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FDA, Experts Disagree about E-Cigarettes

by Inside Science News Service, Benjamin Plackett
In recent years a new type of cigarette has begun to repopulate our restaurants, our subway trains and our movie theaters. It doesn’t burn tobacco, it doesn’t emit smoke and it lasts a lot longer than a traditional cigarette. It’s currently unregulated, but that may soon change, and experts are already debating the best approach.
The Food and Drug Administration can’t currently regulate electronic cigarettes because they don’t technically contain tobacco – even though the nicotine in them is derived from tobacco – something that has angered e-cigarette opponents.
“A lot of people feel like [the e-cigarette manufacturers] are exploiting a loophole,” said the director of Smoking Cessation Services at Columbia Univ. Medical Center, Daniel Seidman.
Electronic cigarettes turn nicotine and other chemicals into a vapor that’s inhaled by the user. Just one of the battery-powered devices provides as many as 300 puffs, roughly equivalent to the number of drags from an entire pack of conventional cigarettes.
The smoker inhales a mix of water vapor and nicotine among other chemicals including propylene glycol. For all of the differences between e-cigarettes and regular cigarettes, e-cigarettes still contain nicotine, which is addictive, and it is unclear exactly how much nicotine the e-cigarette smoker inhales.
However, e-cigarettes are thought to be less carcinogenic than regular cigarettes because they are non-combustible and do not contain tar. A 2010 study in the British Medical Journal found that “the scarce evidence indicates the existence of various toxic and carcinogenic compounds, albeit in possibly much smaller concentrations than in traditional cigarettes.”
So it seems there are several unknowns about e-cigarettes, notably the concentration of nicotine and whether they cause cancer – though we do know they likely cause heart disease and strokes.
Despite this uncertainty, the FDA recently decided to tweak their definition of a “tobacco product” to bring e-cigarettes under their jurisdiction.
“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,” FDA spokesperson Jennifer Haliski wrote in an email.
Michael Siegel from Boston Univ.’s School of Public Health is a firm believer in the power of e-cigarettes to help smokers quit – or at the very least to provide a less harmful alternative to cigarettes for a nicotine hit.
“They’re safer because there’s no tobacco in the product, there’s also no burning, it’s just heated up. When you take away the tobacco and combustion then you’re taking away the bulk of the problem,” said Siegel. But he added that “It’s not a question of whether e-cigarettes are going to be regulated, it’s more about how they’re going be regulated.”
Siegel remains worried that the wrong kind of regulation from the FDA could end up harming the e-cigarette’s potential to help smokers.
Seidman suggested that there isn’t any proof of e-cigarettes successfully weaning smokers off tobacco. Of the few scientific studies published on the matter, there’s no real consensus.
Many of the smokers in survey-based studies continue to smoke cigarettes even when they’ve tried to shift to e-cigarettes, said Seidman. “There’s a health concern if you end up maintaining your addiction. You can’t smoke [cigarettes] in a lot of public places. This is a marketing strategy for the manufacturers. It keeps the addiction alive.”
The FDA declined to comment on the difficulties involved with drafting rules for a product about which there has been so little conclusive evidence. This has led to speculation about what form these new FDA enforced regulations might take, a subject on which the FDA was also predictably tightlipped. “FDA cannot comment on the contents of the proposed rule,” said Haliski.
“They could say let’s apply everything we know about cigarettes to electronic cigarettes,” said Siegel.
Then again, they could come up with an alternative framework specifically designed for e-cigarettes. Siegel said that the way FDA personnel speak of a “risk continuum” of different tobacco products leads him to be “cautiously optimistic that they won’t lump the same regulations [on e-cigarettes]. I think we’ll see a different set of regulations,” said Siegel.
Both Siegel and Seidman agree that creating a uniform quality standard is one of the most important needs from the FDA’s impending ruling, so that consumers know that the cartridges won’t leak and that the chemicals are of a pharmaceutical grade.
In the meantime, Seidman worries that e-cigarettes simply assist smokers who wish to bring e-cigarettes into places such as airports, where the smoker would otherwise be forced to forgo a smoke.
Tobacco industry giants are launching their own brands of e-cigarettes.
“There are people who say anything the cigarette companies do is evil,” said Siegel. He suggested that “they’ve just recognized a market and they want a piece of the pie.”
But Seidman said the tobacco industry learned its lessons from selling cigarettes and “their strategy is to add e-cigarettes to the equation rather than subtract traditional tobacco.”
http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/08/fda-experts-disagree-about-e-cigarettes

