Big Tobacco Invests in E-Cigarettes. Should You?

By 
U.S. sales of electronic cigarettes are expected to jump past $1 billion this year, and where there’s growth like that you can bet someone is making money – whether it’ll be new companies or Big Tobacco remains to be seen.
While still a tiny fraction of total tobacco sales, the market is already a lucrative one for some fledgling e-cigarette firms, though companies that promote and advertise the products are receiving much of the benefits, not manufacturers themselves. Longer term, the burning question is: Who is best positioned when government regulators take control of a market that’s so unfettered it can legally target adolescents with candy-flavored smokes.
Nationwide, e-cigarettes are sold with little restrictions except for one big one – they cannot claim to be a cure for habitual smoking or they risk U.S. Food and Drug Administration sanctions (several states also restrict sales to minors). Instead, sales have grown slowly in a curious niche – a hybrid of traditional smokers and those trying to quit. The battery-operated smokes heat nicotine-infused vapors that can be inhaled like a regular cigarette, making them safer than carcinogenic tobacco, but not necessarily risk-free, according to the FDA. Studies about their safety or effectiveness in quitting tobacco are not conclusive, and health officials say more research is needed.
In economic terms, e-cigarettes hit a classic inflection point last year when, after years of gradual sales growth, they became too big for the $100 billion tobacco business to ignore. Suddenly, celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio are puffing on black-tube, blue-tipped e-cigarettes and touting them on commercials on MTV. E-cigarettes are becoming cool, and marketers have taken notice.
E-cigarette maker NJOY, with about 40 percent of the market, isn’t selling itself based on its hipness factor. It’s positioning itself as the choice of Main Street smokers who just want to quit tobacco, says S&P Capital IQ equity analyst Esther Kwon, who covers the tobacco industry. Targeting “smoke-quitters” makes business sense, she says. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says about 70 percent of smokers want to quit. To reach that group, Kwon says NJOY tries to duplicate the look and feel of a real cigarette.
Still, if its mainstream focus lacks downtown hipness, NJOY has generated buzz with its high-profile investors and anti-smoking “cred.” NJOY’s roster of supporters include billionaire Sean Parker, of Facebook and Napster fame, and former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona, who will head a NJOY research committee that will study the e-cigarettes. The company is positioned for a possible takeover by one of the major tobacco players or a possible initial public offering, analysts say, though that could be some time into the future.
“Some smaller players will be taken over by Big Tobacco, and NJOY could eventually go public,” says Adriana de Lozada, an analyst for private company research firm PrivCo. “NJOY has done a great job of positioning itself, but it’s not ready to do an IPO, not yet. Growth is important, but so is size to be able to go public and to compete in this market.”
Lorillard, the scrappy No. 3 cigarette maker behind giants Altria and Reynolds American, has moved aggressively with its blu brand, says Kwon, adding that the company has “always been an innovator.” It’s trying to bring a touch of Mad Men-style glamour to cigarettes, and bringing smokes back to the tube for the first time in four decades with ads featuring television celebrity Jenny McCarthy puffing up the benefits of e-cigarettes by saying “it’s not sexy” to smell like an ashtray and pointing out she doesn’t have to freeze outside to smoke a cigarette.
Lorillard trades at about the same relative price-to-earnings as the other tobacco makers. Its market cap of $17 billion is far less than Altria’s $70 billion. A successful IPO or acquisition of its startup competitor, NJOY, could boost its valuation further, according to Kwon. “They could get rewarded by the publicity of NJOY’s IPO,” she says. “It might get their value noticed more.”
Lastly, Vapor is the pure play, the lone publicly traded e-cigarette company. Its performances suggest that the economics of e-cigarettes are difficult, as it trades at 85 cents a share and has lost money on flat earnings the past year. But others, like Swisher, have succeeded in building market share with savvy marketing, de Lozada says.
“There is a window with a bit of an opening now, but if they have to compete with big brands that are already established, their profit margins will be squeezed,” Kwon says. “And Big Tobacco has the advantage of huge distribution no one can match.”
More broadly, media firms could be a big winner regardless of which e-cigarettes prevail, because they’re being advertised on television – a venue where traditional cigarettes have been banned for years. It’s a new front for the tobacco industry, which still spends billions of dollars on other media, including magazine ads, promotions and sponsorships. That trend will probably accelerate in an all-out marketing e-cigarette war as Altria and Reynolds enter the market this year. And e-cigarettes already have outspent traditional cigarette makers advertising in major media this year, according to data by Kantar Media.
New frontiers in advertising and social media may win some of that spending. The Internet advertising industry could benefit from e-cigarettes supported by people online via the likes of Google’s recently launched “shared endorsement” service, which sells information about users’ endorsements. (It’s not a coincidence that digital entrepreneurs like Parker have entered the space.)
And what about Big Tobacco’s role? Altria and Reynolds need to compete, but the cost of a massive new marketing push in a sector where regulatory issues are still being sorted out might not make perfect sense, at least for now, analysts say, especially if such new costs mean any trade-off for tobacco company shareholders who purchase the stocks in part for their high dividend yields. “They are in a business that is highly profitable that does not require a whole lot of investment,” says Kwon, while noting a changing market could upend such reluctance. “This could be much different in the future, and this is something they will have to invest in. It’s in its very early stages, but it has potential to become something big, and it could have an impact.”
Analyst Bonnie Herzog of Wells Fargo Securities sparked media attention with a report earlier this year that e-cigarette growth will continue for the next decade and overtake traditional smoking sales for U.S. tobacco companies. A number of analysts declined to comment, citing a pending earnings period for tobacco companies, and Herzog was not available for comment. However, big brokers have generally been recommending the stocks for their dividends and steady earnings, and analysts have expressed skepticism that e-cigarettes, with less than 1 percent of the total market, will make much impact anytime soon.
Meanwhile, the regulatory and legal issues surrounding their marketing has been slowed by Washington’s budget stalemate that led to government shutdown. A number of decisions are due soon that could bring clarity and more regulation.
“All of these big gains [for e-cigarettes] are coming at a time of zero regulation, no taxes and a lot of hype,” says one analyst who requested U.S. News to not use his name. “The bottom line is that only a limited number of people will switch once the playing field is leveled. Our research shows that it won’t happen because e-cigarettes are just not as satisfying.”
http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/mutual-funds/articles/2013/10/17/big-tobacco-invests-in-e-cigarettes-should-you?page=2

