Earlier this year I’ve developed quite an unfortunate habit: vaping. More specifically, I started smoking flavored vapes manufactured in the so-called “Vape Valley” of China and sold throughout the United States.
Flavored nicotine vapes are largely illegal in the U.S., but convenience and tobacco stores across the country have generated billions of dollars in sales of the products in recent years, despite periodic law enforcement seizures and efforts by the Food and Drug Administration to keep them off the market. Recently, Chinese manufacturers have found a fresh way to circumvent the law, completely escaping regulatory oversight.
Like many people, I assumed that the only addictive chemical in these products was synthetic nicotine, which vape manufacturers have used for years to avoid FDA oversight. But after Congress closed the loophole in 2022 — expanding regulation beyond tobacco-derived nicotine — Chinese manufacturers began filling their vape pens with poorly researched chemicals that mimic the effects of nicotine, known as nicotine analogues.
Because current regulations continue to narrowly define what counts as nicotine, Chinese companies can sell nicotine analog vapes in the U.S. without having to worry about federal tobacco regulations, which typically require companies to submit fresh products to the FDA for scientific review before they can be legally marketed.
“It’s like whack-a-mole. These companies will do everything they can to get around the regulations,” says Robert Jackler, professor emeritus of head and neck surgery at Stanford University and founder of the interdisciplinary research group research on the effects of tobacco advertising.
The effects of nicotine analogues on humans have not been studied in detail, but animal research found that one of the most popular variants, 6-methylnicotine, may be more potent and addictive than regular nicotine. Vapes containing nicotine analogues may also expose users to other mystery chemicals. One 2024 study found that some manufacturers sold nicotine analogue vaporizers that contained additional, unlabeled ingredients, including artificial sweeteners and refrigerants, with unknown inhalation risks. “What’s on the label has very little to do with what’s on it,” Jackler says.
Scientists first documented the appearance of vaporizers containing 6-methylnicotine and other nicotine analogues on the US market about three years ago. However, the chemical compounds themselves are nothing fresh – tobacco companies have been researching them since the 1970s.
Year 2005 review millions of previously secret internal industry documents show that Substantial Tobacco had long explored nicotine-like compounds as nicotine replacements, in part because it believed they could facilitate circumvent potential regulations.
However, U.S. tobacco companies have never ended sales of mainstream products containing any of these nicotine-like chemicals. Instead, they appeared decades later in disposable vaporizers from Chinese manufacturers, who have proven remarkably adept at finding fresh ways to continue selling their wares in the United States.
Chinese vape companies “are extremely creative, they are extremely intelligent,” says Prosperous Marianos, a former official with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and now executive director of the Tobacco Law Enforcement Network, an advocacy group that does not publicly disclose its funding.
“The Chinese have been flooding the U.S. market with illegal vape products intended for children for years. These fake nicotine products appear to be a new scheme to deceive American consumers into putting illegal, potentially dangerous chemicals into their bodies,” Tim Sheehy, a Republican senator from Montana, said in a statement to WIRED. “The Trump administration has made cracking down on these unregulated Chinese products a priority and I hope they will continue to sound the alarm on this issue.”
Jeckler notes, however, that the Trump administration has effectively eliminated the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention office responsible for the agency’s tobacco prevention programs and significantly reduced the size of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products. This means that much of the effort to regulate nicotine analogues has fallen to the states. Jackler says he knows of four states – California, Nebraska, Indiana and Tennessee – that have expanded their definitions of tobacco products to explicitly include nicotine-like chemicals. However, there is still no comprehensive federal law that treats these substances in the same way as tobacco-derived or synthetic nicotine.