Target Field Says ‘No’ To E-Cigarettes

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. (WCCO) – More smokers are turning to electronic cigarettes as a less-expensive and less-regulated way to get their nicotine. But they’re still so new, governments and businesses are grappling with how to deal with them.
E-cigarettes have a battery-powered heating element that produces vapor rather than smoke. They’re not restricted under Minnesota’s Clean Indoor Air Act, but many businesses – including the Minnesota Twins – are telling customers to put them away.
The team’s senior director of communications, Kevin Smith, says the restriction has been under consideration for some time.
“Because of the proliferation of it, we want to make it crystal clear that Target Field is a non-smoking venue of any kind,” Smith said.
Smith says an increasing number of fans had been spotted using the e-cigarettes, so stadium announcer Adam Abrams now has an extra line in his pre-game announcements.
Twins fan Jay Rudi of Edina appreciates the team’s policy.
“When I bring my family here, I don’t want to have to be breathing in smoke,” Rudi said.
Sina War, owner of Uptown Vapor Shoppe, says her store has been in business since April. She says many people misunderstand how e-cigarettes work.
“We call it ‘vaping’ because it’s vapor,” War said.
It may look and feel like smoking, but the e-cigarettes aren’t loaded with tobacco. They’re filled with liquids, in flavors like Red Bull, cupcake and mango.
Most of those liquids contain nicotine, which comes from tobacco.
“It just smells like what you’re vaping on, so if you’re vaping on lemonade, it just smells like lemonade,” War said.
Nancy Carlson of Minnetonka talked her cigar-smoking husband, Brian, into visiting the Uptown Vapor Shoppe in hopes that he’ll make the switch.
“We have a shed, and he’s banished to the shed in the winter time,” Carlson said.
The FDA has indicated it may start regulating e-cigarettes in the fall. For now, there are few studies into whether they’re actually safe.
“It’s not hurting anyone around you,” War said. “It’s helping the person actually using it.”
Advocates for e-cigarettes wish they could take the word “cigarette” out of it because of the negative connotation.
In California, they’re known as “personal vaporizers,” or PVs.
http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2013/08/19/target-field-says-no-to-e-cigarettes/