Costly cigarettes and smoke-free homes: Both effectively reduce tobacco consumption

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine say high-priced cigarettes and smoke-free homes effectively reduce smoking behaviors among low-income individuals – a demographic in which tobacco use has remained comparatively high.

Writing in the October 17, 2013 issue of theAmerican Journal of Public Health, principal investigator John P. Pierce, PhD, professor and director of population sciences at UC San Diego School of Medicine, and colleagues found that expensive cigarettes – $4.50 or more per pack – were associated with lower consumption across all levels.

Writing in the October 17, 2013 issue of theAmerican Journal of Public Health, principal investigator John P. Pierce, PhD, professor and director of population sciences at UC San Diego School of Medicine, and colleagues found that expensive cigarettes – $4.50 or more per pack – were associated with lower consumption across all levels.
“Living in a state where the average price paid for cigarettes is low ($3.20 or less per pack) means that all , regardless of income, will smoke a lot more than those who live in a state with higher prices,” said Pierce. “This is the case for those living below the  as well as for the wealthy.”
When smokers agreed to a smoke-free home, not only were they more likely to reduce their smoking but, in addition, if they quit, they were less likely to relapse.
“Price is a deterrent to smoking,” said Pierce, “but successful quitting (90 or more days) was associated in this study only with a smoke-free home.”
The challenge to anti-smoking groups is that low-income smokers are less likely to adopt a smoke-free home environment. Pierce offered several possible explanations: “First, there’s a higher prevalence of smoking in people with lower incomes, which means that there will be more spouses who smoke as well. When both adults smoke, there is much lower motivation to introduce a smoke-free home. Also, social norms against smoking have historically been lower in those with lower incomes.
“No one is mandating a smoke-free home,” Pierce continued. “We are telling people that if they really want to quit, then introducing a smoke-free home will help them be successful. This study supports the current policy of increasing (cigarette) prices and building social norms that protect against secondhand smoke. These policies will reduce consumption among all smokers – reducing potential harm – and the ensuing smoke-free homes will help smokers quit successfully.”
The findings are derived from the 2006-2007 Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey, a monthly nationally representative cross-sectional survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. The researchers analyzed three sets of supplement data containing responses from more than 150,000 participants aged 18 and older who self-reported both income and smoking habits.
Maya Vijayaraghavan, MD, assistant clinical professor in the Department of Family and Preventive medicine and the study’s first author, said one potential avenue for intervention was to increase regulation of  in public housing.
“This may change norms around smoking among low-income populations living in public housing,” Vijayaraghavan said. “What is important is that clinicians need to emphasize  concerning tobacco use and should encourage and discuss strategies for adopting smoke-free homes among all smokers. Additionally, there is a lot of interest in raising cigarette price to reduce smoking. While we have evidence that moderate increases reduce  behavior in all income groups, it is important to match such a policy with support to help lower income smokers to quit successfully.”
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-10-costly-cigarettes-smoke-free-homes-effectively.html

15 Years Later, Where Did All The Cigarette Money Go?

by NPR STAFF
Fifteen years after tobacco companies agreed to pay billions of dollars in fines in what is still the largest civil litigation settlement in U.S. history, it’s unclear how state governments are using much of that money.
So far tobacco companies have paid more than $100 billion to state governments as part of the 25-year, $246 billion settlement.
Among many state governments receiving money, Orange County, Calif., is an outlier. Voters mandated that 80 percent of money from tobacco companies be spent on smoking-related programs, like a cessation class taught in the basement of Anaheim Regional Medical Center.
“So go ahead and take a minute or two to write down reasons why you want to quit and we’ll talk about them in just a bit,” Luisa Santa says at the start of a recent session.
Every year since 1998, this program has been funded by money from the tobacco settlement. The five-part class is free for anyone living or working in Orange County. When they sign up, participants get a “quit kit” full of things like toothpicks and gum. And, if they come for at least three of the five sessions, they get a free two-week supply of nicotine patches.
