Federal regulations loom for e-cigarette industry

By MICHAEL FELBERBAUM  The Associated Press
RICHMOND, Va. – Smokers are increasingly turning to battery-powered electronic cigarettes to get their nicotine fix. They’re about to find out what federal regulators have to say about the popular devices.
The Food and Drug Administration will propose rules for e-cigarettes as early as this month. The rules will have big implications for a fast-growing, largely unregulated industry and its legions of customers.
Regulators aim to answer the burning question posed by Kenneth Warner, a professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health: “Is this going to be the disruptive technology that finally takes us in the direction of getting rid of cigarettes?”
The FDA faces a balancing act. If the regulations are too strict, they could kill an industry that offers a hope of being safer than cigarettes and potentially helping smokers quit them. But the agency also has to be sure e-cigarettes really are safer and aren’t hooking children on an addictive drug.
Members of Congress and several public health groups have raised safety concerns over e-cigarettes, questioned their marketing tactics and called on regulators to address those worries quickly.
Here’s a primer on e-cigarettes and their future:
WHAT ARE E-CIGARETTES?
E-cigarettes are plastic or metal tubes, usually the size of a cigarette, that heat a liquid nicotine solution instead of burning tobacco. That creates vapor that users inhale.
Smokers like e-cigarettes because the nicotine-infused vapor looks like smoke but doesn’t contain the thousands of chemicals, tar or odor of regular cigarettes. Some smokers use e-cigarettes as a way to quit smoking tobacco, or to cut down.
The industry started on the Internet and at shopping-mall kiosks and has rocketed from thousands of users in 2006 to several million worldwide who can choose from more than 200 brands. Sales are estimated to have reached nearly $2 billion in 2013.
Tobacco company executives have noted that they are eating into traditional cigarette sales. Their companies have jumped into the business.
There’s not much scientific evidence showing e-cigarettes help smokers quit or smoke less, and it’s unclear how safe they are.
WHAT IS THE FDA LIKELY TO DO?
The FDA is likely to propose restrictions that mirror those on regular cigarettes.
The most likely of the FDA’s actions will be to ban the sale of e-cigarettes to people under 18. Many companies already restrict sales to minors, and more than two dozen states already have banned selling them to young people.
Federal regulators also are expected to set product standards and require companies to disclose their ingredients and place health warning labels on packages and other advertising.
Where the real questions remain is how the agency will treat the thousands of flavors available for e-cigarettes. While some companies are limiting offerings to tobacco and menthol flavors, others are selling candy-like flavors like cherry and strawberry.
Flavors other than menthol are banned for regular cigarettes over concerns that flavored tobacco targets children.
Regulators also must determine if they’ll treat various designs for electronic cigarettes differently.
Some, known as “cig-a-likes,” look like traditional cigarettes and use sealed cartridges that hold liquid nicotine. Others have empty compartments or tanks that users can fill their own liquid. The latter has raised safety concerns because ingesting the liquid or absorbing it through the skin could lead to nicotine poisoning. To prevent that, the FDA could mandate child-resistant packaging.
The FDA also will decide the grandfather date that would allow electronic cigarette products to remain on the market without getting prior approval from regulators — a ruling that could force some, if not all, e-cigarettes to be pulled from store shelves while they are evaluated by the agency.
The regulations will be a step in a long process that many believe will ultimately end up being challenged in court.
WHAT ABOUT MARKETING?
There are a few limitations on marketing. Companies can’t tout e-cigarettes as stop-smoking aids, unless they want to be regulated by the FDA under stricter rules for drug-delivery devices. But many are sold as “cigarette alternatives.”
The FDA’s proposals could curb advertising on TV, radio and billboards, ban sponsorship of concerts and sporting events, and prohibit branded items such as shirts and hats. The agency also could limit sales over the Internet and require retailers to move e-cigarettes behind the counter.
WHAT DOES THE INDUSTRY THINK?
The industry expects regulations, but hopes they won’t force products off shelves and will keep the business viable.
E-cigarette makers especially want the FDA to allow them to continue marketing and catering to adult smokers — some of whom want flavors other than tobacco. They believe e-cigarettes present an opportunity to offer smokers an alternative and, as NJOY Inc. CEO Craig Weiss says, make cigarettes obsolete.
“FDA can’t just say no to electronic cigarettes anymore. I think they also understand it’s the lesser of the two evils,” said James Xu, owner of several Avail Vapor shops, whose wooden shelves are lined with vials of liquid nicotine flavor, such as Gold Rush, Cowboy Cut and Forbidden Fruit.
WHAT DO PUBLIC HEALTH OFFICIALS THINK?
Some believe lightly regulating electronic cigarettes might actually be better for public health overall, if smokers switch and e-cigarettes really are safer. Others are raising alarms about the hazards of the products and a litany of questions about whether e-cigarettes will keep smokers addicted or encourage others to start using e-cigarettes, and even eventually tobacco products.
“This is a very complicated issue and we must be quite careful how we proceed,” said David Abrams, executive director of the Schroeder Institute for Tobacco Research and Policy Studies at the American Legacy Foundation, in a recent panel discussion. “I call this sort of the Goldilocks approach. The regulation must be just right. The porridge can’t be too hot, and it can’t be too cold.”
http://www.newsday.com/business/federal-regulations-loom-for-e-cigarette-industry-1.7794606

