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A former top law enforcement official is sounding the alarm on an attempt by illicit Chinese vape companies to exploit legal loopholes by replacing nicotine with an unregulated substitute to continue selling flavored disposable vapes to children.
“These Chinese organized crime groups, what they realized is if they go ahead and just change the ingredients in the packaging, then they create confusion and there is no enforcement or regulatory agency that then is responsible to address these illicit, illegal, disposable vapes,” former Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Deputy Director Edgar Domenech told Fox News Digital in an interview.
The synthetic compound, 6-methyl nicotine, also known as 6MN or “NIX,” is a nicotine analog marketed under brand names including Nixodine and Metatine, with some manufacturers arguing 6-methyl nicotine products fall outside the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) authority.
Domenech, the former sheriff of New York City, said that while nicotine is a well-known addictive substance regulated by the FDA, the nicotine substitute “manufactured illegally in China” is an “unknown variable” that hasn’t been studied enough.
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Former Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Deputy Director Edgar Domenech told Fox News Digital illicit Chinese vape companies are exploiting legal loopholes by replacing nicotine with an unregulated substitute. (Fox News Digital; Cheng Xin/Getty Images)
“It’s a different type of substance,” he said. “Now, all of a sudden, the FDA doesn’t have oversight, but it’s the same product. It’s a disposable vape product with flavors targeting our kids and our youth with unknown chemicals.”
Pointing to law enforcement’s role in combating the illicit trade, Domenech said the companies create “confusion” by changing the product’s ingredients, causing law enforcement and regulatory agencies to “take no action.”
“The organized crime groups — they’re five steps in front of us,” he said. “By changing the substance, they are now creating additional new obstacles to figure out.”
Domenech said the companies keep the same branding, packaging, and flavors while changing just one ingredient, allowing them to profit from children who may not realize what they’re consuming.
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A woman holds a Puff Bar flavored disposable vape device in New York City, Jan. 31, 2020. (Marshall Ritzel/AP Photo)
“They’re putting these products side by side in these big shops, because the packaging is all the same,” he said. “All they’ve done is changed one of the ingredients in the product.”
Domenech said the companies are targeting “our youngest, most vulnerable generation” with flavored disposable vapes containing chemicals whose long-term health effects remain unknown.
“They’re targeting our youth with flavors,” he said. “Whether it’s fruity flavors, candy-type flavors, dessert flavors. They’re targeting our kids to go ahead and ingest these products with unknown consequences because we don’t know what’s in them to begin with.”
As youth vaping has become more widespread, Domenech said some schools have installed bathroom sensors that detect vaping, adding, “We’ve got 11-year-olds, 12-year-olds, 14-year-olds vaping these products.”
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A selection of colorful disposable vapes on display for sale in a souvenir shop in London, Jan. 29, 2024. (Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP Photo)
He said that the products could lead to “unknown health and mental well-being issues down the line.”
“There is nothing healthy about the illegal disposable vapes that are flavored targeting our kids,” he said.
A recent Duke University study found 6-methyl nicotine may be stronger than nicotine, raising concerns it could be more addictive. Public patent records list Geoff Habicht, CEO of Arizona-based Mi-Pod, which Fox News Digital previously reported on as part of an investigation examining ties between the vaping industry and China, as an inventor on U.S. patents referencing 6-methyl nicotine and related compounds.
Raising awareness among lawmakers, health professionals, parents, and schools is vital to closing regulatory gaps and preventing more children from using the products, according to Domenech.
“Education is paramount for us to combat this issue,” he said. “We need to educate our policymakers, we need to educate our health professionals, we need to educate our parents, the educational system to make them understand that these products are illegal, they have unknown substances that can have unknown consequences, health consequences.”
Domenech said lawmakers and law enforcement need clearer guidance to identify and seize the products.
“We need to have a concerted effort to educate our policymakers at the federal level but also at the state and local levels because we need boots on the ground to understand what they can do legally in seizing these products,” he said.
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Domenech called the companies a “national security problem,” saying the products “should be seized the moment they enter this country, period.”
“We’re losing a generation of our future, our future leaders to this product,” he said.
