Vaping products should be subject to further regulation instead of outright banning them, the co-founder and former co-CEO of the cannabis company Canopy Growth told CNBC Tuesday.
“My worry is when regulators say we’re going to stop it, they will get things into the (black) market,” said Bruce Linton, who told the network that he was fired about a month ago from the Canadian cannabis company he co-founded in 2013. “You’re seeing the products people are vaping not being what people thought they were.”
President Donald Trump’s administration plans on banning flavored e-cigarettes in an attempt to keep teenagers from vaping, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has activated an emergency operations center to look into lung illnesses that may be linked to vaping.
“The more you regulate this area and the less you ignore it, it’s bad for criminals, better for public safety,” Linton told “Squawk Box.”
Former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb, now a CNBC contributor, told the network last week that vaping products “are falling within a regulatory gap. People who are vaping nicotine and having these reactions probably are vaping illegal products that are counterfeit. We have to have a federal reckoning here.”
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