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E-Cigarette Ads Spark Lawmakers’ Concern for Youths

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An advertisement for Blu electronic cigarettes shows a glitzed-up, scantily clad Jenny McCarthy seated in a club, smoking—or “vaping”—a sleek black tube with a blue glow at the tip. “Blu satisfies me,” she says, as the camera pans out to show her chatting with an attractive male suitor who is also holding an e-cigarette. “I get to have a Blu without the guilt, because it’s only vapor, not tobacco.”
Blu is owned by Lorillard, maker of Newport and other tobacco cigarettes. Lorillard was one of nine recipients of a letter sent Thursday from 12 Democratic senators and representatives asking a series of questions about the marketing techniques of the e-cigarette companies. The letter raised concerns that e-cigarette companies are marketing their products to children and teens. Lorillard did not respond to a request for comment from National Journal Daily.
E-cigarettes—which resemble cigarettes but use battery power to vaporize a nicotine-derived solution that the user inhales—are not subject to the same regulations as traditional cigarettes, and their marketing is not limited by the restrictions placed on tobacco cigarettes in recent decades. E-cigarette companies can legally sell to minors, run television and radio ads, and distribute free samples.
“The marketing of e-cigarettes is re-glamorizing smoking and associating young, attractive celebrities with smoking,” Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids President Matthew Myers told National Journal Daily. “Their participation in the last 12 to 24 months has used the exact same images and tactics that made [traditional] cigarettes so appealing to generations of Americans.”
E-cigarettes are available in a variety of different flavors, including cherry and cookies-and-cream milkshake, and they may be purchased online and in mall kiosks. Critics cite these marketing techniques, along with the use of celebrities such as McCarthy, as evidence of targeted advertising toward young people.
“[The ads] are virtual duplicates of the Virginia Slims woman from 40 years ago,” Myers said. “That imagery has been banned precisely because of its powerful impact on kids.”
The issue of this targeted advertising has received attention following a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released this month that showed dramatic increases in the use of e-cigarettes among middle- and high-school students. The percentage of young people who have used e-cigarettes doubled in both groups from 2011 to 2012, jumping from 1.4 percent to 2.7 percent among middle-school students, and 4.7 percent to 10 percent among high-school students.
While e-cigarettes are often presented as the less harmful alternative to traditional cigarettes, lawmakers worry that e-cigarettes could become a gateway to nicotine addiction and increased use of conventional tobacco products. “It would be a terrible public health outcome if children and young adults who do not smoke thought it was safe to begin using e-cigarettes because they do not believe that they pose a risk to their health,” Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and an author of the letter, wrote in an e-mail to National Journal Daily.
What has most worried some critics, however, is CDC’s finding that 80.5 percent of high-school students who use e-cigarettes also currently smoke conventional cigarettes. “This is a fly in the ointment of people saying e-cigarettes are good for harm reduction,” said Stanton Glantz, professor of medicine at the University of California (San Francisco) and director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education. According to Glantz, so-called dual users generally smoke fewer traditional cigarettes each day, but smoking tobacco means they are still suffering the full cardio risk. E-cigarettes still contain some carcinogens—albeit less than tobacco—and deter quitting, Glantz says.
These findings increase concern that the advertising of e-cigarettes to young people will increase use of more-harmful tobacco products, and the marketing efforts are only growing.
According to the Kantar Media unit of WPP, the Blu e-cigarette brand spent $12.4 million on ads in major media for the first quarter of the year, compared with $992,000 in the same period a year ago, The New York Times reported. Annual sales of all e-cigarettes are expected to reach $1.7 billion by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration does not oversee the industry. The FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products has the authority to regulate only certain categories of “tobacco products.” The FDA “intends to propose a regulation that would extend the agency’s ‘tobacco product’ authorities—which currently only apply to cigarettes, cigarette tobacco, roll-your-own tobacco, and smokeless tobacco—to other categories,” an FDA spokesperson said.
The FDA can regulate e-cigarettes only if the manufacturers make a therapeutic claim—including use as a cessation device. According to the agency, none are currently approved for therapeutic purposes.
“Many of the most overt claims as a cessation device were made in earlier years, but they’ve gotten more sophisticated in recent years for fear of the FDA bringing regulatory action,” Myers said. Companies now target adults by making the less direct health claim that they are the safer alternative to cigarettes.
Lawmakers hope the letter and their calls for hearings will bring oversight not only to marketing of e-cigarettes, but to the industry more broadly. “Marketing e-cigarettes to children is problematic,” Waxman wrote in the e-mail. “But FDA also needs to undertake a broad assessment of e-cigarettes, the risks they pose, and the regulation of these products that is necessary to protect the public’s health.”
If the FDA were to institute broader regulations—something that has been discussed for a while now—then a simple claim that e-cigarettes are safer than cigarettes would require FDA approval.
This article appears in the Sep. 30, 2013, edition of National Journal Daily as E-Cigarette Ads Spark Lawmakers’ Concern for Youths.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/daily/e-cigarette-ads-spark-lawmakers-concern-for-youths-20130929

