E-cigarette use doubles among U.S. teens

Wendy Koch, USA TODAY
The CDC survey comes as the federal government is expected to announce, as early as October, its plan to regulate these battery-powered devices as tobacco products.
Now chic among celebrities, electronic cigarettes are gaining favor among U.S. teenagers as new data show a recent doubling in usage.
Last year, 10% of high school students say they tried e-cigarettes, up from 4.7% in 2011, according to the National Youth Tobacco Survey released Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A doubling also occurred among U.S. middle school students saying they’ve experimented with e-cigarettes — from 1.4% to 2.7% — and similar spikes in teen usage were found in the 2013 Florida Youth Tobacco Survey.
“The increased use of e-cigarettes by teens is deeply troubling,” CDC Director Tom Frieden said in announcing the findings. “Many teens who start with e-cigarettes may be condemned to struggling with a lifelong addiction to nicotine and conventional cigarettes.”
The CDC survey comes as the federal government is expected to announce, as early as October, its plan to regulate these battery-powered devices as tobacco products. E-cigarettes heat a solution containing nicotine, which is derived from tobacco leaves, into a vapor that users inhale. While they don’t have the myriad chemicals of regular cigarettes, they still provide a nicotine kick.
“We don’t yet understand the long-term effects of these novel tobacco products,” Mitch Zeller, director of FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, said in a statement. He said the survey’s findings reinforce why FDA plans to regulate the booming market of e-cigarettes, which each of the nation’s top three tobacco companies have joined in the last 16 months.
The annual survey found that while most teens who say they’ve used e-cigarettes also report using regular cigarettes, one in five middle school students who’ve tried the former say they’ve never tried the latter.
“This indicates that e-cigarettes could be a gateway to nicotine addiction and use of other tobacco products,” says Matt Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. He blames this upswing on slick new marketing, which enlists celebrities including Jenny McCarthy, Stephen Dorff and Courtney Love for the pitches.
“These ads portray e-cigarette use as an act of rebellion, much like cigarette ads have done,” Myers says, adding they undercut efforts to de-glamorize smoking to kids. He also says the sweet flavors of some e-cigarettes, such as chocolate and “cherry crush,” lure youth.
The survey finds more teens aren’t just trying e-cigarettes once. Last year, 2.8% of high school students said they used them within the past 30 days, up from 1.5% in 2011. For middle school students, such usage rose from 0.6% to 1.1% during the same period.
The Florida survey, done by the state’s health department, provides similar but more recent data. This year, it found that 5.4% of the state’s high school students say they used e-cigarettes within the past month, up from 3.1% in 2011. It found that 12.1% of these students now say they’ve tried e-cigarettes at least once, up from 6.0% in 2011.
The e-cigarette industry says its product helps adult smokers kick the habit and is not aimed at kids. Altria, the parent company of Philip Morris, the nation’s largest tobacco company, says it won’t sell its new e-cigarette — the Mark-Ten, which debuted last month — to minors. R.J. Reynolds, the second-largest tobacco company, says its newly revamped VUSE product is also targeted only at adults.
“We’re for responsible regulation,” including a ban on sales to kids, says Thomas Kiklas of the Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association, an industry group.
More states, including Indiana and Mississippi, have banned the sale of e-cigarettes to minors, and others are seeking to tax the devices or extend indoor smoking restrictions to them.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/05/e-cigarette-use-doubles-among-us-teens/2768155/