Making Big Tobacco Pay
In the mid-1990s, Mississippi was the undisputed leader on the tobacco issue. In 1994, Mike Moore, the state attorney general, filed the first state lawsuit against big tobacco.
Individual lawsuits by smokers failed because courts held people responsible for their decision to smoke, but Moore argued that Mississippi shouldn’t be forced to pay the costs of treating smoking-related diseases.
“Things such as lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, low-birth-weight babies and others, we have to pay,” Moore told NPR in a 1994 interview. “The state is obligated to pay for those for our citizens that are not covered in other ways, and we feel like they’re caused by the tobacco products.”
Moore argued that tobacco companies should pay for medical bills, and eventually the courts agreed. That agreement said no ads and no targeting youth. Popular advertising characters like Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man were killed off as a result.
The settlement left the tobacco industry immune from future state and federal suits, but the agreement said nothing about how states had to spend the money. Looking back on it, Moore remembers it was a long slog.
“It was not an easy task,” Moore tells NPR’s Arun Rath. “When we filed our case here in 1994, my governor actually sued me to try to stop the tobacco case.”
The tobacco companies sued Moore as well, he says, and it went all the way to the Supreme Court. “It took me two years before I even had five states who would agree to join the efforts.”
Moore now serves on the board of directors of the American Legacy Foundation, a group created by the tobacco settlement. The organization’s mission is to create national anti-smoking campaigns, like the famous Truth ads.
The tobacco settlement included money specifically to fund public service announcements, but Moore says most of the settlement money came with no strings attached, and that has made it impossible to hold states accountable.
In Mississippi, where the settlement money was put into a trust fund, a lot of it was spent on things other than smoking prevention and health care, Moore says.
“What happened as the years went by, legislators come and go, and governors come and go … so we got a new governor and he had a new opinion about the tobacco trust fund,” he says. “So a trust fund that should have $2.5 billion in it now doesn’t have much at all, and unfortunately that’s one of my biggest disappointments.
And it’s not just Mississippi; Moore says that all across the country hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to states, and the states have made choices not to spend the money on public health and tobacco prevention.
It’s not all bad news in Mississippi, however; Moore says money that was spent on tobacco prevention has helped reduce teen smoking by more than 50 percent in just five years. Adult smoking has been reduced by about 25 percent, and he says it is that way around much of the U.S. as well.
“We need to continue the vigilance,” he says. “We have new products coming out — e-cigarettes and the like — we just need to talk the states into spending the money to do something about it.”
The Settlement Aftermath
Myron Levin covered the tobacco industry for the Los Angeles Times for many years and is also the founder of the health and safety news site Fair Warning. He says talking states into spending settlement money on tobacco prevention is a tough sell.
To show the settlement was not just a big money grab, Levin says, there was definitely a feeling that states had a moral obligation to spend at least a sizeable chunk of money on programs to help people quit smoking and to prevent kids from starting.
“So it was understood without being codified into the agreement that states would make a big investment in this,” he says. “They haven’t.”
To help guide state governments, in 2007 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that states reinvest 14 percent of the money from the settlement and tobacco taxes in anti-smoking programs. But most state governments have decided to prioritize other things: Colorado has spent tens of millions of its share to support a literacy program, while Kentucky has invested half of its money in agricultural programs.
“What states have actually done has fluctuated year by year … but it’s never come close to 14 percent,” Levin says. “There are some fairly notorious cases of money being used for fixing potholes, for tax relief [and] for financial assistance for tobacco farmers.”
Levin says some states don’t have any money coming in anymore because they securitized their future payments with an investor in order to receive a lump sum. That lump sum often went into their state’s general fund.