40 AGs urge tight regulation of e-cigarettes

By: Associated Press , INFORUM
BOSTON — Forty attorneys general sent a letter to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday urging the agency to meet its own deadline and regulate electronic cigarettes in the same way it regulates tobacco products.
The letter, co-sponsored by Massachusetts Attorney Martha Coakley and Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, says e-cigarettes are being marketed to children through cartoon-like advertising characters and by offering fruit and candy flavors, much like cigarettes were once marketed to hook new smokers.
At the same time, e-cigarettes are becoming more affordable and more widely available as the use of regular cigarettes decline as they become more expensive and less socially acceptable.
“Unlike traditional tobacco products, there are no federal age restrictions that would prevent children from obtaining e-cigarettes, nor are there any advertising restrictions,” DeWine wrote.
Electronic cigarettes are metal or plastic battery-powered devices resembling traditional cigarettes that heat a liquid nicotine solution, creating vapor that users inhale. Users get nicotine without the chemicals, tar or odor of regular cigarettes.
E-cigarettes are being advertised during prime-time television hours at a time when many children are watching, according to the letter, which has led a surge in sales and use.
The health effects of e-cigarettes have not been adequately studied and the ingredients are not regulated, the letter said.
“People, especially kids, are being led to believe that e-cigarettes are a safe alternative, but they are highly addictive and can deliver strong doses of nicotine,” Coakley said.
Citing a National Youth Tobacco Surveys conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the attorneys generals said 1.8 million middle and high school students said they had tried e-cigarettes in 2012, mirroring increases in the use of the product by adults.
The letter urges the FDA to meet an Oct. 31 deadline to issue proposed regulations that will address the advertising, ingredients and sale to minors of e-cigarettes. The decision has been delayed in the past.
Tom Kiklas, co-founder and chief financial officer of the industry group, the Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association, agrees that e-cigarettes should be regulated as tobacco products. The group represents dozens of companies involved in the manufacture and sales of e-cigarettes.
“We’re in agreement with responsible restrictions on the marketing and sales of these products,” including a ban on marketing aimed at children, he said. “What I cringe at is when e-cigarettes get demonized.”
The other states and territories joining the letter to the FDA, according to Coakley’s office, are: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virgin Islands, Washington, and Wyoming.
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/413148/group/homepage/

Exploding e-cigarette set toddler’s clothes afire, Utah fire marshal says

By Michael McFall | The Salt Lake Tribune
The Provo fire marshal is warning people not to leave their charging e-cigarettes unattended after one exploded and burned a toddler.
A North Dakota woman, staying for a while in Mount Pleasant, was driving through Provo on Friday morning with her 3-year-old son when heated coils shot out of her e-cigarette. The coils bounced off the ceiling and landed in her son’s car seat, setting his clothes on fire, said Provo Fire Marshal Lynn Schofield.
She first tried to pat the flames out, but when that did not work, she tossed her iced coffee on him. That did the trick.
“The e-cigarette had a catastrophic failure,” Schofield said. “… The batteries overcharged and the batteries failed and expelled the coils at the end of the tube.”
The boy suffered first- and second-degree burns, which, though relatively minor, are painful, Schofield said.
The fire marshal said that this is the second time he has investigated an e-cigarette fire. In the other case, a charging e-cigarette shot out its coils into a laundry basket, burning the laundry but causing no injuries, he said.
Schofield, who has heard similar stories from fire marshals around the country, alerted the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates e-cigarettes. He received notification Monday afternoon that the FDA received his report.
The driver had been charging the e-cigarette with the charger that came with the product, though Schofield has heard the device failure also happens with after-market chargers.
“It’s a fairly new product so our data on device failure is pretty limited,” Schofield said. “…This is not a device that I would plug into my wall and leave unattended. We were fortunate, the [boy’s] burns were relatively minor, but it was certainly a wake up call.”
mcfall@sltrib.com
 

5 Things You Need to Know About E-Cigarettes

By  (@lizzyfit)

The electronic cigarette was invented in the 1960s, but it didn’t really take off until a decade ago. Currently, there are more than 250 brands of “e-cigarettes” available in such flavors as watermelon, pink bubble gum and Java, and in more colors than the iPhone 5C.

The Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association estimates about 4 million Americans now use battery powered cigarettes. They project sales of the devices to cross the 1 billion mark by the end of this year. Here, a look at the e-smoke trend, the good, the bad and the unknown.

What are e-cigarettes?

E-cigarettes are battery operated nicotine inhalers that consist of a rechargeable lithium battery, a cartridge called a cartomizer and an LED that lights up at the end when you puff on the e-cigarette to simulate the burn of a tobacco cigarette. The cartomizer is filled with an e-liquid that typically contains the chemical propylene glycol along with nicotine, flavoring and other additives.

The device works much like a miniature version of the smoke machines that operate behind rock bands. When you “vape” — that’s the term for puffing on an e-cig — a heating element boils the e-liquid until it produces a vapor. A device creates the same amount of vapor no matter how hard you puff until the battery or e-liquid runs down.

How much do they cost?

Starter kits usually run between $30 and $100. The estimated cost of replacement cartridges is about $600, compared with the more than $1,000 a year it costs to feed a pack-a-day tobacco cigarette habit, according to the Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association. Discount coupons and promotional codes are available online.

Are e-cigarettes regulated?

The decision in a 2011 federal court case gives the Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate e-smokes under existing tobacco laws rather than as a medication or medical device, presumably because they deliver nicotine, which is derived from tobacco. The agency has hinted it will begin to regulate e-smokes as soon as this year but so far, the only action the agency has taken is issuing a letter in 2010 to electronic cigarette distributors warning them to cease making various unsubstantiated marketing claims.

For now, the devices remain uncontrolled by any governmental agency, a fact that worries experts like Erika Seward, the assistant vice president of national advocacy for the American Lung Association.

“With e-cigarettes, we see a new product within the same industry — tobacco — using the same old tactics to glamorize their products,” she said. “They use candy and fruit flavors to hook kids, they make implied health claims to encourage smokers to switch to their product instead of quitting all together, and they sponsor research to use that as a front for their claims.”

Thomas Kiklas, co-owner of e-cigarette maker inLife and co-founder of the Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association, countered that the device performs the same essential function as a tobacco cigarette but with far fewer toxins. He said he would welcome any independent study of the products to prove how safe they are compared to traditional smokes.

The number of e-smokers is expected to quadruple in the next few years as smokers move away from the centuries old tobacco cigarette so there is certainly no lack of subjects,” he said.

What are the health risks of vaping?

The jury is out. The phenomenon of vaping is so new that science has barely had a chance to catch up on questions of safety, but some initial small studies have begun to highlight the pros and cons.

The most widely publicized study into the safety of e-cigarettes was done when researchers analyzed two leading brands and concluded the devices did contain trace elements of hazardous compounds, including a chemical which is the main ingredient found in antifreeze. But Kiklas, whose brand of e-cigarettes were not included in the study, pointed out that the FDA report found nine contaminates versus the 11,000 contained in a tobacco cigarette and noted that the level of toxicity was shown to be far lower than those of tobacco cigarettes.

However, Seward said because e-cigarettes remain unregulated, it’s impossible to draw conclusions about all the brands based on an analysis of two.

“To say they are all safe because a few have been shown to contain fewer toxins is troubling,” she said. “We also don’t know how harmful trace levels can be.”

Thomas Glynn, the director of science and trends at the American Cancer Society, said there were always risks when one inhaled anything other than fresh, clean air, but he said there was a great likelihood that e-cigarettes would prove considerably less harmful than traditional smokes, at least in the short term.

“As for long-term effects, we don’t know what happens when you breathe the vapor into the lungs regularly,” Glynn said. “No one knows the answer to that.”

Do e-cigarettes help tobacco smokers quit?