E-Cigarette Use Doubles Among Students, Survey Shows

By SABRINA TAVERNISE
WASHINGTON — The share of middle and high school students who use e-cigarettes doubled in 2012 from the previous year, federal data show. The rise is prompting concerns among health officials that the new devices could be creating as many health problems as they are solving.
One in 10 high school students said they had tried an e-cigarette last year, according to a national survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, up from one in 20 in 2011. About 3 percent said they had used one in the last 30 days. In total, 1.8 million middle and high school students said they had tried e-cigarettes in 2012.
“This is really taking off among kids,” said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the C.D.C.
E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that deliver nicotine that is vaporized to form an aerosol mist. Producers promote them as a healthy alternative to smoking, but researchers say their health effects are not yet clear, though most acknowledge that they are less harmful than traditional cigarettes. The Food and Drug Administration does not yet regulate them, though analysts expect that the agency will start soon.
One of the biggest concerns among health officials is the potential for e-cigarettes to become a path to smoking among young people who otherwise would not have experimented. The survey found that most students who had tried e-cigarettes had also smoked cigarettes.
But one in five middle school students who said they had tried e-cigarettes reported never having smoked a conventional cigarette, raising fears that e-cigarettes, at least for some, could become a gateway. Among high school students, 7 percent who had tried an e-cigarette said they had never smoked a traditional cigarette.
Dr. Frieden said that the adolescent brain is more susceptible to nicotine, and that the trend of rising use could hook young people who might then move into more harmful products like conventional cigarettes.
Murray S. Kessler, the chairman, president and chief executive of Lorillard, Inc., a North Carolina-based tobacco company that owns Blu eCigs, said that the rise in youth usage was “unacceptable,” and added that the company was “looking forward to a regulatory framework that restricts youth access” but does not “stifle what may be the most significant harm reduction opportunity that has ever been made available to smokers.
The sharp rise among students mirrored that among adult users and researchers said that it appeared to be driven, at least in part, by aggressive national marketing campaigns, some of which feature famous actors. (Producers say the ads are not aimed at adolescents.) E-cigarettes also come in flavors, which were banned in traditional cigarettes in 2009 and which health officials say appeal to young people.
“Kids love gadgets and the marketing for these things is in your face,” said Gary A. Giovino, a professor of health behavior at the University at Buffalo. He added that the rising use of e-cigarettes risked reversing societal trends in which smoking had fallen out of fashion.
About 6 percent of all adults – not just smokers – reported having tried e-cigarettes in 2011, according to a C.D.C. survey, about double the number from 2010. Data for adults in 2012 are not yet available, a spokesman said.
Mitchell Zeller, director of the F.D.A.’s Center for Tobacco Products, said in a statement that the data were “a cause for great concern as we don’t yet understand the long-term effects of these novel tobacco products.” He said the agency intended to expand its authority to all tobacco products. Congress granted it authority over cigarettes in 2009.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/health/e-cigarette-use-doubles-among-students-survey-shows.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0

Democratic Senators Pounce on E-Cigarettes After CDC Study Shows Teen Use Spike

By 
Five Democratic U.S. senators condemned tobacco-free electronic cigarettes as a gateway to cancer-causing tobacco ones, and promised to do something about it Thursday after the release of a government study showing a sharp uptick in the percentage of teens who tried one of the vapor-producing devices in 2012.
From 2011 to 2012 the percentage of high school students who had ever tried an electronic cigarette doubled from 4.7 percent to 10 percent, according to data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in its annual National Youth Tobacco Survey.
[RELATED: U.S. News Talks With the CDC’s Anti-Smoking Director About E-Cigs]
More than 92 percent of high school students who reported trying an electronic cigarette had also smoked a tobacco cigarette, but it’s unclear which they sampled first. Just 2.8 percent of high school students reported smoking an electronic cigarette in the past month, an increase from 1.5 percent in 2011. By contrast, in 2011 the CDC found 18.1 percent of high school students smoked a conventional cigarette in the past month. The 2012 data for tobacco cigarettes is not yet available.
Electronic cigarettes are touted as a healthy alternative to their foul-smelling cousins and their popularity is booming. Immediately after the CDC release, however, several senators characterized the companies behind the boom as unethical predators.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., was particularly vitriolic in his attack, citing the various flavors of nicotine-laced liquid offered by e-cigarette vendors as evidence of the companies’ “very clear intent of creating a new generation of smokers.”
“Without question,” Blumenthal said in a press release, “tobacco companies are using the same despicable tactics with e-cigarettes that they used in previous decades with traditional cigarettes to lure youth down a path of nicotine addiction and eventual death.”
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., described the uptick as “a call to action.”
[STUDY: One in Five U.S. Smokers Has Tried an ‘E-Cigarette’]
“This scientific report provides conclusive evidence,” Durbin said, “that the use of e-cigarettes among our nation’s kids is both on the rise and closely linked to the deadly use of cigarettes.”
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, denounced companies’ “unproven claims that [electronic cigarettes] are a safe alternative to conventional cigarettes or can help smokers quit – underscoring the urgent need for greater research into these products.”
Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., said “these products still pose serious dangers for kids and adults alike, despite their perceived image as safer alternatives to cigarettes. Regardless of the vehicle, smoking and nicotine use cost our country greatly, in terms of both health care dollars and lives lost. ”
Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., claimed “e-cigarettes are a gateway to tobacco use by children and teens and should not be marketed to youth.”
But advocates of electronic cigarettes say there’s no evidence they cause any health problems and say there’s nothing particularly exceptional about teen experimentation with the devices.
“Real public health practitioners and policymakers should not allow experimentation by youth to cloud their judgment about the great health benefits experienced by adult smokers who switch to e-cigarettes,” said Greg Conley, legislative director of the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association, in a statement provided to U.S. News.
Not all states ban the sale of the devices to minors, Conley pointed out. CASAA supports new state laws to restrict their sale to adults, but also wants adults e-cigarette smokers to be left alone.
 

