A new study examining state efforts to restrict unauthorized e-cigarette sales has raised questions about whether increasingly complex regulatory requirements are achieving their intended public health objectives. Published September 15th in JAMA Network Open, the research found that e-cigarette product directories implemented in Alabama, Louisiana, and Oklahoma failed to produce sustained reductions in flavored e-cigarette sales. The findings highlight a recurring challenge in tobacco regulation: policies intended to address a specific problem can create substantial compliance burdens without necessarily delivering the results policymakers anticipated.
Over the past several years, states have increasingly adopted product directory laws requiring e-cigarette manufacturers to register their products before they can be legally sold. These directories generally rely on a product’s regulatory status with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), with the stated objective of removing unauthorized vaping products from the marketplace and reducing youth access to flavored e-cigarettes. As of June 2026, 17 states had enacted some form of e-cigarette directory legislation, reflecting the growing popularity of this regulatory approach.
The study, conducted by researchers affiliated with the CDC Foundation, analyzed retail sales data from January 2021 through April 2025 to assess the effectiveness of e-cigarette product directories in Alabama, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. Researchers found no statistically significant changes in e-cigarette nicotine sales or product availability in Alabama and Oklahoma following implementation of their respective directory laws. Louisiana initially experienced a decline in sales and an approximately 54 percent reduction in the number of distinct products available for purchase. However, sales eventually rebounded as flavored disposable e-cigarettes and menthol cartridges continued circulating in the marketplace. By April 2025, products not included on state directories accounted for more than half of e-cigarette nicotine sales across all three states, raising questions about whether these regulatory requirements are achieving their intended objectives.
For policymakers, the findings raise an important distinction between regulatory activity and regulatory effectiveness. Establishing a directory, imposing registration fees, and restricting product availability may demonstrate a government’s commitment to addressing youth use of tobacco products, but those actions alone do not establish that the underlying problem has been resolved. When products remain available outside approved channels, the consequences may fall disproportionately on legitimate manufacturers and retailers that comply with the law, while the products prompting regulatory concern continue to circulate.
A real world concern for premium cigars can be seen in California, where the state’s Unflavored Tobacco List (UTL) has created additional compliance requirements for tobacco manufacturers and importers. Established under Assembly Bill 3218, the UTL requires covered tobacco products to be registered and approved before they can be legally sold in California. Products not appearing on the list are treated as prohibited flavored tobacco products, even when manufacturers maintain that their products contain no characterizing flavors.
The implications for premium cigar manufacturers illustrate how broadly written regulatory requirements can reach beyond their intended targets. Although California’s flavored tobacco law provides an exemption for premium cigars meeting specific statutory criteria, not every traditional handmade cigar qualifies under the state’s definition. In particular, the requirement that a premium cigar carry a wholesale price of at least $12 excludes many otherwise traditional, unflavored handmade cigars from the exemption. Manufacturers of these products must therefore navigate the state’s registration process to maintain access to the California marketplace, despite producing cigars that do not contain characterizing flavors.
For manufacturers offering numerous cigar brands, sizes, and packaging configurations, these requirements can translate into thousands of dollars in application fees, administrative expenses, and ongoing compliance costs. These expenses are particularly significant for smaller, family-owned manufacturers that lack the regulatory resources of larger tobacco companies. The result is a system in which businesses producing products that are not flavored must nevertheless expend substantial resources demonstrating that fact to state regulators simply to continue selling them.
California’s UTL is not identical to the e-cigarette directories examined in the JAMA study, and the research does not establish whether California’s program has achieved its objectives. Nevertheless, both approaches illustrate the importance of examining how regulatory requirements operate beyond their stated intentions. Product directories may provide regulators with additional oversight, but they can also introduce significant costs, administrative complexity, and barriers to market access. Those consequences deserve consideration alongside any demonstrated public health benefits.
Protecting young people from unauthorized tobacco products is a legitimate public health objective, and effective enforcement remains an important component of tobacco regulation. However, the latest research suggests that directory requirements alone may be insufficient to address the marketplace conditions driving flavored e-cigarette sales. It also reinforces the importance of evaluating whether regulatory approaches are appropriately tailored to the products and behaviors they are intended to address.
For CRA, the broader concern is that increasingly expansive tobacco regulations can impose disproportionate burdens on premium handmade cigars, a distinct product category with different manufacturing characteristics, consumer demographics, and patterns of use. The experience with California’s UTL demonstrates how regulatory definitions can subject traditional, unflavored cigars to requirements developed in response to concerns involving entirely different products.
The lesson from these developments is not that tobacco regulation has no role in addressing legitimate public health concerns. Rather, it is that regulatory success should be measured by demonstrated outcomes, not the number of restrictions imposed or products registered. As more states consider product directories and similar regulatory frameworks, policymakers should carefully evaluate their effectiveness, enforcement challenges, and unintended consequences before expanding requirements that may burden compliant businesses without meaningfully addressing the problems they were designed to solve.