Because they preserve the hand-to-mouth ritual of smoking, Kiklas said e-cigarettes might help transform a smoker’s harmful tobacco habits to a potentially less harmful e-smoking habit. As of yet, though, little evidence exists to support this theory.

In a first of its kind study published last week in the medical journal Lancet, researchers compared e-cigarettes to nicotine patches and other smoking cessation methods and found them statistically comparable in helping smokers quit over a six-month period. For this reason, Glynn said he viewed the devices as promising though probably no magic bullet. For now, FDA regulations forbid e-cigarette marketers from touting their devices as a way to kick the habit.

Seward said many of her worries center on e-cigarettes being a gateway to smoking, given that many popular brands come in flavors and colors that seem designed to appeal to a younger generation of smokers.

“We’re concerned about the potential for kids to start a lifetime of nicotine use by starting with e-cigarettes,” she said.

E-cigarettes can not be sold to minors yet vaping among young people is on the rise.

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found nearly 1.8 million young people had tried e-cigarettes and the number of U.S. middle and high school students e-smokers doubled between 2011 and 2012.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/facts-cigarettes/story?id=20345463#

House Dems call for cigar, e-cigarette regulations over 'kid-friendly' products

By Julian Hattem
A group of House Democrats is calling on the Obama administration to issue new rules for cigars and electronic cigarettes.
In a letter to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday, the lawmakers asked regulators “to act quickly” with new rules for the products, over which the federal government currently has little oversight.
“Manufacturers of e-cigarettes are taking advantage of this regulatory loophole to target children,” wrote Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) and John Dingell (D-Mich.). “As a result, some e-cigarette makers are producing products with kid-friendly flavors such as ‘Cherry Crush’ and ‘Cookies & Cream Milkshake.’ ”
A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 1.78 million middle- and high-school students have used e-cigarettes, which vaporize nicotine without producing smoke.
“With over a million youth now using e-cigarettes, FDA needs to act without further delay to protect public health,” the lawmakers added.
The group of legislators also sent a separate letter to Republican leaders on the Energy and Commerce Committee, on which Waxman is the top Democrat, requesting a hearing on the health risks posed by the tobacco products and the FDA’s authority to impose new rules.
The FDA, which oversees cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, has been working on regulations to expand its oversight to e-cigarettes, cigars and pipe tobacco, which are currently exempt from its rules.
Those rules have been under development at the FDA for years.
Bringing the tobacco products under the agency’s jurisdiction could subject them to new fees and restrictions, which some tobacco companies have worried could unfairly single them out with overly restrictive rules.
Health organizations and some tobacco giants have backed the FDA’s efforts, arguing that new regulations would protect the public health and level the playing field for tobacco companies.
According to the Obama administration’s spring roadmap for new regulations, a proposal to expand the FDA’s oversight could be released in October.
Earlier in September, Senate Democrats used the CDC’s findings to encourage the FDA to “redouble” its efforts.
http://thehill.com/blogs/regwatch/pending-regs/322519-house-dems-call-for-cigar-e-cigarette-regulations#ixzz2fBmaZlYm

Top New York chefs want to ban 'tacky and intrusive' e-cigarettes from their restaurants