9 Terribly Disturbing Things About Electronic Cigarettes

By now, you’ve probably seen them being smoked on the subway or in a bar — those shiny, futuristic, battery-operated nicotine inhalers better know as electronic cigarettes that are apparently all the rage these days. Big Tobacco companies have taken notice, too, and are determined to cash in on the industry, which is expected to bring in $1.7 billion in U.S. sales this year alone, according to The New York Times.
While much is still unknown about the health risks of e-cigarettes, here’s what we do know: E-cigarettes are addicting. And while they may not be as harmful as tobacco cigarettes, critics like the British Medical Association and the World Health Organisation are wary of the trend and warn of the dangers that may be associated with the smoking devices.
Here’s what we do know about e-cigarettes:
1. E-cigarettes contain toxic chemicals.
A 2009 FDA analysis of e-cigarettes from two leading brands found that the samples contained carcinogens and other hazardous chemicals, including diethylene glycol, which is found in antifreeze. Last year, a report from Greek researchers found that using e-cigarettes increased breathing difficulty in both smokers and non-smokers, according to Medical News Today.
2. Kids and teens can buy them.
Unlike other tobacco products, e-cigarettes can be sold to minors in many places throughout the country. The smoking devices can also be bought legally online, according to the Wall Street Journal.
3. While cigarette companies say they don’t market to kids, e-cigarettes come in flavors like cherry, strawberry, vanilla and cookies and cream milkshake.
4. Laws regulating cigarette ads don’t yet apply to e-cigarettes.
TV commercials for cigarettes may be banned, but ones for e-cigarettes sure aren’t, Adage points out. (The above ad for Blu eCigs features Jenny McCarthy.)
5. And e-cigarette companies are spending a TON on advertising.
Industry advertising spending increased to $20.8 million in 2012 from just $2.7 million in 2010, according to The New York Times.
6. E-cigarettes can be used in many places where smoking is banned.
Even though some studies suggest that secondhand vapor poses health risks, many lawmakers have yet to determine whether smoking rules apply to e-cigarettes, according to USA Today.
7. People think e-cigarettes can help them quit smoking.
Research published in the American Journal of Public Health indicates that 53 percent of young adults in the U.S. who have heard of e-cigarettes believe they are healthier than traditional cigarettes and 45 percent believe they could help them quit smoking — though there is little evidence to support either of these claims.
8. E-cigarettes aren’t taxed like traditional tobacco products.
Even though cigarette consumption fell significantly as taxes went up.
9. Despite unknown health consequences, e-cigarettes are poised to make inroads with a new generation of young people.
Half of young adults say they would try e-cigarettes if a friend offered them one, according a study cited by USA Today.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/03/electronic-cigarettes_n_3818941.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

