“AVM and its members have pleaded with the FDA to use its enforcement discretion to allow the continued sale of open system vaping products that adults use to quit smoking while companies collect the required evidence,” [Wheeler] continued. “But the agency’s slipshod regulatory decisions leave us with more questions about whether the agency is acting to the benefit of combustible cigarettes.”

The American Vapor Manufacturers group said Congress’s deadline was “impossible” for companies to meet. “It should not be surprising that some companies could not submit the robust data and evidentiary requirements in time,” said Amanda Wheeler, the group’s president. “This latest crackdown shows that the FDA would rather pander to politicians who believe they know better than the millions of Americans who will now be forced back to cigarettes as more and more vaping products are banned.”

“This latest crackdown shows that the FDA would rather pander to politicians who believe they know better than the millions of Americans who will now be forced back to cigarettes as more and more vaping products are banned,” American Vapor Manufacturers President Amanda Wheeler said in an emailed statement.

The American Vapor Manufacturers has also argued that the deadlines Congress set for vapor manufacturers to submit applications for synthetic products were impossible to meet because, the group argues, the studies necessary for an FDA application cannot be completed in 60 days. “The sudden … deadline for products that were just redefined to be legally tobacco products was not only difficult for companies to fully comply — it was impossible,” the group wrote in its petition to the FDA. “Quite simply, the time frames provided were unrealistic and unfeasible.”

As of June 26, almost 3,000 electronic petition comments had been logged by the FDA. That’s not a large number, but the citizen petition has faced a lot of competition for publicity in the vaping world during the 10 days since it was posted. AVM President Amanda Wheeler told Vaping360 it’s important that comments are posted before the FDA enforcement deadline July 13.

'“For me, being at GFN was like one of those movies that suddenly switches from black-and-white to color,” Amanda Wheeler, owner of vape shops in Arizona and president of American Vapor Manufacturers, told Filter. “Most of the time, all the impressive voices we hear are up against forces trying to push them to the margins.” “But this time they were front and center and right in the spotlight,” she continued. “It was so inspiring to see a veteran journalist like Marc Gunther explaining how shining a reporting light on the prohibition movement exposes a mosaic of intolerance and corruption. Or Professor Marewa Glover detailing how she and her fellow academics face intimidation and blacklisting for simply following their scientific research objectively.”

Amanda Wheeler, president of lobbying group American Vapor Manufacturers Association, called the decision “regulatory arson” Wednesday, before the FDA officially rejected Juul’s applications. “Measured in lives lost and potential destroyed, FDA’s staggering indifference to ordinary Americans and their right to switch to the vastly safer alternative of vaping will surely rank as one of the greatest episodes of regulatory malpractice in American history,” she said.

Vaping advocates were unsettled by the news. “[This] is the latest sorry example of the agency’s campaign of regulatory arson against the nicotine-vaping products that millions of Americans rely on as an alternative to cigarettes,” said Amanda Wheeler, president of the American Vapor Manufacturers Association, in a statement.

But the decision incensed Amanda Wheeler, the president of the American Vapor Manufacturers Association. Wheeler accused the FDA of waging a "campaign of regulatory arson against the nicotine vaping products that millions of Americans rely on as an alternative to cigarettes." It was a sign, she said, of the FDA's "staggering indifference to ordinary Americans and their right to switch" to vaping.

"This shameful decision is hard proof that no matter how deeply resourced or how meticulous the research in the market application, FDA is hellbent to arbitrarily crush the most widely used vaping products preferred by adult Americans,” said AVM’s Wheeler.

“FDA’s apparent intention to outlaw Juul is the latest sorry example of the agency’s campaign of regulatory arson against the nicotine vaping products that millions of Americans rely on as an alternative to cigarettes,” Amanda Wheeler, a vape shop owner in Arizona and president of American Vapor Manufacturers, said in a press statement. “Measured in lives lost and potential destroyed,” she continued, “FDA’s staggering indifference to ordinary Americans and their right to switch to the vastly safer alternative of vaping will surely rank as one of the greatest episodes of regulatory malpractice in American history.”