Mint went from half of sales to nothing in nine months, and menthol took its place

Between September 2014 and May 2020, US e-cigarette sales rose 122.2% —
from 7.7 million to 17.1 million units per four-week period.

Underneath the total, the market moved twice.

Device type

Cartridges took the market to 2019; disposables grew after.

Flavour, among cartridges

Mint went from nearly half of cartridge sales to almost nothing in nine
months, and menthol went from a tenth to nearly two thirds over the same nine
months.

Those two lines crossing is not consumers changing their minds. It is a market
reorganising around a rule, with a product that tastes almost the same and sits
in a different regulatory category.

Flavour, among disposables

The disposable category went the other way: tobacco and menthol collapsed as a
share, and **everything else — fruit, candy and the rest — grew to nearly two
thirds.**

Put the two tables together and the shape is clear. Restriction moved the
cartridge market from mint to menthol, and moved flavour demand into
disposables, where "all other flavours" is now the majority.

Why this is measured at all

**E-cigarettes have been the most commonly used tobacco product among US youths
since 2014**, and in 2019 **27.5% of high school students reported current
use.** Flavours have contributed to increases in youth use.

Hence the conclusion, which names the thing the tables demonstrate:
**strategies could include those that address youth-appealing product
innovations and flavours** — innovations as well as flavours, because the
product form is how a flavour restriction gets routed around.

Continued monitoring of sales and use is critical, and these numbers are why:
every intervention shows up here first, along with what the market did next.

*(Retail scanner data from Information Resources, Inc., 14 September 2014 – 17
May 2020.)*

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, MMWR.