Companies spend huge sums on TV ads, sponsorships to boost e-cigarette sales

By: Stuart Elliott
NEW YORK: Electronic cigarettes may be a creation of the early 21st century, but critics of the devices say manufacturers are increasingly borrowing marketing tactics that are more reminiscent of the heady days of tobacco in the mid-1900s.
With US smokers buying e-cigarettes at a record pace – annual sales are expected to reach $1.7 billion by year’s end – e-cigarette makers are opening their wallets wide, spending growing sums on TV commercials with celebrities, catchy slogans and sports sponsorships.
Those tactics can no longer be used to sell tobacco cigarettes, but are readily available to the ecigarette industry because it is not covered by the laws or regulations that affect the tobacco cigarette industry. The e-cigarette industry is also spending lavishly on marketing methods that are also still available to their tobacco brethren, including promotions, events, sample giveaways and print ads.
The Blu eCigs brand, which recently added actress Jenny McCarthy to its roster of star endorsers, joining actor Stephen Dorff, spent $12.4 million on ads in major media for the first quarter of this year compared with $992,000 in the same period a year ago, according to the Kantar Media unit of WPP. And ad spending in a category that Kantar Media calls smoking materials and accessories, which includes products like pipes and lighters in addition to e-cigarettes, has skyrocketed from $2.7 million in 2010 to $7.2 million in 2011 to $20.8 million in 2012.
In the first quarter of 2013, Kantar Media reported, category ad spending soared again, reaching $15.7 million compared with $2 million in the same period a year ago. In fact, that $15.7 million total exceeded the spending for ads in major media for tobacco cigarettes, at $13.9 million, according to Kantar Media.
“It is beyond troubling that e-cigarettes are using the exact same marketing tactics we saw the tobacco industry use in the 50s, 60s and 70s, which made it so effective for tobacco products to reach youth,” said Matthew L Myers, president of an organization in Washington, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, that has fought for decades against aiming cigarette ads at minors.
“The real threat,” he added, “is whether, with this marketing, e-cigarette makers will undo 40 years of efforts to deglamorize smoking.” Makers of e-cigarettes counter that their marketing efforts are legal and intended to reach adults – particularly, they say, adults who smoke tobacco cigarettes.
“Our company is being built on branding,” said Elliot B Maisel, chairman and chief executive at the Fin Branding Group in Atlanta, which last month began running TV commercials for its Fin e-cigarette to accompany other initiatives like print and online ads. The company plans to spend more than $8 million this year to take advantage of “the opportunity to build a great American iconic brand,” he added.
Joana Martins, vice-president for marketing at Fin Branding, described the Fin ads as aimed at “adult smokers, 25 to 44, who are tired of being ostracized” and would be receptive to a pitch that “it’s OK to smoke again.” That is reflected in the campaign theme, “Rewrite the rules.”
There is another reason that e-cigarette makers are appropriating the marketing playbook of tobacco cigarettes beyond the proven effectiveness of tactics like advertising on TV and sponsoring race cars: Giant tobacco companies like Lorillard and Reynolds American, which sell traditional smokes like Newport and Camel, are entering the e-cigarette category alongside smaller, entrepreneurial outfits like Fin Branding. Big Tobacco’s arrival is coming through acquisitions (eg Lorillard bought Blu eCigs in 2012) and startups (eg Reynolds American is introducing an e-cigarette named Vuse).
A selling point in a campaign for Vuse that began this week in Colorado is that it is “designed by tobacco experts” to deliver “a perfect puff every time,” said Stephanie Cordisco, president of the RJ Reynolds Vapor division of Reynolds American in Winston-Salem, NC.

Underage tobacco sales reported at record lows

By MICHAEL FELBERBAUM
AP Tobacco Writer
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — New statistics show that the sale of tobacco to minors in the U.S. were held near all-time lows last year under a federal-state inspection program intended to curb underage usage.
The violation rate of tobacco sales to underage youth at retailers nationwide has fallen from about 40 percent in 1997 to 9.1 percent in the last fiscal year, according to a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration report released Tuesday. The rate, which reached an all-time low of 8.5 percent in 2011, is based on the results of random, unannounced inspections conducted at stores to see whether they’d sell tobacco products to a customer under the age of 18.
A U.S. Surgeon General’s report issued last year found that more needs to be done to prevent young Americans from using tobacco, including stricter smoking bans and higher taxes on tobacco products. According to that report, almost one in five high school-aged children smokes. That’s down from earlier decades, but the rate of decline has slowed. It also said that more than 80 percent of smokers begin by age 18 and 99 percent of adult smokers in the U.S. start by age 26.
The inspection program, named for late U.S. Rep. Mike Synar of Oklahoma, is a federal mandate requiring each state to document that the rate of tobacco sales to minors is no more than 20 percent at the risk losing millions in federal funds for alcohol and other drug abuse prevention and treatment services.
Frances Harding, director of the federal agency’s Center for Substance Abuse, said that while the program has made “remarkable strides,” far more needs to be done to curb underage tobacco use.
In the last fiscal year, 33 states and Washington, D.C., reported a retailer violation rate below 10 percent, according to the Tuesday report. It was the seventh time that no state was found to be out of compliance. Maine reported the lowest rate of 1.8 percent, and Oregon reported the highest rate at 17.9 percent.
The latest federal data shows that about 14 percent of minors reported buying their own cigarettes in stores in 2011, down from 19 percent a decade earlier, suggesting that children may instead be getting their cigarettes and tobacco products from places other than convenience stores or gas stations.
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2013/08/27/health/underage-tobacco-sales-reported-at-record-lows