Higher taxes on cigarettes make good sense

Washington Post Editorial Board
Maryland has one of the highest state-imposed cigarette tax rates in the nation ($2 per pack) and, unsurprisingly, one of the lowest smoking rates. Virginia has one of the lowest cigarette tax rates in the nation (30 cents per pack); its smoking rate is almost 20 percent higher than Maryland’s.
America is well past the debate about the health effects of smoking, but tobacco taxes in many states remain low, thanks largely to the influence of tobacco companies. Yet it is clear that higher cigarette taxes have a direct effect on smoking rates, and they are particularly effective in dissuading young people from taking up the habit.
In Maryland, where the tax on a pack of cigarettes was raised in 1999 (to 36 cents), 2002 (to $1) and 2008 (to the current rate of $2), smoking rates have fallen by about a third, much faster than the national average. At the time of the last increase, Maryland’s tobacco tax was 6th-highest in the nation; since then it has slipped to 12th as other states have leapfrogged each other in an effort to further discourage smoking — and raise revenue in the process.
In Annapolis, public health advocates and other groups are now pushing for another $1 increase, which would bump the state tax in Maryland to $3 per pack. Depending on how much of the increase tobacco companies decide to absorb, that could raise the average retail price of cigarettes above $7; it’s currently around $6.40.
The projected benefits of a $1 increase in Maryland make a persuasive case. They include $95 million in additional revenue (which health advocates would like to use to extend Medicaid health coverage to the poor); a 10 percent decrease in the rate of youth smoking; thousands of adults who would be persuaded to quit; and the prevention of thousands of premature deaths, which in turn would produce considerable economic benefits.
It’s true that raising the tax would cause more Marylanders to cross the border to buy cigarettes in Virginia or North Carolina. But cigarette sales fell much more dramatically in 2008 in Maryland, the District and Delaware, all of which raised their tobacco taxes that year, than they rose in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Virginia, which did not. And while cigarette smuggling remains an unquantifiable challenge, declining smoking rates and the associated public health payoffs are real.
Legislation to raise the tax went nowhere in Annapolis this year, possibly because the state has raised so many other taxes in the last few years. Advocates are mounting a push to gather pledges of support from lawmakers to enact the increase next year.
Meanwhile, in Virginia, where the tobacco lobby remains virtually unchallenged, the average price of a pack of cigarettes, about $4.60, is among the lowest in the nation. If Virginia lawmakers want to encourage children to take up the habit, they’re doing a great job.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/higher-taxes-on-cigarettes-make-good-sense/2014/04/20/aa90bd08-c716-11e3-9f37-7ce307c56815_story.html

