregon’s escrow deposit system, applicable to tobacco product manufacturers that are nonparticipating manufacturers (NPMs) under the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA), with an equity assessment. While HB2128 was only recently introduced and has a number of hurdles to overcome before it becomes law, we are not aware of any other state that has made a similar proposal to retroactively change escrow deposit systems for NPMs. Thus, HB2128 is worth monitoring, not only for its potential impact to Oregon NPMs, but also to see whether similar legislation will be introduced in other states.…

Continue Reading Oregon Bill Proposes to Replace Escrow Deposit System With “Equity Assessment” for Certain Tobacco Product Manufacturers

In October 2022, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that the Department of Justice (DOJ), on its behalf, filed complaints against six electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDS) companies in federal district courts, seeking permanent injunctions. These cases are important because they mark the first time the FDA has litigated against companies to enforce the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act’s premarket review requirements for new tobacco products.…

Continue Reading FDA Implements More Aggressive Approach to Enforcement of ENDS Premarket Requirements

The Senate recently passed the Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research Expansion Act (the Act) by a voice vote after the House of Representatives passed the bill with strong bipartisan support (325-95) last July. The Act is the first stand-alone marijuana legislation passed in decades and, according to some news sources, President Biden will likely sign it within the next two weeks. Historically, conducting research with Schedule I controlled substances has been subject to numerous administrative hurdles and onerous security requirements that have deterred many potential researchers. The Act amends key sections of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to ease some of those restrictions and to facilitate research on marijuana and its potential therapeutic benefits, without changing marijuana’s designation as a Schedule I controlled substance. Some of the key provisions are summarized below.…

Continue Reading Bipartisan Marijuana Research Bill Heads to Biden’s Desk

California voters have approved Senate Bill 793, which prohibits tobacco retailers from selling flavored tobacco products or tobacco product flavor enhancers. A lawsuit has been filed in federal court claiming that it is unconstitutional.

On November 8, 2022, California voters said “yes” to Proposition 31, a referendum on a 2020 law that would prohibit the retail sale of certain flavored tobacco products. The constitutionality of the referenced law, Senate Bill 793 (“SB793”), is at issue in a case filed the next day in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., et al. v. Bonta, et al., No. 3:22-cv-01755 (S.D. Cal.); however, the plaintiffs’ success in that case will likely depend on the development of favorable precedents in other cases pending before appellate courts.…

Continue Reading California Voters Approve Flavored Tobacco Ban in Referendum; Is It Unconstitutional?