E-cigarettes health: Carcinogens found in e-cigarettes a danger, study finds

E-cigarettes health reports recently reveal that this seemingly “healthy” cigarette alternative may not be as good for users as many would like to believe, and that they might even include a similar number of dangerous carcinogens as regular cigarettes when smoking, Yahoo! reports this Tuesday, Aug. 27. The study highlights in its finding that researchers found that up to 3 out of 10 e-cigarettes had levels of acrolein and formaldehyde that were almost the same as those in standard cigarettes, a shocking discovery for some.
The e-cigarettes health study comes at a time when these electronic cigarettes have become an increasingly well-known substitute for smokers (many of whom may be trying to quit). Although the device also uses heat which vaporizes the nicotine into the body when inhaled, it does not contain the unhealthy tobacco.
Smokers that want to try to avoid some of the dangers and health risks associated with smoking, or in the process of kicking the bad habit, often use e-cigarettes as another option to still get their nicotine fix, while avoiding many of the serious health risks linked to regular cigarette smoking, most notably cancer.
Yet France’s National Consumer Institute magazine released some shocking new findings this Monday, reporting that a majority of e-cigarettes on the market today still hold “a significant quantity of carcinogenic molecules” that could pose a similar danger to these electronic smokers.
The study discovered via its researchers that 3 out of every 10 e-cigarettes still contained high levels of some carcinogenic substances, including that of formaldehyde and acrolein.
Though a banning may not be in order, raising public health awareness or putting limits to the e-cigarettes might be a sensible option, notes the magazine’s editor-in-chief
“This is not a reason to ban them, but to place them under better control.”
Added another statement on the rising popularity of e-cigarettes and the highly believed health benefits of the substituent device in terms of this new study:
“E-cigarettes are more than just a fad,” reads a piece from the report. “E-Cigarettes’ appeal stems from a variety of perceived advantages over traditional cigarettes, most commonly the perceptions that e-cigarettes are healthier, cheaper, and can be used almost anywhere … Yet they may have some hidden dangers, including those of carcinogens and other dangers.”
Do you have any insight into the e-cigarette health news? Do you agree with the study’s finding that dangerous carcinogens may lurk in these seemingly more healthy e-cigarettes?
http://www.examiner.com/article/e-cigarettes-health-carcinogens-found-e-cigarettes-a-danger-study-finds

Smokers and the Affordable Care Act: Q&A

WebMD Health News
By Kathleen Doheny
Reviewed by Lisa Zamosky
The Affordable Care Act has ended some age-old health insurance practices such as denying people with pre-existing conditions. But it does allow insurance companies to charge people who use tobacco 50% more for their premiums.
Supporters say the higher premiums make sense because smokers and other tobacco users have higher health care costs. Critics say the higher rate is more likely to make people lie about their tobacco use or go without coverage than it is to encourage them to quit their habit. Smokers without insurance also put their partners and children at risk.
Here’s what smokers and others need to know.

What does the Affordable Care Act allow insurers to charge tobacco users?

Companies can charge tobacco users up to 50% more. States, though, can mandate a lower percentage or no surcharge.

What is ”tobacco use,” and how is a smoker or tobacco user defined?

Tobacco use is the use of any tobacco product, including cigarettes, cigars, chewing tobacco, snuff, and pipe tobacco, four or more times a week within the past 6 months. (Religious or ceremonial use of tobacco is allowed, such as by Alaska natives or Native Americans). It’s an honor system.

Will every state charge the maximum?

Seven states and Washington, D.C., will not charge smokers higher insurance premiums. The states are: California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
Connecticut voted against the higher premiums only for the small group Marketplace, not the individual Marketplace. The other states outlawed higher premiums for both individuals and small business policies.
Three states — Arkansas, Colorado, and Kentucky — will allow companies to charge tobacco users less than 50%.
The remaining states are expected to allow the full 50% additional charge.
The highest possible premiums, though, won’t be effective for the first year because of a limitation in the software systems. That is being fixed.
Tobacco users in a small business plan don’t have to pay the higher premium if they enroll in a quit-smoking program; tobacco users in an individual plan may get a break on the premium if they enroll in a program. The law, however, does not require companies to offer the break in the individual Marketplace.