Other Views: E-cigarette sellers take page from Big Tobacco’s book

— USA Today
Just when smoking has finally lost its glamour, along come electronic cigarettes and an avalanche of sexy new ads that promote “vaping.”
In one, actor Stephen Dorff, shirtless, talks about taking “back your freedom” while inhaling vapor on Lorillard’s blu eCig. (Can anyone say Marlboro Man?) In another ad for blu, former Playboy centerfold Jenny McCarthy leans forward seductively into the camera before saying: “I feel free to have one almost anywhere.”
For a product whose main appeal is supposed to be that it’s not a traditional cigarette, e-cigarette makers have sure taken a lot of pages from Big Tobacco’s playbook. Which is not surprising. Many of the sellers are the same companies that made billions of dollars addicting people to a product that kills 480,000 a year.
The marketing push is enough to trouble anyone who believed that, after a half-century battle, the nation finally had smoking on the run and that fewer teenagers would get hooked and die prematurely.
E-cigarettes — battery-operated nicotine inhalers that contain no tobacco — have the potential to help some smokers quit. But the jury is still out on whether and how well they may work. In the meantime, the potential for nicotine addiction is high, and there’s no good reason to use e-cigarettes other than trying to quit smoking.
Federal law prohibits cigarette makers from sponsoring sports and entertainment events, handing out free samples and selling certain flavored cigarettes. TV ads were banned in 1970.
But for e-cigarettes, it’s open season. Makers have sponsored music festivals, fashion shows and IndyCar racing. You can buy e-cigarettes or liquid refills in everything from Cherry Blast to Gummy Bear. Is the public really supposed to believe that e-cigarettes are not being marketed to minors?
The dangers of e-cigarettes may not be as obvious as those of traditional smokes, but new problems are emerging.
For example, the nicotine-laced liquid the devices use, which comes in small vials and large containers, can be toxic if touched or consumed. Calls to poison control centers about misuse, mostly by children, have risen to 217 a month this year, almost 10 times the number in 2011.
Also troubling is that more teenagers are experimenting with e-cigarettes. In 2012, 1.8 million middle-school and high-school students tried them, double the number the year before. One in five of the middle-schoolers who experimented said they’d never smoked before. It doesn’t help that about 20 states allow sales of e-cigarettes to minors.
So what’s the right response? At least until more studies are done, all states should treat the new devices as they treat cigarettes, with bans on youth sales and indoor use. And the Food and Drug Administration, which has been slow to assert its authority to regulate e-cigarettes, ought to get on with it.
More independent research would determine if e-cigarettes really can help smokers quit. Or if they carry other health risks. For now, the nation ought to ensure that a new generation doesn’t get hooked on a different and potentially dangerous product.
http://www.theadvertiser.com/story/opinion/2014/04/20/other-views-e-cigarette-sellers-take-page-from-big-tobaccos-book/7951623/

E-cigarette etiquette: While regulations remain in flux, users recommend being mindful

