E-Cigs Becoming More Popular in High Schools

By: Tiffany Huertas
PANAMA CITY- Since smoking is being banned in so many places, e-cigarettes are all the rage for people who still want to smoke in public.
The battery-powered devices provide doses of nicotine and other additives to the user in an aerosol.
They don’t emit the smoke or the smell that non-smokers complain about.
That’s how they can be concealed, even on school campuses.
“The concerning thing is where the students are getting them because I’m sure they don’t see those to underage minors, but the question is where do they get cigarettes,” said Sandy Harrison, Mosley High Schoolprincipal.
Last year Bay County school board member’s added e-cigarettes to the list of products banned on campuses.
According to the centers for disease control and prevention, e-cigarettes used by high school students grew from 4.7 percent in 2011 to 10 percent in 2012.
“The issue with electronic cigarettes is they’re not really regulated. I’m not sure what its doing to their health. The issue is they don’t smell like a regular cigarette, so it’s a little harder to catch them. We do have students that, some of them are fairly bold with their use perhaps in a classroom, when the teachers back is turned or so forth.”
Mosley High School offers classes like life management skills and personal fitness class where they discuss e-cigarettes.
“Additionally we have a school nurse that’s on campus at least once a week and she schedules into classes and speaks to them about, a variety of health issues, including tobacco products and e-cigarette use and so forth.”
“Electronic cigarettes are treated on campus like any other tobacco product. They’re not legal for students to have and they are subjected to the same disciplinary measures as any tobacco product would be.”
The devices are sold nationwide but are not regulated by the FDA and their health hazards are still unknown.
http://www.wjhg.com/home/headlines/246441801.html

Library may take action on e-cigarettes

By LeAnn Eckroth, Bismarck Tribune
BISMARCK, N.D. –The Bismarck Public Library board of directors will consider a change to its policy to specify patrons cannot use e-cigarettes in the library.
The topic will be discussed at its noon meeting Feb. 27 at the library.
Mary Jane Schmaltz, library director, said e-cigarettes are already banned in public buildings under city tobacco ordinances and state law, but the law may not be clear in the library patron code.
“We caught someone smoking an e-cigarette in the library last week. Our patron conduct code already says we do not allow the use of tobacco or chewing tobacco in the library,” she said. “We just want to get our patron conduct code in line with city ordinances.”
To read more, visit http://bismarcktribune.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/library-may-take-action-on-e-cigarettes/article_735dd1ba-9a73-11e3-9436-001a4bcf887a.html

Kathleen Sebelius column: Working toward a tobacco-free generation

For Press-Gazette Media

Here’s a sobering statistic about the tobacco epidemic — a battle many Americans think is already won: If we continue at current smoking rates, 5.6 million children alive today will ultimately die prematurely from smoking. That’s one in 13 kids gone too early due to an entirely preventable cause. That is unacceptable.
That’s why we are asking every American to join our efforts to make the next generation tobacco-free.
Today, we are at a crossroads. In the past 50 years, we’ve more than cut the adult smoking rate in half from nearly 43 percent down to 18 percent, and we’ve reduced 12th-grade students’ smoking rate to 16 percent in 2013 from a high of 38 percent in l976.
Yet nearly 500,000 Americans die of smoking-related disease each year. What’s more, the tobacco epidemic costs us nearly $300 billion in productivity and direct medical costs annually.
I believe a tobacco-free generation is within our reach, but it will take commitment from across the spectrum — from federal, state and local governments, but also from businesses, educators, the entertainment industry and beyond.
Already, we are seeing leadership from the private sector. This month, CVS, the second largest pharmacy chain in the country, announced it will no longer sell tobacco products. In doing so, CVS it is at once reducing access to these harmful products and helping to make smoking less attractive.
We know that consumers, especially children, are influenced by pro-smoking messages when they shop in stores that sell tobacco products. This includes the display of cigarettes behind the register known as the “power wall.” For young people, power walls help shape cigarette brand awareness and the sense that smoking is normal and accepted.
In multiple ways, CVS’ decision will have impact. I applaud this private sector health leader for taking an important new step to curtail tobacco use. I hope that other retailers will take up this pro-health mantle.
The stakes are high. Each day, more than 3,200 youth under age 18 in the United States try their first cigarette, and another 700 kids under age 18 who’ve been occasional smokers become daily smokers.
I am thrilled that earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration launched its first national tobacco education campaign, TheRealCost.gov. The campaign is targeting on-the-cusp youth –— the 12- to 17-year-old kids who are open to smoking or have experimented with cigarettes, but are not regular smokers.
But creating a tobacco-free generation cannot start and end with our youngest citizens: working toward this goal begins in the present, and reaching adult smokers is essential.
In that light, I’m very pleased the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has started the third season of its impactful Tips From Former Smokers campaign. The 2012 tips series alone prompted an estimated 1.6 million smokers to try to quit, resulting in more than 200,000 additional calls to 1-800-QUIT-NOW, and helped at least 100,000 smokers quit for good.
I am inspired by the ongoing work that is necessary to drastically reduce smoking rates in our country. Whether it’s other retailers following CVS’ lead, more colleges and universities joining the 2,000 schools that are part of the Department of Health and Human Services’ National Tobacco-Free College Campus Initiative (tobaccofreecampus.org), or movie studios taking tobacco use and imagery out of youth-rated films, I encourage new partners to help us stop the cycle of sickness, disability and death caused by tobacco.
Victory will require bold action. What will you do to help make the next generation tobacco-free?
Kathleen Sebelius is secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20140220/GPG06/302200419/Kathleen-Sebelius-column-Working-toward-tobacco-free-generation?nclick_check=1

