No more e-cigarettes at the Walmart and Sam’s Club locations in the United States would be sold by the largest retailer of the world. This was communicated by Walmart on Friday through an internal memo which was accessed by the media, even as there is increasing “regulatory complexity” and “uncertainty” about the vaping industry.

Walmart become the latest big name to shun the sale of e-cigarettes.  US federal regulators have said that a will soon be imposed on the sale of flavored e-cigarettes while other countries have completely banned the sale and use of e-cigarettes citing increasing health problems to users.

The entire e-cigarette and vaping industry has been rocked by a dramatic increase in teens in the US talking to vaping, reaching record levels which has forced federal health officials to issue warnings about a possible outbreak of a mysterious vaping-related lung disease, one that has already resulted in the  death of eight in the US in just a few weeks.

“Given the growing federal, state and local regulatory complexity and uncertainty regarding e-cigarettes, we plan to discontinue the sale of electronic nicotine delivery products at all Walmart and Sam’s Club U.S. locations,” the company said in a memo to local managers. “We will complete our exit after selling through current inventory.”

Companies selling and marketing e-cigarettes have claimed it to be a less harmful way to get nicotine fix for people compared to the traditional cigarettes.

However, following the death of US citizens because of lung diseases that could not be properly diagnosed, vaping has been tentatively identified to be the cause behind them by the US health officials. It has been estimated that about 350 people across the US have taken ill by the mysterious lung disease while 8 have died already. The blame of the disease has not been put on just one or two brands of e-cigarettes by the health officials. The use of THC, the compound in marijuana that produces a high, was reported by most of the patients. And while both nicotine and THC have been used by come, others reported that they only vaped nicotine.

Amid all these, a federal ban on flavored e-cigarettes is being prepared by the Trump administration while similar measures are being prepared by US cities and states.

Earlier this year, the minimum age for tobacco buying at its stores was raised to 21 years by Walmart in its efforts to prevent teens from “epidemic” of teen vaping as is being called by the regulators. Use of e-cigarettes was reported by more than one-quarter of high school students in a preliminary survey conducted by the federal agencies. Juul, the market leader, is being blamed for by the US lawmakers for the surge in youth use of e-cigarettes.

There have been calls and urges to the US Food and Drug Administration for a severe clamp down on the industry which is mostly unregulated. However, since there has been a timid or lack of response from the federal government, a number of companies, states and cities have themselves taken measures to severe business ties with the vaping and e-cigarette industry.

(Adapted from CNBC.com)

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