The vape shop industry is a rapidly growing market sector with a constantly changing product landscape. The rapid evolution of nicotine delivery systems, most notably the emergence of salt nicotine e-juice and pod mod devices, have resulted in a sudden shift in the product market, suggesting new implications for the health professions in addressing electronic cigarette use.

Background: The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently restricted characterizing flavors in tobacco products. As a result, ice hybrid–flavored e-cigarettes, which combine a cooling flavor with fruit or other flavors (eg, banana ice), emerged on the market. Like menthol, ice-flavored e-cigarettes produce a cooling sensory experience. It is unclear if ice hybrid–flavored e-cigarettes should be considered characterizing flavors or menthol, limiting regulatory action. Monitoring the public’s conversations about ice-flavored e-cigarettes on Twitter may help inform the tobacco control community about these products and contribute to the US FDA policy targets in the future. Objective: This study documented the themes pertaining to vaping and ice flavor–related conversations on Twitter. Our goal was to identify key conversation trends and ascertain users’ recent experiences with ice-flavored e-cigarette products. Methods: Posts containing vaping-related (eg, “vape,” “ecig,” “e-juice,” or “e-cigarette”) and ice-related (ie, “Ice,” “Cool,” “Frost,” and “Arctic”) terms were collected from Twitter’s streaming application programming interface from January 1 to July 21, 2021. After removing retweets, a random sample of posts (N=2001) was selected, with 590 posts included in the content analysis. Themes were developed through an inductive approach. Theme co-occurrence was also examined. Results: Many of the 590 posts were marked as (or consisted of) marketing material (n=306, 51.9%), contained positive personal testimonials (n=180, 30.5%), and mentioned disposable pods (n=117, 19.8%). Other themes had relatively low prevalence in the sample: neutral personal testimonials (n=45, 7.6%), cannabidiol products (n=41, 7%), negative personal testimonials (n=41, 7%), “official” flavor description (n=37, 6.3%), ice-flavored JUUL (n=19, 3.2%), information seeking (n=14, 2.4%), and comparison to combustible tobacco (n=10, 1.7%). The most common co-occurring themes in a single tweet were related to marketing and disposable pods (n=73, 12.4%). Conclusions: Our findings offer insight into the public’s experience with and understanding of ice-flavored e-cigarette products. Ice-flavored e-cigarette products are actively marketed on Twitter, and the messages about them are positive. Public health education campaigns on the harms of flavored e-cigarettes may help to reduce positive social norms about ice-flavored products. Future studies should evaluate the relationship between exposure to personal testimonials of ice-flavored vaping products and curiosity, harm perceptions, and experimentation with these products among priority populations.

Background: Oral nicotine gum such as LUCY, which comes in colorful packaging, mimicking traditional chewing gum, is becoming popular. Many brands of gum have not been approved by the FDA for smoking cessation. This study examined public discourse about, including sentiment toward, oral nicotine gum on Twitter. Methods: We used Twitter’s Streaming Application Programming Interface to collect data from January 1, 2021, to December 21, 2021, using “nicotine gum” and/or “#nicotinegum” search terms (N = 19 171 unique tweets were collected). We used an inductive approach to become familiar with the data, generated a codebook, and conducted a content analysis on (n = 2152) tweets. Results: Cessation (n = 716, 33.3%), personal experience (n = 370, 17.2%), and addiction to gum (n = 135, 6.3%) were the most prevalent themes. Cessation tweets primarily discussed cigarette smoking cessation (n = 418, 58.4% of cessation tweets) and successful cessation experiences (n = 155, 21.6%). Other identified themes pertained to using nicotine gum for cognitive enhancement or catching a “buzz” (n = 102, 4.7%), marketing (n = 98, 4.6%), using nicotine gum with other substances (n = 90, 4.2%), and adverse effects (n = 63, 2.9%). Sentiment analysis results revealed that 675 (44.2%) tweets were categorized as neutral, 605 (39.6%) tweets were classified as positive, and 248 tweets (16.2%) were negative. Conclusions: About one-third of tweets in our corpus mentioned nicotine gum in the context of smoking cessation. Most nicotine gum-related posts conveyed positive and neutral sentiments. Future studies should consider adding novel nicotine gum-specific search terms as well as exploring other social media platforms to gain more insights about these products. Implications: Our findings suggest that Twitter has the potential to track and facilitate conversations between those seeking cigarette cessation advice and those who have successfully quit tobacco by using nicotine gum. Monitoring of promotional content from nicotine gum companies is needed to ensure these products are not appealing to youth and nonusers of tobacco.

Vape shops specialize in sales of e-cigarettes and related products. This study examines whether vape shops adapted their products and services in response to changes in federal and state policies that affect the tobacco retail environment between 2014–2022. In this multicohort study, four waves of study data were used to examine the trends in products sold in vape shops in Southern California. Items sold were assessed through systematic store product observations and included categories of e-cigarettes, device modification equipment, and other products (e.g., Cannabidiol (CBD), paraphernalia). Descriptive statistics are reported. The availability of disposable devices increased from 18% at Wave 1 to 98% of shops at Wave 4. Pod mods were first observed in 79% of the shops beginning at Wave 3. Device modification drills later become obsolete, from 60% at Wave 1 to 0 by Wave 4; self-service sampling displays declined from 83% of shops to 9%. Vape shops did not carry CBD products until Wave 3 (2017/2018), when 19.0% of shops carried CBD products and 72.9% at Wave 4. Future research should examine how e-cigarette retailers and manufacturers respond to changing state and federal regulations to better understand the implications of regulatory efforts.

This study examined vape shop customers’ behaviors in relation to shop display practices. We hypothesized that display of signs conveying supportive attitude toward vaping at vape shops would be positively associated with customer purchasing and in-shop vaping behaviors. We recruited vape shops throughout Southern California (N = 122). Trained teams of data collectors visited each of the consented vape shops, observed customers’ characteristics and behaviors (N = 254) and coded items in the shops that were visible and on display. We conducted a multivariate multilevel analysis to account for the data structure where customers were nested within vape shops. Male customers were more likely to purchase e-liquid at the shop than female customers (p < .001). There were no sex differences vaping at the shop (p = .353). We observed more customers vaping at shops with e-cigarette safety displays (p = .024) and more customers purchasing e-liquid at shops with quit smoking signage (p = .004). Point-of-sale displays were not associated with either customer vaping or purchasing behaviors observed at the shop. Displays of state-regulated and nonregulated (i.e., tobacco industry) age-of-sale compliance signs, Ask4ID and WeCard, were not significantly associated with customer vaping or purchase behaviors. Certain display signs present at vape shops might communicate to customers that engaging in certain behaviors (e.g., vaping inside the shops) may be safe or acceptable.