Altria pushes forward on electronic cigarette sales

BY JOHN REID BLACKWELL
Richmond Times-Dispatch
U.S. tobacco giant Altria Group Inc. is pushing more aggressively into the electronic cigarette market, with plans to expand sales of its first e-cigarette brand nationally in the next few months.
Henrico County-based Altria, the parent company of cigarette maker Philip Morris USA, said Wednesday that it plans to start a national rollout of its MarkTen e-cigarette in the second quarter.

The expansion of MarkTen follows the company’s recent test marketing of the product in Indiana and Arizona.
It also follows Altria’s announcement on Feb. 3 that it would bolster its presence in the e-cigarette market — what some call the “e-vapor” category — by acquiring e-cigarette maker and distributor Green Smoke Inc. for $110 million in a deal expected to close in the second quarter.
MarkTen was Altria’s first venture into the e-cigarette category, which is still small compared with the market for conventional cigarettes.
Yet electronic cigarette sales have been growing quickly and are now estimated at between $1 billion and $2 billion a year. Numerous companies have introduced e-cigarette products.
“It really is early days in e-vapor,” Marty Barrington, Altria’s chairman and CEO, said in a presentation to industry analysts and investors on Wednesday.
“Consumers are still choosing. They are trying to find their product. They are trying to find their brand,” Barrington said, adding that Altria’s goal is to be a leader in the e-cigarette category no matter how much it grows.
MarkTen is made by Altria’s product-development subsidiary, Nu Mark.
That company started test-marketing the e-cigarette in Indiana last August. In December, it expanded the test market to Arizona and made improvements to the product, including a new flavor system and adding a battery charger to the package.
“We are really happy with the performance,” Barrington said, noting that MarkTen has achieved a market share of 48 percent in only seven weeks of sales in Arizona.
Unlike conventional cigarettes, e-cigarettes do not burn tobacco or contain tobacco leaf. The battery-powered devices heat a liquid solution containing nicotine, artificial flavorings, and propylene glycol or vegetable glycerine, which creates a vapor that is inhaled by the smoker, or “vaper.”
Barrington has spoken cautiously to investors and analysts about the potential for e-cigarettes because the category’s growth could be affected by consumer acceptance, taxes and government regulation. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is considering how it might regulate e-cigarettes.
FDA regulation remains a “wild card” for e-cigarettes because restrictive regulation by the federal agency could slow down marketing efforts in the category, said Steve Marascia, director of research at Capitol Securities Management Inc. in Henrico.
While the extent to which e-cigarette sales will grow remains unclear, “the tobacco companies need to do something, because they are looking at 3 to 4 percent volume declines in (conventional) cigarettes going forward, and they need to offset that,” Marascia said.
Barrington said Altria estimates that about 90 percent of adult cigarette smokers are aware of e-cigarettes and about two-thirds have tried them, but only a small number use them daily.
Yet Altria’s decision to expand its MarkTen sales and acquire Green Smoke may indicate that the company’s leaders have become more optimistic about the category, said industry analyst Bonnie Herzog of Wells Fargo Securities.
“Given early success of MarkTen in Arizona where the brand supposedly grew to 48 percent share, (Altria) seems more emboldened to ‘play to win’ in this new category, and ultimately we believe (the company’s) full participation will catapult growth of the category,” Herzog wrote in a note to investors.
http://www.timesdispatch.com/business/tobacco-industry/altria-pushes-forward-on-electronic-cigarette-sales/article_6f5fe50c-9975-11e3-91f3-001a4bcf6878.html