For its part, the tobacco industry has managed to weather the settlement fairly well. New products like smokeless tobacco and electronic cigarettes have put many companies on the road to big sales, Levin says.
“When you are supplying the most widely used addictive product in the world, you have certain advantages,” he says. “Their cash flows remain enormous.”
One indirect effect of the settlement, Levin says, is legislation that gave the Federal Drug Administration control over tobacco products. President Obama signed the law in 2009.
“Something that could happen, although I wouldn’t put a lot of money on it, is they could ratchet down the allowable levels of nicotine in cigarettes to a level that is essentially nonaddictive,” he says. “That would be a total game changer.”
Nonaddictive cigarettes would indeed be a game changer for people like Susan Hallock, an attendee at the class in Orange County, who says she desperately wants to quit.
“I feel ashamed,” she says. “I feel like I have to hide my hand with the cigarette in it.”
But the nicotine keeps her coming back, over and over. “I’ll smoke like six to eight months and quit. Or a month and quit. It’s just different every time.”
She’s hoping that this time, with the help of the free class, she’ll be successful. And she has a real chance: The program has a 50 percent success rate for adults like her.
http://www.npr.org/2013/10/13/233449505/15-years-later-where-did-all-the-cigarette-money-go

Study: Light Smokers Face High Risk Of Early Death

(CBS ATLANTA) – Light smokers are not safe from the large life expectancy cuts that come from mild cigarette use.
A new tracking study of health and smoking levels from 200,000 people finds that not only does smoking cut 10 years from a smoker’s life expectancy, but that even mild smokers will double their risk of an early death by continuing cigarette use.
“The international rule of thumb is that half of all smoker deaths are directly caused by tobacco,” Professor Emily Banks of the Australian National University study told ABC News.
“We found that [over the four years] people who are current smokers were three times more likely to die than people who had never smoked, and their life expectancy within that four-year period was diminished by 10 years compared to the never-smokers.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Tobacco use is the single most preventable cause of disease, disability, and death in the United States. Each year, an estimated 443,000 people die prematurely from smoking or exposure to secondhand smoke, and another 8.6 million live with a serious illness caused by smoking.”
Despite these risks, approximately 46.6 million U.S. adults smoke cigarettes. Smokeless tobacco, cigars, and pipes also have deadly consequences, including lung, larynx, esophageal, and oral cancers, reports the CDC.
The study echoes previous research that quitting smoking at any age still reduces the risk of smoking-related death.
The CDC reports: “Each year, primarily because of exposure to secondhand smoke, an estimated 3,000 nonsmoking Americans die of lung cancer, more than 46,000 die of heart disease, and about 150,000–300,000 children younger than 18 months have lower respiratory tract infections.”
http://atlanta.cbslocal.com/2013/10/12/study-light-smokers-face-high-risk-of-early-death/

Letter: E-cigarettes will burn users in the long run

DR. THECKEDATH MATHEW BRIGHTON, Senior interventional cardiologist, Rochester Heart Institute
E-cigarettes are real nicotine products, camouflaged in heat and vapor, carrying all the ill effects that nicotine could do on the cardiovascular system.
Nicotine is a vasoconstrictor agent that produces spasm on the blood vessels, including the coronary arteries and the vessels in the brain, leading to heart attack and stroke. Nicotine can lead to blood clots that eventually leads to heart attack and stroke.