Legislators aim to bar e-cigarette sales to minors

By Chris Bergeron/Daily News staff
NATICK — Appearing on the Late Show, sassy actress Katherine Heigl puffed an electronic cigarette as she told David Letterman it had helped her kick a smoking habit and live healthier since becoming a mother.
Rather than applauding, Tami Gouveia, executive director of Tobacco Free Mass, is cheering a new bill to prohibit sale of e-cigarettes and other “nicotine-delivery devices’’ to anyone under 18 in Massachusetts.
Gouveia supports the bill filed last week by Rep. Jeffrey Sanchez, D-Jamaica Plain, because she’s concerned such devices when glamorized by celebrities, like Jenny McCarthy and Johnny Depp, encourage minors to smoke.
“We regard them as an initiation pathway to using cigarettes. It’s dangerous to think of e-cigarettes as less dangerous than regular cigarettes. That’s what the industry wants us to think,’’ she said.
Sanchez’ bill “prohibits sale of nicotine delivery products … to anyone under 18″ and restricts retailers and manufacturers from providing samples of such products” except in tobacco stores and smoking bars.’’
Sanchez said he wrote his bill because current state laws “are silent on the availability of e-cigarettes to minors.’’
“Right now, my 7-year-old daughter could walk in and buy them at several locations and nobody would say anything. We want to make such products inaccessible to children. … We need to keep our children from becoming a new generation of nicotine addicts,’’ he said.
E-cigarettes and related products are currently sold under the name Smoke To Live: The Electronic Cigarette from a kiosk in the Natick Mall and can be purchased at several area tobacconists, package stores and from on-line sites.
Dvora Lieberman, regional manager for Smoke To Live, which operates in Massachusetts and three other states, said company policy prohibits sales to anyone under 18.
“If someone looks underage, we instruct our vendors to ask for IDs,’’ she said in a telephone interview. “If you’re going smoke cigarettes, e-cigarettes are better but they’re still addictive. It’s still a stimulant.’’
Lieberman said e-cigarettes can “definitely’’ help smokers quit traditional cigarettes which have many more harmful chemicals and they also provide “the option of reducing nicotine all the way down to zero if you want to quit.’’
She said e-cigarettes are also less harmful because they don’t burn and damage skin tissue and reduce the unpleasant tastes, smells and coughing associated with conventional cigarettes.
Speaking from her Framingham office, Gouveia expressed support for Sanchez’ bill’s prohibition of using e-cigarettes in places where smoking is outlawed, such as the workplace and high school campuses.
Several MetroWest legislators expressed support for the bill, citing the importance of discouraging nicotine use among minors.
After speaking with Sanchez, Sen. Karen Spilka, D-Ashland, described the bill as a “commonsense’’ measure to protect minors’ health.
“It’s important not to get these devices into children’s hands. Kids could think they’re better than cigarettes. The bottom line is nicotine is a poison that causes cancer,’’ she said.
While nicotine delivery devices are often marketed as safer alternatives to smoking, Spilka said further research is necessary to determine their impact on users’ health and the chemical composition of the “vapors’’ they release.
“We need to be wary and understand the consequences of these devices,’’ she said.
State Rep. Chris Walsh, D-Framingham, said the bill’s premise of keeping such devices out of minors’ hands makes good sense.
He said he was troubled by an advertising slogan for a brand of e-cigarettes that promised to help users “re-gain your freedom from smoking.’’
“Since nicotine is a habit-forming drug, promoting it by saying it’ll help get you off nicotine seems disingenuous,’’ said Walsh.
Walsh said, however, he wants to learn more about what carcinogens are delivered through such devices.
Two other area state representatives, Carolyn C. Dykema and Alice Hanlon Peisch, expressed support for Sanchez’ bill.
Dykema, D-Holliston, said she’d “just signed on to co-sponsor’’ Sanchez’s bill because of concerns nicotine delivery devices could be used to consume other illegal drugs including marijuana and some opioids including heroin.
She said she’s looking forward to a public hearing because research about the advertised benefits of such devices is “inconclusive.’’
Peisch, D-Wellesley, said she’d likely support efforts to restrict minors’ access to such devices and their use on school grounds. While Sanchez’ bill doesn’t recommend taxing such devices like conventional tobacco products, she said additional costs could further discourage minors from purchasing them.
Senator Richard T. Moore, D-Uxbridge, cited an American Cancer Society study that said e-cigarettes might encourage people to smoke and added “more research is needed to see if the tobacco tax should be broadened to include electronic cigarettes.’’
And Sheriff Peter Koutoujian called “banning electronic cigarettes for children under 18 the right thing to do.’’
“Electronic cigarettes glamorize an unhealthy and addictive habit, not to mention that these are actual nicotine delivery devices,’’ he said. “That’s pretty much a one-two punch for children, setting them up to think smoking is cool then working in a chemical dependence. … Electronic cigarettes pose one more temptation for the younger teenagers that we don’t need out there.”
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/features/x606655175/Legislators-aim-to-bar-e-cigarette-sales-to-minors?zc_p=1

