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Agustin Rodriguez and Cole White of the Troutman Pepper Cannabis Team will be attending the 2024 CANNRA External Stakeholders Meeting. This in-person event will be held in Minneapolis, MN from June 3-6, 2024, and presents a great opportunity for government and industry members to share perspectives on issues related to…

The Food and Drug Law Institute’s 2024 Annual Conference is happening May 15-16, 2024! Agustin Rodriguez of the Troutman Pepper Tobacco + Nicotine team will be participating in a panel discussion on “State Regulation of Nicotine Products: Evaluating Flavor Bans and Registration Lists.” Agustin’s panel will discuss actions being taken…

FDA recently announced the launch of a new searchable database containing almost 17,000 tobacco products that may be legally marketed in the U.S. The database provides information on each tobacco product including product names, company names, categories (e.g., cigarette, roll-your-own, e-cigarette, cigar, heated tobacco product), sub-categories (e.g., e- components, filler, leaf wrap), source of U.S. marketing authority (e.g., marketing granted order, substantially equivalent order, found exempt order), and the date of FDA’s action on the tobacco products. FDA indicates that it plans to update the database on a monthly basis. This database is helpful to industry members seeking more transparency from FDA about which products are authorized for sale in the U.S. The database is not, however, without limitations.

Mark your calendars for the TMA 2024 Annual Meeting and Conference! The Troutman Pepper Tobacco + Nicotine team will be in attendance, with our very own Bryan Haynes participating in a panel discussion, “Taking Stock: Discussions on Legal Challenges and What Comes Next.” Bryan will discuss court actions challenging the…

On April 2, three advocacy organizations filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California seeking an order directing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) to promulgate its already-proposed rule banning menthol as a characterizing flavor in combustible cigarettes. The case comes as FDA has missed several internal deadlines for promulgating a final rule on the topic.

The Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking (PACT) Act, 15 U.S.C. § 375 et seq., is a federal law with two primary objectives: (1) to prevent federal and state tax evasion on tobacco products, and (2) to prevent sales of tobacco products to minors. Government agencies, increasingly concerned about cheap, untaxed products getting into the hands of underage consumers, are using the PACT Act’s enforcement tools to crack down on noncompliant companies.

If you are involved in the online sale and/or shipping of tobacco products, here are five things you need to know about the PACT Act.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) recently upheld, in a unanimous decision, the town of Brookline’s ordinance banning the sale of tobacco and e-cigarette products to anyone born after Jan. 1, 2000 (the Tobacco Sales Ban). Brookline is the first U.S. locality to impose a tobacco sales ban based on a specific date.

A couple of years ago we posted an overview of state licensing and excise tax considerations for tobacco companies. In this post, we take a closer look at state excise tax considerations. When approaching state excise tax issues, it may be helpful to establish a checklist to help manufacturers, distributors, and retailers determine the impact of these laws on their products and distribution models.

Over the past decade, at least five states and hundreds of localities have passed, or attempted to pass, laws banning flavored tobacco products. To date, litigants have brought many challenges to these laws, often arguing that such bans are preempted under the federal Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (TCA). This argument, however, has largely proven unsuccessful — a trend that continued in January when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company’s challenge to California’s ban on the sale of flavored tobacco products.

We recently reported that several state legislatures are considering bills to establish vapor product directories this year—namely Florida, Indiana, Missouri, and Virginia. Throughout January and early February, similar bills have been introduced in Arizona, Hawaii, Iowa, Nebraska, New York, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia. Additionally, a bill in Oklahoma would update the state’s existing directory framework to be consistent with the proposals of these recent bills. The directories would allow states to prohibit the sale of vapor products that are not authorized by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) or subject to a pending premarket application. Like the proposals discussed in our previous coverage, these bills are intended to reduce the proliferation of illicit vapor products.