By MARGOT PEPPERS
As electronic cigarettes become more and more widely used, restaurant owners and chefs are having to take a definitive stance on the use of them in their own establishments.
While some fine dining eateries allow the glowing cylinders, others have banned them for various reasons, like the notion that they bother other patrons, their likeness to actual cigarettes, and even simply because they appear tacky.
Eric Ripert, for instance, chef and co-owner of Le Bernadin in Times Square, told Business Week that he personally disapproves of the electronic cigarettes because ‘I don’t find it elegant. It’s weird to see someone smoking with a plastic cigarette.’
While Mr Ripert dislikes the way e-cigarettes look, he does admit that he recently allowed a patron to smoke one at the table, mostly because it is still a new phenomenon, and therefore a rare occurrence.
Do or Dine chef and owner Justin Warner has a similar take on the battery-powered cigarettes.
He explained that while he lets his diners light up electronically at the table, he, too, has an issue with how the cigarettes look – especially the blue lights on the ends, which are ‘very tacky-looking’.
‘They look like a prop I would’ve had in my raver days,’ the chef added.
Labelled as a ‘healthy’ alternative to smoking and promoted by celebrities like Jennie McCarthy and  Stephen Dorff, electronic cigarettes have seen a tenfold rise in sales in the last year alone.
But just because they are more common now than ever doesn’t necessarily mean they will become a fixture in restaurants any time soon.
Carlo Mirarchi, who owns Williamsburg restaurant Blanca, says despite what the e-cigarette companies claim, they do have a ‘kind of odor’ to them.
As such, he says he wouldn’t allow them during meal time, but he wouldn’t be averse to customers lighting up at the very end of the night.
Gabriel Stulman, the owner of restaurants including Fedora and Jeffrey’s Grocery, has a stronger opinion and stipulates that no customer smoke cigarettes – electronic or not – indoors or outdoors.
According to the Virginia native, the practice is just as intrusive and distracting as someone playing music out loud from their iPhone.
‘Anyone smoking an e-cigarette is forcing their desires and interests on others in a manner with which the other party may not enjoy it,’ he says.
Sue Chan, a spokesman for Momofuku, explained that staff at their restaurants ask that guests don’t smoke electronic cigarettes because they are ‘disruptive’ to the other diners.
For Alex Stupak, however, who owns Mexican restaurants Empellon Cocina and Empellon Taqueria, the newness of e-cigarettes means his establishments have yet to come up with an official policy.
He added that because of their supposed odorlessness, it may prove difficult to ask patrons not to smoke them, which he says would be akin to asking them to get rid of a toothpick.
And Drew Nieporent, owner of the Myriad Restaurant Group, with establishments that include Nobu and Tribeca Grill, said that when it comes to e-cigarettes in his restaurants, it depends on the situation.
While he admits that his gut reaction would be to see it as just another form of smoking, he adds that he would only say anything if another guest were to complain.
Indeed, a large number of restaurateurs are of the belief that e-cigarette smoking is acceptable so long as it is not a bother to fellow customers.
Said the management at the Elm in Williamsburg: ‘We don’t mind them. We actually have had a few guests “light up” in the dining room.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2422651/Theyre-distracting-intrusive-customers—look-tacky-Why-New-York-chefs-want-ban-e-cigarette-fine-dining-restaurants.html#ixzz2fBktEMZz

City Council votes to restrict e-cigarette use in Duluth

By: Peter Passi, Associated Press
New restrictions soon will confront users of electronic cigarettes in Duluth.
A series of ordinances passed Monday night by the Duluth City Council will subject people using e-cigarettes to the same restrictions faced by smokers puffing on conventional cigarettes. The ordinances also will prevent hookah bars from doing business in the city.
But several councilors expressed misgivings about different aspects of the new rules.
Councilor Sharla Gardner supported many of the restrictions but not one that would prevent patrons of smoke shops from testing out e-cigarettes and sampling different flavored solutions on premises.
“I’m really not OK with banning something or demonizing it when everyone agrees all the science isn’t in on this,” Gardner said.
She also noted that e-cigarettes have been a helpful tool in helping wean some people off yet more dangerous conventional cigarettes.
“I certainly don’t want to be harming people’s efforts to quit,” she said.
But Councilor Jennifer Julsrud, who introduced the ordinances, said they were necessary.
“I wrote these ordinances and I pushed for them because I want to protect kids, and I believe in supporting clean air,” she said.
Councilor Jay Fosle, who opposed all the new ordinances, said the rules were unnecessary, as it’s already against the law to sell e-cigarettes to minors.
He said individual businesses and properties already have the right to ban the use of e-cigarettes if they wish and said the council should be more concerned with the use of other products.
“What we should really be concerned about is the use of heroin and ecstasy,” he said.
Fosle said that by taking such a restrictive stance toward e-cigarettes, the city would push businesses into neighboring communities.
“We’re going against businesses that would bring more money onto our tax rolls,” he said.
Fosle contended it was wrong to lump e-cigarettes in with tobacco.
But Duluth resident Sharon Lund testified that e-cigarettes have not been shown to be harmless. She said the devices have been found to emit about 20 percent of the pollutants that regular cigarettes do, but she could not support introducing them into spaces where clean air has become the norm.
“Do we really want to take a step backwards and expose people to more carcinogens and toxic chemicals again?” she asked.
Lund said she also was sickened by e-cigarette manufacturers’ attempts to appeal to young people with flavored solutions, such as bubble gum or cookies and cream.
Councilor Jim Stauber said that for him watching out for the public welfare, particular for young people, takes top priority.
“I generally don’t like government intruding on people’s lives, but I think this is the right thing to do,” he said.
http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/277452/

