MDO’s, PMTA’s, ENDS what are they and what it means for the vaping community

Are you new to the vaping community and wondering what MDO, PMTA, ENDS are? Or you’re a veteran vaper, and you’ve have seen these words repeated multiple times through pages and pages of articles? The FDA continues its ongoing strikes against vape related products and the battle for flavor freedom. We’re here to help you break down what it all means.

FDA

ENDS

PMTA

MDO

First thing to know is that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is the federal agency that is responsible for inspecting, approving, and regulating a wide variety of products. They can range from food, drugs, vaccines, cosmetics, and even to our very own vapes. 

Within the past few years the FDA has been buckling down on the manufacturing, marketing, and distribution of tobacco and electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS); aka your vape products and e-liquids.

In order to get our ENDS and e-liquids through the FDA and approved, companies across the country are submitting Premarket Tobacco Applications (PMTA’s)

MDO’s, also known as Marketing Denial Orders, are the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) rejected responses to Premarket Tobacco Applications (PMTAs). 

PMTA’s are essential for flavored vapes to exist on our market. According to the FDA “a PMTA may be submitted to seek marketing authorization for any new tobacco product.” The FDA determines the legal distribution by evaluating these PMTA’s, but unfortunately, the community has been receiving Marketing Denial Orders (MDO’s) left and right.

These MDO’s are essentially rejections to the PMTA’s, thus making products described in the applications “illegal to sell, distribute, or intent to sell” within the U.S. If we refer back to the FDA’s page about vape MDOs you’ll see a list of all the products rejected.

So far 265 are denied. If we look over at Vape PMTA, a third party database that updates the latest news on PMTAs, you’ll see that up to 282 were actually given MDO’s and only 3 were approved.

We hope these small explanations can help you interpret the ongoing battle between our community and the FDA. Whether we can get through the MDO’s and continue to submit PMTAs for approval, we hope as a community you continue to use your ENDS and e-liquids. Continue vaping.