By: Ryan Johnson, INFORUM
FARGO – When Kelsey Eaton tries to explain electronic cigarettes to new customers at Infinite Vapor, she first has to give a lesson in lingo.
“Vaping” is now a verb, referring to the act of inhaling from the battery-powered devices available in all shapes, styles and price ranges; “atomizers” heat the concentrated liquid, available in several flavors and with or without nicotine.
Meanwhile, public health officials are now beginning to wonder if “secondhand vapor” could pose health risks to others.
Even after mastering the vocabulary, e-cig users still need to settle one more issue – how to vape as desired without risking a breach of etiquette, especially as the social norms continue to evolve.
“Mostly, I just tell people to definitely look at the laws in their area and where the legislation’s at,” said Eaton, who has managed Infinite Vapor in downtown Fargo since the store opened last November.
But Bryce Brovitch and Jake Berg, 18-year-old high school seniors in Park Rapids, Minn., said the rules of using
e-cigs around others depends on more than the latest state and local laws.
Berg prefers to ask permission before using his e-cig in someone’s house or car.
Even though there’s nothing on the books in Minnesota that bans vaping indoors in public places, Brovitch said he usually goes outside so he won’t bother others – or make them think he’s breaking the smoking laws that do apply to regular cigarettes.
“You know that you can’t smoke inside, but it’s not smoking,” he said. “It still kind of looks like it.”
The law, for now
At the federal level, e-cigarettes aren’t classified as tobacco products, meaning the devices and liquid refills don’t have to comply with the same restrictions on advertising, manufacturing or age requirements for purchase or use.
But many states and communities in recent years have passed local laws to deal with the devices, which are growing in popularity and show no sign of slowing down.
A statewide smoke-free law approved by North Dakota voters in 2012 does include electronic cigarettes, Eaton said, which means they can’t be used indoors in public places and are banned from use outdoors within 20 feet of doors, operable windows and air intakes.
Minnesota’s smoke-free law doesn’t include e-cigarettes, and the devices remain legal to use indoors unless a city has passed rules outlawing it.
Keely Ihry, coordinator of the PartnerSHIP 4 Health that includes health officials from Becker, Clay, Otter Tail and Wilkin counties, said Minnesota requires purchasers of
e-cigs to be at least 18, but North Dakota doesn’t have that same statewide age requirement.
Fargo and West Fargo both have passed city-level laws that require e-cig purchasers to be 18 or older, and Dilworth and Moorhead have enacted policies that restrict the devices at public schools, she said.
But health officials such as Ihry have their work cut out for them, she said, because the rules are changing, and many are working for more comprehensive statewide and national policies and laws to address the rising influence of e-cigarettes.
“Some people don’t know that they’re not regulated,” she said. “There’s not a lot of information that’s out there at this point.”
Social norms
Even if e-cigs aren’t technically classified as cigarettes at the federal level, and sometimes don’t contain nicotine, Ihry said public health officials think of them as another regular tobacco product – and believe they should be used in the same manner.
“We would ask that since we don’t know a lot about the vapor that they would be used like a normal cigarette, so they would not be used in indoor public spaces like the bars and restaurants and other general workplaces,” she said.
Another issue, Ihry said, is that children who have grown up in the era of indoor smoking bans could see the act of smoking “renormalized” if they spot adults puffing e-cigs in restaurants and workplaces.
A lot of the rules regarding cigarettes, either formally in the law or the proper usage as agreed to by the broader society, have sprung up because of the secondhand smoke these products produce, Eaton said.
Electronic cigarettes don’t make that same “bad,” “raunchy” smoke, she said, instead emitting a vapor that may leave a light odor in the air.
“It’s just water vapor, and maybe some scent,” she said.
Still, Eaton said Infinite Vapor has tried to stay ahead of the curve by following its own rules that often are stricter than the laws of the communities in North Dakota and Minnesota where it operates its eight stores.
The stores only sell to customers 18 or older, for example, and support calls for the federal Food and Drug Administration to begin regulating the manufacturing of e-cig liquids for consistency and safety.
But the biggest etiquette advice, Eaton said, is to be mindful of others when vaping.
“If I am inside in a different state, and if someone tells me, ‘Hey, that’s bothering me,’ then I don’t do it,” she said. “If it makes people uncomfortable, or if I notice people are uncomfortable, and they’re like, ‘Hey, we don’t want that,’ I’m like, ‘Hey, that’s fine, just let me know.’ ”
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/432381/group/homepage/

Lawmakers say e-cigarette makers target kids

BY SEAN LENGELL, Washington Examiner
A group of congressional Democrats released a report Monday accusing the electronic cigarette industry of pushing their products on children and teens.
The report shows a significant increase in recent years in the marketing of e-cigarettes to minors through social media, radio and televisions advertisements, and sponsoring events with young audiences.
“From candy flavors to rock concert sponsorships, every single company surveyed in this report has employed a marketing strategy that appears to target youth,” said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, who helped spearhead the report.
“For years, federal regulations prohibiting tobacco companies from targeting young people have helped to protect a new generation of smokers from getting hooked on nicotine. Now, we must close this new gateway to addiction to protect our children.”