Safety data still sorely lacking in study comparing electronic cigarettes to nicotine patches

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 9, 2013
Statement from Tobacco Free North Dakota
Bismarck, ND — Today, national news stories reported the findings of a New Zealand study testing the effectiveness of electronic cigarettes in helping smokers quit, comparing results to that of smokers who attempted to quit using nicotine patches.  Results of this study showed similar quit rates but are not sufficient enough to convince public health experts to embrace e-cigarettes as nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) devices at this time.
“A single study is not sufficient, and safety data is still sorely lacking,” said Dr. Eric L. Johnson, President of Tobacco Free North Dakota.  “We would welcome more efficacy data and safety data from the FDA to back this data up.”
“As well, a 5.7% quit rate as found in this study, is not overly impressive.  FDA-approved NRTs, including nicotine patches and medications like Bupropion and Chantix, have data in the 20-45% quit rate range, and NDQuits, North Dakota’s free tobacco cessation program, has had a 30% quit rate for nine years,” Johnson added.
The release of this study comes just days after the CDC announced disturbing statistics showing huge increases in electronic cigarette use by youth and industry efforts to target them by selling flavors such as cotton candy, bubble gum, and watermelon.
“Until the FDA rules on the safety and efficacy of electronic cigarettes, Tobacco Free North Dakota does not feel comfortable promoting products like e-cigarettes as safe or effective cessation products, especially when North Dakotans have great access to a successful program like NDQuits,” said Erin Hill-Oban, Tobacco Free North Dakota’s Executive Director.

Duluth News Tribune view: Obvious danger requires fair and responsible rules

The packaging on electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, doesn’t say much. Which actually is kind of scary. Just what’s being inhaled into the body when “vaping?” Certainly not just vapors, as suggested by the slang verb for puffing on the products. And what’s being exhaled for everyone around to breathe in and ingest?
One thing the packaging does say: e-cigarettes contain nicotine. How much? Doesn’t say, and, according to experts, it can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer and from brand to brand. But does it even matter? It’s not like there’s such a thing as a safe amount of the highly addictive, cancer-causing drug nicotine.
Even scarier? E-cigarettes, as addictive, dangerous and harmful to health as they may be, are actively being marketed to kids, just the way tobacco cigarettes used to be. Remember Joe Camel and the portrayal of smoking as cool and hip and what everyone who’s anyone was doing? This time — powered by nearly $21 million in advertising in 2012, according to the New York Times — it’s kid-friendly flavors like watermelon and cookies-and-cream milkshake and the portrayal of vaping as cool and hip and what everyone who’s anyone is doing.
Unlike tobacco, however — and this may be most troubling of all — kids can buy e-cigarettes easily and legally, including online. And they are. The percentage of U.S. middle school and high school students taking drags on e-cigarettes more than doubled from 2011 to 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced last week. In 2012, more than 1.78 million middle school and high school students nationwide had tried e-cigarettes, a precursor to tobacco cigarettes.
So something clearly has to be done, right, before a whole new generation embraces a filthy, unhealthy habit and sees it as just a normal part of our culture? On Monday, the Duluth City Council has an opportunity to take some sensible action.
The first of three ordinances the council owes it to the community to approve would require a license to sell e-cigarettes the same way sellers of tobacco have to be licensed. In fact, an existing tobacco license would cover e-cigarettes under the measure. A second ordinance would prohibit the use of e-cigarettes in places already designated by law as no-smoking, like inside public buildings, along the Lakewalk, at bus stops and elsewhere. And a third ordinance would close a loophole in clean indoor air laws meant to allow the sampling of tobacco in tobacco shops prior to purchase. Some are exploiting that provision to sell group-smoking experiences in lounge settings.
“The big misconception for a couple of weeks was that Duluth wants to ban e-cigarettes. That’s not it at all,” Jill Doberstein, program manager for tobacco prevention and control for the American Lung Association in Duluth, said in an interview last week with the News Tribune editorial board.
No, the idea is responsible regulation of their use, not the banning of e-cigarettes altogether.
Some users of e-cigarettes swear by their effectiveness in quitting tobacco even though the government has yet to certify them as safe and effective smoking-cessation devices the way it has nicotine patches and other products.
The safety and effectiveness for smoking cessation of e-cigarettes is still being studied and determined, and while the jury is out, adults certainly should be allowed to ignore the health risks and dangers and use e-cigarettes. They can be allowed to forget that the only safe air to breathe is clean air. It is a free country.
But allowing e-cigarettes to pollute the air of others, to be pushed on unsuspecting kids, or to be used without any rules, regulations or controls whatsoever is, well, it’s just downright scary.
http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/277303/