Mandan bans e-cigarettes for minors

By LeAnn Eckroth, Bismarck Tribune
MANDAN, N.D. –The Mandan City Commission on Tuesday approved the first reading of an ordinance that bans selling e-cigarettes to minors under the age 18. The vote was 4-0.
The Mandan ordinance prohibits providing or selling the products to minors, and minors cannot have or use them.
E-cigarettes include any electronic oral device with a heating element, battery or electronic circuit which provides vapor of nicotine or other substances to simulate smoking.
Violators can be fined up to $500 for the infraction, said City Administrator Jim Neubauer.
Police Chief Dennis Bullinger introduced the proposal.
There was no comment from commissioners who quickly moved the ordinance to a final vote on March 4.
To read more: http://bismarcktribune.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/mandan-bans-e-cigarettes-for-minors/article_2923d71c-9905-11e3-9a69-0019bb2963f4.html

Illinois Could Soon Become The Next State To Ban Smoking In Cars With Children Inside

The Huffington Post  | by  Joseph Erbentraut
Another state could soon ban smokers from lighting up while in a car carrying passengers under the age of 18.
Illinois State Sen. Ira Silverstein, a Chicago Democrat, has proposed legislation (SB 2659) that would hit those who smoke with anyone under the age of 18 in the car with up to a $100 fine.
A vehicle could not be stopped solely as a result of violating the ban, according to bill’s text.
Kathy Drea, vice president of advocacy of the American Lung Association’s Illinois chapter, testified in front of the Senate’s public health committee Tuesday. She said that drivers who light up put their passengers at risk of a smoking-related illness due to the harmful secondhand smoke being experienced within the confined space of a vehicle.
The bill is a “very simple thing that you can do to protect all of our children from a very serious health risk,” Drea added, according to GateHouse Media.
No vote has yet been taken on the measure.
Six other states — Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Maine, Oregon and Utah — already have similar bans on the books, though the cutoff age for child passengers varies from state to state. Puerto Rico has also passed a ban.
The most recent state to pass the smoking ban was Oregon, where a ban went into effect on Jan. 1, 2014. Oregon’s ban includes heftier fines of $250 for a first violationand $500 for additional instances.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/19/illinois-smoking-ban-cars-with-children_n_4818018.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

Kids who use snus before age 16 more likely to become smokers

BY SHEREEN JEGTVIG
(Reuters Health) – Norwegians who started using snus before age 16 were more likely to become cigarette smokers than those who started using snus later in life, according to a new study.
Snus is moist smokeless tobacco developed in Sweden. It’s contained in a small pouch, and unlike regular chewing tobacco, it doesn’t make the user spit.
Research suggests snus has lower levels of chemicals called nitrosamines than cigarettes and may be less harmful.
In Norway, snus has become a smoking cessation aid and most older snus users are former smokers.
But snus is also becoming increasingly popular among young Norwegian adults, many of whom have not smoked cigarettes. And although research is divided, the current thinking is that snus use reduces the likelihood of taking up smoking.
The authors of the new study wanted to know more about when people start using snus, to see if that ties into whether they also begin smoking cigarettes.
“I already knew about the research investigating associations between snus use and later smoking, but discovered that snus debut age had not been mentioned in that research,” Ingeborg Lund told Reuters Health in an email.
Lund is a researcher with the Norwegian Institute for Alcohol and Drug Research – SIRUS, in Oslo. She and her colleague Janne Scheffels published their study in Nicotine andTobacco Research.
The researchers analyzed surveys of Norwegian teenagers and adults conducted from 2005 to 2011.
Out of 8,313 people, 409 were long-term snus users who had started using snus before cigarettes or never used cigarettes. Of the snus users, 30 percent were long-term smokers.
Just over one third of the snus users started using snus before age 16. The researchers discovered those participants had two to three times the odds of becoming lifetime smokers, compared to people who began using snus after age 16.
They also found that early snus users had about the same rate of cigarette smoking as non-snus users. About 23 percent of early snus users were current smokers at the time of the survey, compared to only six percent of people who started using snus when they were older.
“Snus use seems to protect against smoking if the snus debut does not happen too early during adolescence,” Lund said.
She said it’s particularly important to keep teenagers tobacco-free until they are at least 16 years old.
“At younger ages, even if they start with a low risk product such as snus, there is a high risk that they will switch to – or add – other high-risk products, such as cigarettes,” she said. “This risk is reduced when they grow older.”
Since snus use is much less common in other countries, Lund said she doesn’t know if these results can be generalized outside of Norway and Sweden.
Lucy Popova, from the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco, told Reuters Health the new study was “interesting.” She was not involved in the research.
“Earlier initiation of snus basically makes it a gateway to tobacco use, to cigarette use in the future,” she said.
Popova explained that traditional Swedish snus is less dangerous than cigarettes.
“But it’s not harm-free, and (what) is really bad is when people start using both products because of increased rates of cardiovascular disease, pancreatic cancers and other problems,” she said.
Snus is fairly new to the U.S., and Popova said the version made in the U.S. isn’t like the traditional Swedish product.
“A research study found that it’s different from the traditional low-nitrosamine snus in Sweden – it’s not necessarily going to be as low-harm,” she said.
Popova is concerned with heavy promotion for smokeless tobacco products like snus.
“There’s been a lot of studies showing that more advertisement for tobacco products makes it more likely that children will use tobacco products,” she said, “and it’s important to keep youth tobacco-free as long as possible.”
SOURCE: bit.ly/1dP5O2Q Nicotine and Tobacco Research, online February 5, 2014.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/17/us-kids-snus-idUSBREA1G16T20140217