Nicotine is an atherogenic agent. It promotes plaque formation in the blood vessels that contribute to plaque rupture in the heart and brain, again leading to heart attack and stroke. Nicotine has a deleterious effect on the arteries to the legs compromising the blood supply leading to amputation of the legs in many cases.
E-cigarettes are real nicotine products carrying all the adverse effects of nicotine and there is nothing to be glamorized about it.
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/opinion/letters/2013/10/12/letter-e-cigarettes-will-burn-users-in-the-long-run/2969185/

POV: Seven reasons the FDA should regulate e-cigarettes

By Kevin Keenan
In a recent online blog post by Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, it was clearly explained why e-cigarettes should soon be regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The CDC recently reported that rates of electronic cigarette use among U.S. youths more than doubled from 2011 to 2012, when 10 percent of high school students reported ever having used e-cigarettes.
These numbers are troubling but not surprising. There has been an explosion in e-cigarette marketing in recent years, and e-cigarette manufacturers are using the same slick tactics long used to market regular cigarettes to kids. The following are seven ways in which makers of the e-cigarette are using the same marketing strategies as the tobacco industry used back in the 1950s through the early ’70s:
1. They have celebrity spokespeople.
Like cigarette ads of old, television, online and print ads for e-cigarettes feature catchy slogans and celebrity endorsers, including actor Stephen Dorff and rock musician Courtney Love for NJOY. Their message: Using these products is trendy and cool.
2. Their magazine ads feature rugged men … and glamorous women.
These ads feature today’s equivalents of the Marlboro Man and the Virginia Slims woman, depicting e-cigarette use as masculine, sexy or rebellious. E-cigarette ads have appeared in magazines that reach millions of teens, including Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated, InStyle and Us Weekly.
3. They know sex sells.
Like cigarette companies have long done, e-cigarette makers portray use of their products as sexually attractive. The allure for young people to start using is just as real; particularly in the Internet age we live in.
4. They sponsor sports … and music festivals.
For decades tobacco companies used sponsorships of sports and entertainment events, especially auto racing and music festivals, to promote cigarettes to huge audiences, including kids. Cigarette sponsorships are now banned, however today e-cigarette brands have auto racing sponsorships of their own. The Blu Cig company is one of them.
5. Their products come in sweet flavors.
A 2009 federal law banned fruit- and candy-flavored cigarettes, but many e-cigarette companies gleefully pitch similar flavors. Apollo Vapors, for example, offers Almond Joyee (“the candy bar taste without the calories!”), French Vanilla (“like biting into a deliciously sweet vanilla cupcake”) and Banana Cream (“yummy ambrosia of bananas and whipped cream”).
6. They use cartoons.
The website for blu eCigs has featured a cartoon pitchman named “Mr. Cool.” It was reminiscent of the Joe Camel cartoon character that so effectively marketed cigarettes to kids in the 1990s.
7. Their ads say, “Switch, Don’t Quit.”
Tobacco companies have long tried to discourage smokers from quitting by marketing cigarette changes as reducing health risk. Some e-cigarette ads carry a similar message. No wonder youth e-cigarette use is on the rise. These developments underscore the need for the FDA to quickly regulate e-cigarettes and take steps to prevent their marketing and sale to kids.
Kevin Keenan is project director for Smoke-Free NOW, a program of Genesee/Orleans Council on Alcoholism and Substance Abuse.
http://thedailynewsonline.com/opinion/article_84e8a47a-32f7-11e3-a8fc-001a4bcf887a.html

