Philly Plain Dealer

Vape-magedon Comes to Pennsylvania

Single-use disposable vapes are now illegal in Pennsylvania, this started on October 19th, 2026. PA Attorney General Dave Sunday said “This law is about keeping harmful products out of the hands of both children and adults who may not realize what they are consuming.”

The legal term that the Commonwealth uses to discuss single-use disposable vapes is “ENDS” which stands for “Electronic Nicotine Delivery System.” On December 22, 2025 Governor Josh Shapiro signed legislation that “establishes a directory of electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDS) products that may be sold in the Commonwealth.”

According to the PA Attorney General’s Office “An ENDS manufacturer seeking to have its product included on the ENDS directory must submit a certification to the Attorney General by April 21, 2026 and by April 21 of each year after 2026 to remain on the directory. The ENDS directory will be published by June 20, 2026. ENDS products not appearing on the directory shall be subject to seizure by the Commonwealth after October 19, 2026.”

Currently included in the PA ENDS directory of allowed vape products are 6 manufacturers:

• Juul
• Njoy (Big Tobacco)
• RJ Reynolds (Big Tobacco)
• Blue Nine
• Custom Technologies
• The Schwartz E-Liquid

The brands of vape available are:

• ACE
• Crossbar
• Daily
• Daily Extra
• eCig 4 Intimate
• Juul
• Naked 100
• Vuse

This means that if you are a vape smoker who smokes AirBar, Geek Bar, Elf Bar, Lava Plus, Lost Mary, Flair, Foger or any number of the name brand disposable vapes that have been readily available in Pennsylvania for over a decade, you will no longer have access to these brands.

Vape Store Owners Across PA React

A vape store in Trevose had a sign warning people to “stock up.” Inside the owner haggled deals and managed his inconsistent inventory. “I owned this store for seven years man, I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he said.

Across the state, vape shop owners are concerned about how this ban will affect their business. Mohammad, who is an ownership partner in a vape shop on the Southside of Pittsburgh along Carson Street said “we are really confused. We are still waiting to know what’s like the actual brand that we can sell because there’s the list they put up but as I know, it’s not the final one.”

Mo said that between 80-90% of his business comes from disposable vapes, noting that his primary business used to be the sale of “7-hydroxy Kratom Metabolite” but recently he pivoted his business model towards ENDS as Kratom faces similar legal uncertainties to disposable vapes.

The penalties for vape shop owners like Mo are steep. Stores who sell or offer for sale an ENDS that is not in the directory “shall face a $500 civil penalty for each product until it is removed from the market or gets approved and listed.” After a 2nd and 3rd violation the penalties increase monetarily and include suspension or loss of business license.

Some Philadelphia area vape shops are taking the risk of continuing to sell their remaining stockpile of disposable vapes in secret. “We’ll take care of the people we know,” one shopkeeper who asked to remain anonymous told the Philly Plain Dealer. That shopkeeper then reached into a secret compartment to show their inventory of now illegal single-use vapes.

Context from the Editor:

In 2020, New York State banned single-use disposable vapes and flavored vapes. For work I moved to New York City from 2021-2024, only at the end of my time in NYC did the NYC Sheriff’s Department begin raiding smoke shops and taking all “contraband.”

The visual change in local vape and smoke shops will be noticable, but slowly smoke shop owners will begin feeling out the situation until enforcement occurs. Single-use vape smokers likely have a few days or weeks to stock up, if they need to.

Progress with this type of legislation is typically slow, so the black market will persist – but over time finding a “Miami Mint” vape in Philadelphia will be more challenging than finding hard drugs.