Is there a way to prevent under-age sales of e-cigarettes?

The ‘epidemic surge’ in teenage use of e-cigarettes in the US is seemingly becoming a bigger and bigger issue, with the FDA giving businesses just 60 days to prove that they are not selling devices and juices to minors.

In 2017, there were more than 2 million middle and high school students regularly using e-cigarettes. The FDA have stated that “the developing adolescent brain is particularly vulnerable to addiction,” and so are urging e-cigarette companies to step up their age verification practices in their sales, or ultimately the FDA will remove their flavored products.

Almost every single US state bans the sales of these products to anyone under the age of 18, but it is proving easy for minors to buy them online. The advertising of e-cigarettes has shown to attract the attention of younger audiences, especially the flavor advertisements. It’s proven that those exposed to advertisements would have a greater intention to use and try e-cigarettes in the future.

What can be done to prevent these sales?

It has been found that over half of users are under the age of 35, but how can the sales be prevented to those under 18?

With the ease of purchasing items online, age verification methods can be put in place to reduce the number of sales to minors.

How can we help?

Acuant’s age verification solutions provide businesses with a robust way to quickly and effectively verify a customer’s name and date of birth. This can be done throughout the user journey, whether during the registration process or checkout.

Our flagship solution, PROFILE, cross-checks an individual’s declared name and date of birth with their digital footprint information to enable a real-time verification solution.