Candy Flavors Put E-Cigarettes On Kids' Menu

by JENNY LEI BOLARIO, NPR Youth Radio
Electronic cigarettes are often billed as a safe way for smokers to try to kick their habit. But it’s not just smokers who are getting their fix this way. According to a survey published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 5 middle school students who’ve tried one say they’ve never smoked a “real” cigarette. And between 2011 and 2012, e-cigarettes doubled in popularity among middle and high school students.
At a middle school in the San Francisco Bay Area, Viviana Turincio, an 8th grader, recently noticed some kids smoking in class — or at least, that’s what it looked like.
“There was a group at the table,” she remembers. “And they were just smoking on the vape pen, and the teacher was right there — and the teacher didn’t even notice.”
Kids as young as 13 purchase e-cigarettes, or “vape pens,” online, where independent sellers don’t necessarily ask a buyer’s age.
That’s because her classmates were smoking an electronic cigarette, sometimes called a “vape pen.” It’s a hand-held, battery-powered device that vaporizes a liquid that is often infused with nicotine. You inhale the vapor through a mouthpiece, and exhale what looks like smoke. In this case the smoke smelled like candy.
“My favorite flavor is gummy bears because it tastes really good,” Viviana says.
Vapor liquids come in various flavors, but teens often prefer dessert-inspired ones, which are more appealing than the smell and taste of burning tobacco. Marleny Samayoa, also in the 8th grade, thinks traditional cigarettes taste too bitter. “It has kind of a weird taste to it, like coffee without sugar,” she says.
E-cigarettes are easier for kids to buy than regular cigarettes. There’s no federal age restriction for how old you have to be to buy them. But some states, including California, prohibit the sale to minors. That’s why middle-schoolers turn to online sites like E-bay, where independent sellers don’t necessarily ask for your age.
“A lot of kids are getting them online,” Marleny explains. “And they’re just introducing it to a lot of other kids, and it just keeps going from there.”
She has noticed the growing popularity of e-cigs on social media sites like Instagram. Look up #Vapelife and the pictures are endless. “I take pictures and do tricks, like blowing O’s,” Marleny says, “blowing them on flat surfaces and making tornadoes.”
Swirling clouds of vapor are touching down in theaters, restaurants and malls, while health professionals are trying to catch up with this new fad.
Dr. Cathy McDonald runs a center for tobacco dependence, treatment and cessation for Alameda County, California. She admits that, “right now we don’t have as much information as we would like.” What scientists do know, she says, is that “ten minutes of smoking an e-cigarette — for a person who has never smoked a cigarette — does cause a noticeable increase in airway resistance in the lungs.”
But, McDonald concedes, “It’s probably better than smoke. And I say that because smoking a cigarette is 4,000 chemicals — 400 are poison, 40 cause cancer.”
Researchers haven’t had the time to do long-term studies comparing traditional cigarettes to electronic ones. But at least among my friends, the smokers who have made the switch say they’ve noticed a positive change. My boyfriend, Gray Keuankaew, is one of them.
“Within the two months that I’ve been vaping, my body feels a little bit more healthy,” he tells me. “So if [there’s going to be] any type of positive benefit, then I’m definitely going to stick to it.”
I’m glad it’s now easier for him to run, but he hasn’t outrun his nicotine addiction. E-cigarettes still contain nicotine — you choose what amount you want. The Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association estimates that e-cigarette sales will surpass $2.5 billion dollars this year. Geoff Braithwaite owns Tasty Vapor, a company in Oakland that sells and distributes liquids for e-cigarettes.
“Our target customer base is those people who felt doomed to a life of smoking,” Braithwaite says. But he admits that adults aren’t the only ones who may be jumping on this new trend. “There’s going to be that novelty around it — it’s a brand new thing, it’s an electronic device,” he says. “That kind of stuff will always appeal to kids; it would have appealed to me.”
Anti-smoking campaigns spent decades and a lot of money to make smoking less appealing to youth – and that helped cut teen smoking by 45%. But cheap prices for brightly colored e-cigs, sweet flavors, and the ability to vape anywhere are putting nicotine back on the kids’ menu. The Food and Drug Administration has said it plans to regulate e-cigarettes, but so far the agency hasn’t issued any rules.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/02/17/276558592/candy-flavors-put-e-cigarettes-on-kids-menu

