In recent years, e-cigarettes have been a growth product for gasoline retailers, but Walmart, a discount retailer and fuel marketer, said today that it will discontinue the sale of e-cigarettes following reports of illness linked to the product.

"Given the growing federal, state and local regulatory complexity and uncertainty regarding e-cigarettes, we plan to discontinue the sale of electronic nicotine delivery products at all Walmart and Sam's Club U.S. locations," the company said in an email statement. "We will complete our exit after selling through current inventory."

The move is just the latest action Walmart has taken to restrict the sale of tobacco products in response to public safety issues.

The company raised the minimum age to buy tobacco products to 21 at its U.S. network of Walmart and Sam's Club stores on July 1.

On May 8, as it announced that age restriction, the company discontinued the sale of fruit- and dessert-flavored electronic nicotine delivery systems.

"We received a letter from the Food and Drug Administration about the policies we have in place to prevent the sale of tobacco and electronic nicotine delivery systems to anyone underage," John Scudder, U.S. chief compliance and ethics officer for Walmart Inc. said in May. "While we have implemented a robust compliance program, we are not satisfied with falling short of our company-wide goal of 100% compliance."

--Donna Harris, dharris@opisnet.com


Copyright, Oil Price Information Service