Smokers Are Using E-Cigarettes to Get High

By  @elizalgray
Marijuana smokers are using electronic-cigarettes to get high, say local reports from across the country.
Electronic cigarettes are a growing industry in the United States, having ballooned from $300 million in retail sales in the U.S. last year to $1.8 billion by the end of 2013, according to Bonnie Herzog, a senior tobacco industry analyst at Wells Fargo Securities.
Marijuana users are seeing some of the same benefits in the devices, which produce a vapor of nicotine liquid or, in the case of marijuana, cannabis oil, liquid, or wax, that can be inhaled without the inconvenience of smelly, carcinogenic smoke.
Marijuana users, who explain their methods of using e-cigarettes to vaporize cannabis liquid in videos online, can make their own hash liquid and put it inside an e-cigarette, a lithium battery-powered device that heats liquid into vapor.
Local reports from Florida, New York, and Philadelphia, have reported on the trend of using electronic cigarettes to vaporize marijuana, citing concerns of parents, law makers, and law enforcement agents who worry that electronic cigarettes allow users to get high without detection. Both products are legal in some states and not in others, making enforcement even more challenging.
While states and cities across the country have begun to limit the use of electronic cigarettes–banning their sale to minors or indoors–the federal government has yet to regulate them, raising concerns about their safety. TIME explored the pros and cons of vaping in a feature on electronic cigarettes in September. While electronic cigarettes are believed by many in the public health field to be safer than regular cigarettes, without regulation by the FDA, there is no way for consumers to be sure about the safety of the products they are buying, whether they contain nicotine or marijuana
http://nation.time.com/2013/10/11/smokers-are-using-e-cigarettes-to-get-high/#ixzz2i1ElVhkY

New fears as wave of smokers are now using E-cigarettes to smoke marijuana in public

By ALEX GREIG
Marijuana smokers are using battery-powered e-cigarettes to smoke marijuana.
E-cigarettes are being touted by manufacturers as a healthier alternative to traditional cigarettes, but officials believe creative smokers are using the the devices to smoke marijuana undetected.
Cannabis, in liquid or wax forms, doesn’t emit the pungent odor that marijuana smoked in plant-form does, making it easy to use the drug with the discreet gadget.
‘I was on the train from New York to Baltimore and I enjoyed the pen the whole way there and back with no one noticing,’ one anonymous marijuana user told NBC.
‘I absolutely was thinking “This is not bad at all.”‘
The portable vaporizers don’t contain tobacco, but instead vaporize liquid nicotine.
Sales of e-cigarettes have soared in the past few years as more and more people take up the gadget, which emits no smoke and little to no odor, in favor of cigarettes.
Vaporizers for cannabis users have been around for a while, but now people are using e-cigarettes for the same purpose – and it’s impossible to tell what exactly someone who is using an e-cigarette in public is inhaling.
The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention released a report that shows the number of middle school and high school students who use e-cigarettes doubled between 2011 and 2012.
Authorities are troubled by the prospect of minors catching on to the trend and graduating from nicotine to marijuana.
As evidenced by the number of YouTube videos instructing smokers on how to doctor an e-cigarette for marijuana use, people are finding ways to use legal products illegally.
To combat e-cigarettes becoming a gateway for other more harmful substances, New York assembleywoman Linda Rosenthal introduced a bill last year making it illegal to sell e-cigarettes to minors.
‘Once you try electronic cigarettes, you can become hooked to them, move on to cigarettes and then move on to other drugs,’ Rosenthal told NBC.
Some other states, including New Jersey, New Hampshire and Maryland, have also banned the sale of e-cigarettes to minors.
There are currently no federal regulations in place for e-cigarettes.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2454693/E-cigarettes-used-smoke-marijuana-public.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