City moves to ban e-cigarettes for minors

By: Eric Killelea, Williston Herald
The city of Williston is one step closer to preventing the sale of electronic cigarettes to minors.
On Tuesday, commissioners approved the first reading of Ordinance No. 987, which amends the existing ordinance that prevents the sale of tobacco to anyone under the age of 18.
The Upper Missouri District Health Unit approached the board last month, requesting support for implementing the ordinance. Chelsea Bryant, tobacco prevention specialist, said the state currently lacks a law or ordinance to restrict purchase of e-cigarettes and wanted to board to take initiative.
To read more, visit http://www.willistonherald.com/news/city-moves-to-ban-e-cigarettes-for-minors/article_9769aa48-94c9-11e3-aa41-001a4bcf887a.html

E-cigarettes: Are manufacturers using flavors to lure minors to vape?

By Ivey DeJesus | idejesus@pennlive.com , The Patriot-News, Central PA

To understand the concern that the marketing of electronic cigarettes might lure minors into a life of nicotine addiction, consider some of the flavors: cherry, bubble gum, cola, milk chocolate and sugar cookie.
Since their introduction into the U.S. market in 2009, e-cigarettes have grown exponentially in popularity and sales, to the tune of $1.7 billion. Legions of lifelong users have converted to vaping, trading the tar and carcinogens of cigarettes for the seemingly safer alternative.
But with such an aforementioned variety of flavors in e-cigarettes, health experts, substance abuse prevention officials and lawmakers are increasingly concerned that e-cigarette manufacturers are targeting teens.
“They are adding all these interesting flavors and they are pandering to people who are nonsmokers or more specifically kids,” said Dr. Richard Bell, a Berks County pulmonologist and a member of the Pennsylvania Medical Society. “I’m not sure an adult would be attracted to a bubblegum flavor cigarette.”
Bell echoes widely held concerns in the public health community that Big Tobacco is increasingly marketing the electronic devices to minors — using many of the same promotional techniques it used to hook generations to cigarettes — with television and magazine ads, sports sponsorships and cartoon characters.
“Whether e-cigarettes can safely help people quit smoking is also unknown, but with their fruit and candy flavors, they have a clear potential to entice new smokers,”The American Medical Association recently opined.
E-cigarettes are not subject to the federal ban on television advertising. Those calling for action say that much the same same way Big Tobacco used the Marlboro Man, Joe Camel and attractive celebrities to promote their product, e-cigarette manufacturers are doing with modern-day celebrities. 
The market saturation amazes Linda Doty, prevention specialist with the Cumberland Perry County Drug and Alcohol Commission. Doty recently Googled e-cigarettes near her Carlisle office and learned that between the West Shore and Newville, there are 100 e-cigarette retailers, the majority of them convenience stores, which draw heavy traffic from young people stopping in for sodas and snacks.
Doty said she is concerned that the increase in young e-cigarette users is playing out amid a dearth of medical evidence regarding their safety. She said a recent study by the the Smoking and Health Behavior Research Laboratory at the Pennsylvania State University found that 20 percent of middle school students who had tried e-cigarettes said they had never smoked regular cigarettes.
“Even e-cigarette manufacturers recommend that breast-feeding women and those with health complications not use the products,” Doty said. “To me that’s an acknowledgment that this could have potential for harm.”
Indeed, a study last year by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that use of e-cigarettes among teens in 2012 had more than doubled from the previous year. However, at the same time, cigarette smoking among teens continued to decline.
Currently, no federal or state law governs the sale of e-cigarettes. A bill in the state Senate would restrict the sale of the devices to people 18 and older.
Harrisburg resident Keith Kepler challenges the notion that e-cigarettes — and their fruity, candy flavored choices — will lure kids into smoking.
“I’m 57 and, doggone it, I still like strawberry and chocolate,” said Kepler, who began to smoke at 14 and recently quit with the help of e-cigarettes. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard of. I still chew bubble gum. You’re telling me we can’t have things flavored bubble gum, because it will lure kids? I don’t get that.”
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2014/02/post_662.html