The lawmakers, who say their report is the first comprehensive investigation of e-cigarette marketing tactics, was compiled using responses from eight e-cigarette manufacturers and other publicly available information.
The report found that six of the companies that responded to the lawmakers’ survey market their products in flavors that can appeal to children, like cherry, chocolate, peach and grape mint.
It also showed that e-cigarette manufacturers have more than doubled spending on marketing between 2012 and 2013. Last year, six leading e-cigarette companies spent a total of $59.3 million on marketing alone.
“E-cigarette makers are starting to prey on kids, just like the big tobacco companies,” said Rep. Henry Waxman of California, a co-sponsor of the report. “With over a million youth now using e-cigarettes, [the Food and Drug Administration] needs to act without further delay to stop the companies from marketing their addictive products to children.”
Federal law prohibits the sale of tobacco cigarettes to anyone under 18, but there is no such restriction for e-cigarettes. The limited federal oversight has led to a boom in the e-cigarette industry, with sales doubling annually since 2008 and 2013 revenue expected to reach at least $1.5 billion.
The lawmakers called on e-cigarette companies to “take immediate action” to prevent the sale of their products to children and teenagers, including product promotion through social media and event sponsorships intended for youth audiences.
They also asked the companies to stop all radio and TV advertisements.
Six of the eight companies said they support some form of regulation, including restrictions on the marketing and sale of e-cigarettes to children and teens, the lawmakers said.
The legislators also have asked the FDA to ban the sale of e-cigarettes to minors and to implement rules to prohibit misleading product claims on e-cigarettes.
The other lawmakers who sponsored the report are Sens. Tom Harkin of Iowa, John Rockefeller of West Virginia, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Edward Markey of Massachusetts, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Barbara Boxer of California and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, as well as Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/lawmakers-say-e-cigarette-makers-target-kids/article/2547210

E-cigarette firms targeting young people, lawmakers say

By: LALITA CLOZEL, Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — E-cigarette companies are preying on young consumers by using candy flavors, social media ads and free samples at rock concerts, according to a report released Monday by Democratic legislators.
A survey of nine electronic-cigarette companies found most were taking advantage of the lack of federal regulations to launch aggressive marketing campaigns targeting minors with tactics that would be illegal if used for traditional cigarettes, according to a report released by Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and signed by 10 other Democratic lawmakers, including California Sen. Barbara Boxer and Rep. Henry A. Waxman of Beverly Hills.
According to the report, based on information from the eight companies that responded, five of the surveyed companies more than doubled their marketing expenditures between 2012 and 2013, regularly promoting e-cigarettes on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Producers have come up with an array of creative flavors, a practice that was banned for traditional cigarettes by the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009. E-cigarette flavor names include pumpkin spice, chocolate treat, snap! and cherry crush.
E-cigarette companies have sponsored popular events and distributed free samples in shows, including the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, as well as Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. They have employed celebrities to promote their products, including Courtney Love, pop singer Sevyn Streeter and rapper Chris Brown. Streeter and Brown were featured in a music video that included an e-cigarette product placement.
“In the absence of federal regulation, some e-cigarette manufacturers appear to be using marketing tactics similar to those previously used by the tobacco industry to sell their products to minors,” the report said.
According to a September 2013 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of high school students that had tried e-cigarettes doubled between 2011 and 2012 to 10%.
Because e-cigarettes, which produce a nicotine-laced vapor, have not yet been deemed a tobacco product by the Food and Drug Administration, they are not constrained by federal regulations that prohibit sales to minors, television and radio advertisements, and free sampling, according to the report.
The FDA is considering labeling e-cigarettes as tobacco products, which would place them under the agency’s authority.
“With over a million youth now using e-cigarettes, FDA needs to act without further delay to stop the companies from marketing their addictive products to children,” Waxman said.
Twenty-eight states have banned e-cigarette sales to minors, and most of the surveyed companies said they prohibited vendors from selling their products to children.
But the survey found that policies varied company to company, and only three out of eight had ever conducted compliance checks.
Several of the companies said they avoided running television advertisements specifically targeting young audiences, but they nevertheless aired commercials during prime-time shows that rated well among children and teenagers, including the 2013 Super Bowl and the TV show “Breaking Bad,” the report said.
Six out of eight companies surveyed said they favored more regulation, specifically regarding sales to minors. One company, Lead by Sales, which produces White Cloud Cigarettes, did not respond to any of the survey questions.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-congress-ecigarettes-study-20140415-story.html

Forum editorial: The ‘no’ applies to e-cigs

Forum editorials represent the opinion of Forum management and the newspaper’s Editorial Board.