City mulls underage e-cigarette ban

By Lucas High
lhigh@wyomingnews.com

CHEYENNE — The Cheyenne City Council is considering an ordinance that would add electronic cigarettes to the city’s list of tobacco products that cannot be sold to minors.

Electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, are “products often shaped like cigarettes, cigars or pipes that are designed to deliver nicotine or other substances to a user in the form of a vapor,” according to the Tobacco Control Legal Consortium.
“Typically, e-cigarettes consist of battery-powered heating elements and replaceable cartridges that contain nicotine or other chemicals, and an atomizer that, when heated, converts the contents of the cartridge into a vapor that a user inhales.”
The state already has laws banning the sale of e-cigarettes to people under the age of 18.
But by adding the proposed ordinance to city code, fines collected from violators would flow into city coffers, rather than to the state, city attorney Dan White said.
White added, “That’s the principle reason for having this as a violation under city code, because it’s a city fine and would then become part of the (city’s) budget.”
The Legislature voted earlier this year to amend the state’s smoking laws to include e-cigarettes on its list of regulated tobacco products, placing them alongside items like cigarettes, cigars and snuff.
The city has not yet done so.
Councilwoman Georgia Broyles, the sponsor of the proposed ordinance, said she introduced it to increase awareness of the dangers of e-cigarette use, especially in minors.
“I believe they are poisonous,” Broyles said. “I don’t see any good in them at all.”
A secondary goal of the ordinance is to bring city code in line with state law and improve uniformity, she said.
Lisa Ammons with the Prevention Management Organization of Wyoming told the council’s Public Services Committee on Tuesday that while e-cigarettes have been around since the 1960s, they have exploded in popularity recently.
The percentage of sixth- through 12th-graders in Wyoming who have tried e-cigarettes more than doubled between 2011 and 2012, Ammons said.
Electronic cigarette manufacturers have marketed their products, especially flavored e-cigarettes, toward minors, Ammons said.
“No one really buys an e-cigarette in bubble gum flavor as an adult,” she said.
Part of the reason for the increased popularity is the nationwide spread of smoke-free laws that ban smoking in places like bars and restaurants, Ammons said.
Electronic cigarettes are often not included in these bans, which allows smokers to use them inside bars and restaurants.
“E-cigarettes aren’t usually addressed (in smoking bans) because they are so new,” Broyles said.
Broyles’ proposed ordinance only addresses the sale of e-cigarettes to minors, not whether they can be used indoors.
But Broyles said she is “certainly open to looking at (adding an indoor e-cigarette smoking ban) as an amendment” to Cheyenne’s citywide ban on smoking indoors in public buildings.
While the proposed ordinance was recommended unanimously by the committee, several of its members expressed some skepticism about its necessity.
That skepticism was based on the redundancy of the ordinance, which mirrors the state law already on the books.
Councilman Bryan Cook said while he understands the problem of e-cigarette use by minors, he needs some more information before he can “really stand behind this (ordinance).”
“I’m still on the fence with the need, and maybe the push, for this,” Cook said.
Councilman Sean Allen expressed a similar sentiment.
“I just don’t know if it is necessary if (selling electronic cigarettes to minors) is already illegal by state statute,” Allen said.
The proposed ordinance goes to the full council for second reading next Monday night, then back to committee and back to the council again for a third reading and final vote.
http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2013/10/10/news/01top_10-10-13.txt

