Dive Brief:

• The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Thursday proposed new regulations that for the first time would regulate e-cigarettes, bringing their oversight more in line with traditional tobacco products.

• The rules would ban e-cigarette sales to minors, require proof of age, and establish oversight of nicotine and tobacco products that have so far not been regulated.

• The proposal doesn’t include rules banning candy flavors and other additives that anti-tobacco advocates have said make the products attractive to children. The agency said those may be imminent, but that more research is needed on the harm first in order for rules to be proposed.

Dive Insight:

The electronic cigarette industry is already on Capitol Hill working to mitigate the proposed FDA rules governing e-cigarettes. But the supposed higher safety value of e-cigarettes is greatly undermined by any regulation by the FDA. Any meaningful oversight, no matter the final form it takes, will make it more difficult for makers and retailers of e-cigarettes to differentiate them from traditional cigarettes. Look for drugstores like CVS, which has announced it will phase out tobacco sales this year, to begin to treat e-cigarettes as essentially the same thing.