Under the smoke-free law approved by North Dakota voters in 2012 the use of
so-called electronic cigarettes is prohibited in all places where smoking tobacco is not allowed. It’s that simple. The law, which won voter support in every county in the state, is unequivocal. No spinning by the tobacco lobby and its lackeys can make North Dakota’s e-cig prohibition less clear.
One argument for treating e-cigs differently than tobacco cigarettes is the devices do not generate secondhand smoke, and that they help smokers who want to quit tobacco. Therefore, e-cig advocates contend they should not be in the same banned-nearly-everywhere classification as other tobacco-based smoking products.
It’s all smoke and mirrors promulgated by Big Tobacco and others who know e-cigs can be (and early research shows they are) gateways for young people to start smoking tobacco.
First, the claim the vapors produced by e-cigs are harmless has no good science behind it. Rather, the substances generated include humectants used in fog and smoke machines, and vaporized nicotine and artificial flavors. Manufacturers have been cited for contaminants, including nickel, arsenic and chromium. There is no FDA oversight, no product-specific taxes and no restrictions on age of buyers.
No matter how dressed up they are, e-cigs are simply a nicotine-delivery device. The dangers of nicotine, a poisonous water-soluble alkaloid, are known. Furthermore, e-cigs are being marketed by emphasizing their candy-like flavors and seemingly benign brand names. Young people are responding as expected. A recent Youth Tobacco Survey showed a spike in e-cig use by youth, doubling to 10 percent in one year.
Also, the claim that e-cigs help cigarette smokers quit, and therefore should be unregulated, is a phony argument. There is nothing in law that prevents smokers from using e-cigs, as long as used in compliance with North Dakota’s smoke-free laws.
E-cigarettes represent the latest attempt by tobacco companies and their allies to hook more young smokers, and thus ensure a nicotine-addicted customer base into the future. The effort to characterize the devices as a way to help smokers quit is cynical and predicated on a falsehood. That effort has wormed its way into legislatures, including the North Dakota Legislature, where a handful of lawmakers have bought into the lie.
Voters overwhelming said “no” to cigarettes in 2012. That “no” included e-cigarettes. Legislators who don’t get it might want to find other work.
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/432045/group/Opinion/

Higher Cigarette Tax May Reduce Smoking Habit

By: Steve Urness (NewsDakota.com)
VALLEY CITY, N.D. (NewsDakota.com) At 44 cents per pack of cigarettes, North Dakota has one of the lowest cigarette taxes in the nation. Research has shown that cheap tobacco is a leading cause for tobacco use among our state’s youth, so the North Dakota Center for Tobacco Prevention and Control Policy and  City-County Health District in Barnes County and Valley City are advocating the health benefits of increasing that tax.
According to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and the American Cancer Society Action Network, increasing the cigarette tax from 44 cents to $2 could reduce youth smoking by 25 percent. Some 4,700 North Dakotans would be saved from premature smoking-related death and the state would save over $312 million in long-term health care costs.
Executive director for the Center, Jeanne Prom says the benefits of raising the tax are clear, “It’ll also make it more difficult for tobacco companies to hook our children on their lethal products.”
Prom adds, “It’s clear that between saving lives and decreasing health care costs by millions of dollars, increasing the cigarette tax is positive step for North Dakota.”
City County Health District Tobacco Free Coordinator Vicki Voldal Rosenau says “If we raise the price of tobacco, it becomes less affordable and chances for tobacco companies to hook our youth on nicotine are significantly reduced.”
For additional information about North Dakota’s tobacco tax, contact CCHD at 845-8518, or visit www.breathend.com.
http://www.newsdakota.com/2014/04/07/higher-cigarette-tax-may-reduce-smoking-habit/

