U.S. minors easily buy e-cigarettes online: UNC study
By Kathryn Doyle NEW YORK (Reuters) – Teenagers in North Carolina who try to buy electronic cigarettes online are likely to succeed even though selling the devices to minors is illegal in the state, researchers reported on Monday. A 2013 North Carolina law required that online e-cigarette sellers verify customers' ages with a government database at the point of order. While 41 states ban e-cigarette sales to minors, "they tend to focus on face-to-face sales," imposing fewer or no restrictions for online sales, said Camille Gourdet, a health policy researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago who was not involved in the study. North Carolina is one of the few states that address remote sales, she said, and vendors shipping to minors there could be charged with a class 2 misdemeanor.
