Miami Alternative Products Expo is a mecca for Chinese manufacturers to peddle illicit vapes

The Miami Alternative Products Expo begins next week, April 3-5. The tagline on its website says it all: “Where vape, smoke, and head shops buy!”

While there are some legitimate products on the market regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that serve as a less harmful alternative to smoking traditional cigarettes, the expo predominantly features unregulated and illegal products from Chinese manufacturers. They gather at these expos — which are also held elsewhere throughout the nation — to cut deals and strategize on how to defy federal regulation.

Hialeah Rep. Alex Rizo, who served as the Miami-Dade GOP Chair last year when the expo was in Miami, said in a statement at the time that the expo and company’s “brazen defiance of federal law” must be called out, and products with child-enticing designs and flavors must be purged from the Florida marketplace.

He pointed to fruity flavors, such as “Rainbow Candy.”

“Manufacturers that have been placed on the ‘Red List’ and subject to import restrictions by the FDA are openly marketing their illegal products in Florida and making a mockery of our federal government’s failed enforcement,” Rizo said last year. “We call upon federal, state, and local law enforcement officials to intervene and prevent these manufacturers from marketing their products within our borders.”

Tobacco Insider estimates that 60% of the U.S. vape market is now dominated by illicit vapes. Other estimates put that number as high as 90%, according to an op-ed in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

The expo highlights the lack of enforcement to crack down on the illicit vape market, as these actors operate in clear defiance of both federal and state laws — right in the backyard of lawmakers who just last year passed a measure (HB 1007) to help ensure vape manufacturers are required to register with the state and certify their products are compliant with both federal and state law.

The problem is pervasive in Florida, the top state in the nation for illegal vape sales.

And while illicit vapes can be harmful to people of all ages, critics are concerned most for kids. Laws, including in Florida, regulate the flavors and type of packaging for legal vape sales. The laws are meant to keep fruity, candy-like flavors and colorful, sometimes cartoon-like packaging that would appeal to kids off store shelves.

But it’s not working. Chinese manufacturers flood the market with unregulated e-cigarettes designed to attract youth through exactly those means. That includes Florida-based Safa Goods, which was recently covered in a New York Times report for ties to illicit vape sales and has since been the subject of a bipartisan crackdown.

Potentially worse, many of the products are deliberately crafted to attract minors by mimicking electronics such as smartphones or gaming devices.

While youth smoking of traditional cigarettes has declined to an all-time low (1.4%), underage consumption of illicit e-cigarettes has surged since 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Meanwhile, the illicit Chinese vape industry is ratcheting up its China-funded lobbying campaign to try and influence the President and shape federal and state laws.

As this expo unfolds, it is more important than ever to remain vigilant, and demand continued action to crack down on these illegal manufacturers who are preying on teens and jeopardizing their health.

One way to continue making progress is to ensure a safer, legal route is available to companies doing business the right way.

Under federal law, the Center for Tobacco Products is required to review new premarket tobacco product applications for smoke-free alternatives such as nicotine pouches and e-cigarettes within 180 days after receiving them. However, Philip Morris International (PMI) argues that the agency has taken as long as three years, in some cases, to decide on such product applications.

The delay, PMI alleges, leads to unregulated products from foreign manufacturers flooding retailers’ shelves.

PMI has an entire line of e-vaporizer products, including its VEEV line and heated tobacco, the IQOS line. PMI also markets its Zyn oral smokeless products, all of which are advertised as less harmful than traditional cigarettes.

And other manufacturers are hoping to come to market with regulated, legal products. And efforts are underway this Legislative Session to incentivize safer alternatives to smoking, including through an effort this year to reclassify heated tobacco products to eliminate certain taxation.

Let’s support the good actors, and stop pandering to the bad ones.