Tobacco control group promoting smoke-free apartments

By Bismarck Tribune
BISMARCK, N.D. _ The North Dakota Center for Tobacco Prevention and Control Policy is promoting smoke-free apartments.
The center has launched an education campaign encouraging smoke-free housing policies.
“In North Dakota, 24 percent of residents live in apartments and many of these residents continue to be exposed to secondhand smoke,” Executive Director Jeanne Prom said in a statement.
The center cited a 2006 surgeon general’s report that said air-cleaning technologies and ventilating buildings do not eliminate smoke because conventional systems cannot remove all the toxins. Heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems also can distribute secondhand smoke throughout a building.
Prom said there are high costs to landlords associated with allowing smoking in apartments, like painting and replacing carpeting.
The center cited a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that estimated the annual cost savings of eliminating smoking in subsidized housing nationwide would be $108 million in annual renovation expenses and $72 million in annual smoking-related fire losses.
For more information go to www.smokefreehousingND.com.
http://bismarcktribune.com/news/state-and-regional/tobacco-control-group-promoting-smoke-free-apartments/article_a39a5b62-be9c-11e3-bd9c-0019bb2963f4.html

E-Cigarette Poisoning on the Rise, CDC Says

By Neha Sharma, DO, ABC News
They’re supposedly a safer alternative to conventional cigarettes. But electronic cigarettes may actually pose a serious danger to others in your home — particularly children.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned in report released today that the number of phone calls to U.S. poison control centers related to e-cigarette use has increased from just one call per month on average in 2010 to nearly 200 calls per month in early 2014.
“The rise in the numbers of e-cigs related calls to poison centers leads us to view this as a major public health concern,” said report author Dr. Kevin Chatham-Stephen, a pediatrician and an epidemiologist with the CDC.
He said that though e-cigs comprise less than 2 percent of all tobacco-related sales, they now account for more than 40 percent of poison center calls. More than half of the calls involved children younger than 5 years old.
“This is a very dramatic finding,” Chatham-Stephen said.
According to the report, most of these emergencies are linked to the liquid nicotine within the e-cigs. If the liquid is released from the cylinder that holds it, the result can be acute nicotine toxicity from direct skin or eye exposure, ingestion, or inhalation.
“Cigarettes are the most dangerous consumer product on the planet, and smokers need to treat e-cigs with considerable caution especially since the product is unregulated.” said Dr. Tim MacAfee, director of the Office on Smoking and Health at CDC and contributor to the report.
Those within the e-cigarette industry said concerns are overblown. Jason Healy, the president of e-cigarette manufacturer Blu-cigs, called the findings in the report “a weak argument” against the devices and is evidence of “an ongoing attack on the e-cigs industry by various anti-smoking groups.”
“The product is for adult smokers, and therefore the responsibility for children’s safety falls on the parents, just like bleaches and prescription medications,” Healy said. “The focus should be on parenting and education, and not regulation.”
Healy did say, however, that the findings should prompt the e-cig industry to formulate effective child safety measures.
Still, toxicology experts not involved in the study said the report reveals a concerning threat to kids.
“Nicotine is probably the most toxic plant chemical ever discovered,” said Dr. Richard Clark, medical director for the California Poison Control System and a professor of toxicology. Clark said poison centers like his are seeing a steady increase in calls related to e-cigs. Of particular concern, he said, is that unlike the conventional cigarette, which is usually very bitter, these devices are flavored and thus more attractive to children. The solution is also easily absorbed through the skin if spilled, unlike the contents of regular cigarettes.
Doctor’s Take
Despite decades of admonitions against smoking, an estimated 42 million people in the United States still smoke cigarettes. Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, accounting for one of every five deaths each year. So for many, the electronic option may hold a certain appeal.
But though e-cigarette use is increasing among U.S. adolescents and adults, its overall impact on public health remains unclear. The dramatic rise in E-cigarette related calls to the country’s poison control centers is alarming. And the fact that the product is not childproof should alert parents to keep the product out of reach and in an enclosed container.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2014/04/03/e-cigarette-poisoning-is-on-the-rise-cdc-says/