Will the Affordable Care Act require coverage of quit-smoking programs?

Yes.
The law requires all new private health insurance plans and Marketplace plans to cover services recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, with no cost-sharing fees. That includes tobacco cessation treatments.

What will quit-smoking treatments or programs include?

That is unclear.
Insurance companies don’t have a consistent approach to quit-smoking programs, says Erika Sward, a spokeswoman for the American Lung Association. “What we have seen is a patchwork quilt.”
While the Affordable Care Act requires that new plans cover services recommended by the task force, the task force does not give specifics. It recommends that doctors ask adults about tobacco use, provide cessation programs, and provide counseling for women who smoke during pregnancy.
But there are no ”typical” tobacco cessation programs, according to a survey conducted by Georgetown University researchers.
What’s needed, Sward says, is a comprehensive approach. According to the American Lung Association, tobacco cessation benefits should include the choices recommended by the Public Health Service. These include:
   -Nicotine — from a patch, gum, lozenge, nasal spray, or inhaler
   -Medications — bupropion (Zyban) and varenicline (Chantix)
-Counseling — individual, group, and phone
In one area, the law is specific: It requires that pregnant women on Medicaid be offered the treatments recommended by the U.S. Public Health Service. Those include asking about tobacco use and offering counseling, with no recommendation aboutmedication use in pregnancy.

Who supports higher premiums for tobacco users?

The insurance industry supports higher rates because smokers have much higher health care costs than nonsmokers, according to Susan Pisano, a spokeswoman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade industry group.
“There is clear documentation of so much greater health care costs [for tobacco users], and we think that should be reflected in the rates,” she says.
In 2004, smoking cost the U.S. $97 billion in lost productivity and $96 billion in direct health care costs, or $4,260 per adult smoker, according to the CDC.
More than half of Americans favor charging smokers more for insurance, according to a Gallup poll released in mid-August.

Who is against higher premiums for tobacco users?

Many health organizations, including the American Lung Association and the American Cancer Society, are against higher rates for smokers and other tobacco users.
The higher premium, besides being discriminatory, may backfire, Sward says.
“We really urge the carrot over the stick approach,” she says. “We know smokers want to quit and they need help to do so. It’s in everyone’s best interest that smokers have access to a good cessation program.”
SOURCES: Erika Sward, spokeswoman, American Lung Association.Susan Pisano, spokeswoman, America’s Health Insurance Plans.Alicia Hartinger, Health and Human Services.U.S. Public Health Services.U.S. Preventive Services Task ForceGallup.
 

The Real Reason Big Tobacco Loves E-Cigs

By Kyle Stock
Apparently, the nicotine business never changes—with smoke or without. Big Tobacco fought government overseers for decades, but eventually traditional cigarettes became heavily regulated products. Now the Food and Drug Administration is working on a package of regulations for e-cigarettes devices, which vaporize liquid nicotine with heat, rather than burning it via tobacco leaves. Among other things, the FDA is considering a ban on online sales of e-cigarettes to cut down on sales to minors, and discussing whether to curtail advertising. A roster of proposed rules is expected in October.
The regulatory chatter comes as the e-cigarette market is finally expected to top $1 billion this year. Tobacco giant Altria Group (MO) is just this month rolling out its e-cigarette, dubbed “MarkTen.” Reynolds American (RAI) is also rushing to ship its VUSE product. Meanwhile, Lorillard (LO) booked $57 million in e-cigarette revenue in the first three months of the year.
Bloomberg Industries estimates that at their current pace, e-cigarette sales will top that of traditional smokes by 2047. The estimate comes with a big caveat: the assumption that politicians won’t heap a bunch of new taxes on e-cigarettes—levies that have served as a sort of emphysema to the body of the cigarette business.
VIDEO: E-Cigarettes Take on Public Stigma of Smoking
Currently, e-cigarettes are subject to ordinary sales taxes—just like, say, pencils. Big Tobacco loves that. Here’s why: In the average state, 11 percent of cigarettes are smuggled, according to a recent report by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a Michigan think tank. “Smuggled” in this case has a few meanings. It includes smokes that are illegally ferried from states and countries with lower taxes, as well as counterfeit cigarettes.
“Once a tax gets too high, it acts in the same way that Prohibition did: You get substantial black-market activity,” says Scott Drenkard, an economist at the Tax Foundation.
Meanwhile, the preponderance of smuggled cigarettes is alarming and the Mackinac Center says counterfeits—often stuffed full of sawdust and “human excrement”—are a growing problem. Here’s a look at the share of cigarettes that are smuggled in the top five states:
STORY: Cigarettes: The Most Stable International Currency
• New York 61 percent ($4.35 taxes per pack)
• Arizona 54 percent ($2.00)
• New Mexico 53 percent ($1.66)
• Washington 49 percent ($3.03)
• Rhode Island 40 percent ($3.46)
As tobacco giants roll out their e-cigarette offerings, the new smokeless devices are where they’ll focus their efforts. And as long as the government doesn’t burn them with a bunch of new taxes, they will probably be happy to keep e-cigarettes off billboards or Web stores or whatever requirements regulators throw their way.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-08-26/the-real-reason-big-tobacco-loves-e-cigs