The risks are still unclear as the use of e-cigarettes grows

Article by: EDITORIAL BOARD , Star Tribune
The offerings at Fridley’s eCig & Supply Company store sound like something a kid might choose as a slushie or smoothie flavor on a hot summer day: Melon Mist; Blueberry Cream; Lemon Blast, and Papa Smurf’s Brother, a root beer and vanilla combo named for the iconic cartoon character.
Instead, these are among the more than 50 flavorings of “juice” — a liquid vaporized and inhaled through a pen-shaped device — that the store and others like it offer to those who want a nicotine hit without puffing on a traditional cigarette. Earlier this week, the number of customers streaming into the Fridley store attested to the rapidly growing popularity of e-cigarettes and “vaping.” (Since these devices produce a vapor, e-cigarette users say they “vape” instead of “smoke.”)
While e-cigarette sales are still a small fraction of the $80-billion-plus annual market for traditional tobacco cigarettes, sales of these essentially unregulated delivery devices for a highly addictive drug are skyrocketing, with 2012 sales of $300 million to $500 million expected to double in 2013, according to the Economist magazine. Neither regulators nor researchers assessing the potential health risks have kept up. That needs to change.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is still sitting on the sidelines when it comes to e-cigs. The agency has oversight of regular cigarettes and smokeless tobacco but not e-cigarettes unless they are sold along with a health claim. What that means is that minors in many states can buy e-cigs. Manufacturers may also advertise their often candy-flavored concoctions in ways that traditional cigarette companies are restricted from. An e-cigarette ban would go too far, given the uncertainties regarding their effects, but restrictions on e-cig sales and marketing to minors are common sense and overdue. Forty state attorneys general, including Minnesota’s Lori Swanson, recently sent a letter to the FDA demanding that the agency finally issue its expected but much-delayed regulations by the end of this month. An FDA spokesman this week declined to say if that deadline will be met.
States and cities also need to set parameters on e-cig use to protect public health while researchers determine the safety of their use — both for those who vape and those who may be exposed secondhand to the vapor.
While Minnesota does prohibit e-cig sales to those under 18, the state’s Clean Indoor Act does not restrict adult use. Legislators in 2014 need to ensure that the state’s smoke-free laws are up to date. Large tobacco companies, which are buying up e-cigarette makers, should not be able to exploit loopholes to get new Minnesotans hooked on nicotine and, potentially, their traditional tobacco products.
It’s unclear if e-cig users are more likely to eventually smoke cigarettes, but respected public-health experts, such as Minnesota Health Commissioner Dr. Ed Ehlinger, are concerned that e-cigs “normalize” smoking behaviors and may be a gateway to traditional tobacco use. This could potentially undo hard-won progress to cut smoking rates.
E-cig advocates, particularly those on social media, fairly point out that these products likely are safer than traditional smoking. It’s also clear from talking with customers at the Fridley store that e-cigs may have an important role to play in helping people quit tobacco. For Lisa Stegeman of Brooklyn Park, e-cigs are the only stop-­smoking product that has worked for her.
Still, data on e-cigs’ effectiveness is mixed, with a recent study in the Lancet showing no significant efficacy compared with a placebo. Data on the risks of long-term use is also inadequate. And with little oversight of the manufacturing of these products or the “juice,’’ who’s to say what’s in them? Not every proprietor is as conscientious as eCig & Supply Company’s Scott Huber, who uses only a reputable “juice” supplier based in Minnesota.
Medical research is also insufficient to determine the risk of secondhand exposure to the vapor. One study found that metal and silicate particles from e-cig aerosol were present in bystanders.
The Duluth City Council recently voted to prohibit e-cig use in public places, putting the city at the forefront of municipalities in Minnesota and elsewhere when it comes to e-cig safeguards. Duluth’s elected officials got it right. Medical researchers are only starting to determine e-cigs’ risks and potential benefits. Until these are known with more certainty, spaces free of cigarettes should be e-cig-free as well.
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/editorials/227144351.html