E-cigarettes as good as patches in helping smokers quit

Maggie Fox,  NBC News
Electronic cigarettes work about as well as nicotine patches in helping smokers kick the habit, researchers report. And e-cigarettes helped people smoke fewer cigarettes overall, even if they didn’t quit completely.
The study is the first major piece of research to show that the products, which deliver a nicotine mist using a cigarette-shaped pipe, can actually benefit smokers.
The findings, published in the Lancet medical journal, are not quite enough to make public health experts embrace e-cigarettes, which are not yet regulated and which are growing in popularity. But it’s enough to make them look more closely at whether there may be some benefit to them.
“You’re trading one addiction for another addiction,” Dr. Cheryl Healton, president and CEO of the anti-tobacco Legacy Foundation, told NBC News. “(But) it may be that for some people, this will be a better way to quit, and there may be people who’ve tried other things and haven’t been able to quit who will quit with this.”
For the study, Chris Bullen of the University of Auckland in New Zealand and colleagues recruited 657 smokers who wanted to quit. They divided them into three groups, to get either 13 weeks’ supply of e-cigarettes, nicotine patches or placebo e-cigarettes that contained no nicotine.
After six months, 5.7 percent of the volunteers had managed to completely quit smoking. It was slightly more in the e-cigarette group, but not in a way that was statistically significant, Bullen reported.
It’s very difficult to quit smoking, but the e-cigarettes also appeared to have helped people cut back on real tobacco. Bullen’s team found that 57 percent of volunteers given real e-cigarettes were smoking half as many cigarettes a day as before, compared to 41 percent of those who got patches.
“While our results don’t show any clear-cut differences between e-cigarettes and patches in terms of quit success after six months, it certainly seems that e-cigarettes were more effective in helping smokers who didn’t quit to cut down,” Bullen said in a statement.
“It’s also interesting that the people who took part in our study seemed to be much more enthusiastic about e-cigarettes than patches, as evidenced by the far greater proportion of people in both of the e-cigarette groups who said they’d recommend them to family or friends, compared to patches.”
Healton said that was a provocative finding. “It does also suggest consumer acceptability of the product is higher,” she said.
U.S. health officials are very concerned about the rise in popularity of e-cigarettes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration released a report on Thursdayshowing a doubling in the number of high school students who have tried them, to 10 percent.
More than 21 percent of adults have tried them at least once, but the CDC says they are addictive and may themselves be dangerous.
“We don’t know much about them,” says Dr. Tim McAfee, director of the CDC Office on Smoking and Health. But he says they could potentially be useful if tobacco companies would stop making products like cigarettes and make e-cigarettes instead – and if those e-cigarettes did indeed turn out to be less harmful than conventional cigarettes.
“Our nirvana is a world where nobody is dying from death and disease caused by tobacco,” McAfee told NBC News. “If you have a product that doesn’t kill people, that is where the money should be going, that is where the promotion, the marketing should be going.”
They are pricey – an e-cigarette product ranges from $10 to $120, depending on how many charges it provides. And there are dozens, if not hundreds, of brands. FDA says some appear to contain carcinogens, and there is some evidence that nicotine is not only addictive, but may itself damage health.
“They could have inherent dangers that are greater than using something like gum or the patch,” Healton said.
CDC says tobacco is the leading preventable cause of dis­ease, dis­ability, and death in the United States, killing 443,000 people a year.
Public health experts are desperate for ways to help people quit smoking, but it is hard. The American Cancer Society says only 4 percent to 7 percent of people manage to quit on any single given try. Drugs such as Chantix or Zyban can raise this rate to 25 percent.
There’s also counseling, nicotine gum and patches, hypnosis and acupuncture, and companies are working on anti-nicotine vaccines.
Erika Edwards contributed to this report.