Doctors can help prevent teen smoking, panel says

Kim Painter, Special for USA TODAY
Children and teens may hear about the dangers of smoking from parents, teachers and friends, but they may be less likely to take up the deadly habit if they hear the message from at least one more important person: their doctor.
That’s the conclusion of an influential panel publishing new recommendations today in two medical journals, the Annals of Internal Medicineand Pediatrics. In a number of studies, kids were less likely to try smoking if they got some kind of counseling or education from their doctors or other health care providers, says the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.
“We didn’t recommend any particular intervention, because a variety of things seem to help,” says panel member David Grossman, a pediatrician and researcher at the Group Health Research Institute and the University of Washington-Seattle. “The important thing is that the message is coming from a physician and that’s an important voice … even to kids.”
The report says “even very minimal interventions,” such as a doctor’s office mailing a series of prevention guides to parents and kids, could make a difference.
Stopping kids from ever smoking could have a huge health impact, the panel says: Smoking kills about 443,000 people a year in the United States, and 90% of smokers start before age 18.
The American Academy of Pediatrics already urges doctors to talk to parents, children and teens about smoking.
But the task force, the academy and other experts also say that broader strategies — enlisting families, communities, mass media and lawmakers — are needed to chip away at smoking initiation rates. As of 2011, about 18% of high school students and 4% of middle school students were smokers, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
While those numbers have been falling, the fact that nearly one in five teens still leave high school as smokers is unacceptable, says Michael Steinberg, an internist who directs a tobacco dependence program at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, New Brunswick, N.J.
“We need to do everything we can to reduce a young person’s opportunity to try their first cigarette or to go from experimenting to becoming addicted,” he says.
In an opinion piece published alongside the task force’s report in the Annals, Steinberg endorses one increasingly proposed strategy: raising the legal age to buy cigarettes to 21. A proposal to do that is under discussion in New York City, and several states and counties have already raised the age from 18 to 19, over the protests of smokers’ rights advocates and some retailers. The small town of Needham, Mass., was the first to raise the age to 21, with a phased-in plan that started in 2005, and some other Massachusetts towns are following suit, says Jonathan Winickoff, a Harvard Medical School pediatrician who spearheads anti-smoking efforts for the pediatrics academy.
Raising the age to 21 could cut teen smoking rates dramatically, largely because younger teens often get cigarettes from older teens and young adults, Winickoff says. “And if you make it to 21 without smoking, your chances of ever becoming a smoker drop to about 2%,” he says.
Some of the steepest drops in teen smoking have occurred since the federal government started requiring states to beef up enforcement of existing under-18 sales bans, says the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The share of retailers caught selling to minors dropped from 40% in 1997 to 8.5% in 2011, the agency says. Numbers for 2012 will be released Tuesday.
• Parents, educators and others who want to talk children and teens about smoking can get help from the CDC at www.cdc.gov/tobacco/youth/
• Teens who want help can go to teen.smokefree.gov, a government website with information on text and app-based tools, or Tobacco-Free Teens, a free app in Apple iTunes stores developed by researchers at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/26/teen-smoking-doctors/2687711/