Vaping May Be Hazardous to Your Health

By the Editors
“Mind if I vape?”
The question may become more common as electronic cigarettes become more popular. The answer, however, remains elusive. Etiquette aside, the health effects of inhaling nicotine vapor (hence the term) are largely unknown. More research is clearly needed, but in the meantime, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has to start regulating e-cigarettes.
U.S. consumers will spend $1 billion on battery-powered smokes this year, 10 times more than they did four years ago. Are e-cigarettes, which come in such flavors as chocolate and butter rum, a benign device to help people stop smoking? Or are they just a new way to feed an old addiction? How safe, compared with tobacco smoke, is the vapor they create?
No one knows. The small studies that have been done so far hint at both pros and cons; one found that smokers cut back on real cigarettes after trying the electronic kind, while anotherfound particles of metal and silicates in e-cigarette vapor that could cause breathing problems. That there are more than 200 brands containing varying levels of nicotine and other substances only makes it harder to assess their safety.
The FDA has indicated it will begin to regulate e-cigarettes this fall. After a federal judge ruled that it couldn’t classify them as medical devices (because they deliver a drug, nicotine), the FDA will regulate them as tobacco products (because nicotine is derived from tobacco). Unlike regular cigarettes, however, e-cigarettes are not known to be lethal. Wariness is warranted, but it’s safe to assume that their vapors are not nearly as dangerous as tobacco smoke.
The FDA’s approach, therefore — and that of states and cities that regulate tobacco use — should be two-pronged: It should find out whether e-cigarettes are indeed safe. And while it does, it should ensure that “vaping” remains restricted to adults who are fully informed of the potential risks.
To begin, e-cigarette makers should be required to report and label all ingredients in the nicotine solutions they use. Even though these deliver fewer poisons than are found in traditional cigarettes, they nevertheless have been found to contain carcinogenic nitrosamines and other harmful impurities derived from the tobacco, as well as the additive diethylene glycol, an ingredient in antifreeze.
Manufacturers should also disclose the amount of nicotine that can be inhaled from their e-cigarettes. Today’s models haven’t been found to give users as large a hit of nicotine as regular cigarettes do, but that may not always be the case. (Some bottles of solution meant to refill e-cigarette cartridges have been found to contain enough nicotine to kill an adult if ingested.) Once more is known about the potential hazards of e-cigarette vapors, the FDA may need to restrict certain substances or place limits on nicotine levels.
Then there is the issue of flavoring — something the FDA forbids in standard cigarettes. All electronic cigarettes are flavored, so to ban flavoring would be to ban the product entirely. But it’s possible to allow tobacco- or even mint-flavored e-cigarettes and still ban or restrict flavors designed to appeal to children, hard as they may be to define.
While they’re at it, the FDA should also ban sales to those younger than 18 and restrict e-cigarette marketing and advertisements in much the same way it limits them for cigarettes. As for health warnings, the agency will need to wait for more data before deciding what exactly they should say.
States and cities, meanwhile, should include e-cigarettes in their restrictions on smoking in public places and office buildings, and apply the same rules on the retail sale of e-cigarettes as they do to tobacco products. Even in towns where there are few restrictions, bars and restaurants would be wise to prohibit “vaping” until they know whether it pollutes the air.
On the question of taxes, states and cities may want to act gradually. If e-cigarettes are found to be valuable smoking-cessation tools, then they may warrant a tax rate that’s lower than what’s imposed on real cigarettes.
It would be great if e-cigarettes turned out to be the breakthrough that gets people to give up smoking tobacco. In the meantime, we should all be careful that e-cigarettes not perpetuate a habit that society has come a long way toward snuffing out. Sensible regulation can help protect that progress.
To contact the Bloomberg View editorial board: view@bloomberg.net.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-18/vaping-may-be-hazardous-to-your-health.html

Letter of the Day (Aug. 13): Electronic cigarettes

An article last month (“Up in vapor,” July 13) described research related to electronic cigarettes and smoking cessation. As one who conducts research related to electronic cigarettes, I feel compelled to provide additional findings.
First, the Italian researchers cited in the article also conducted an experiment with smokers by randomly assigning them into using electronic cigarettes with or without nicotine (published in PLOS ONE). They found that smokers who used electronic cigarettes with nicotine reduced and quit smoking at the same rate as those who used electronic cigarettes without nicotine. This suggests the limited ability of nicotine-delivering electronic cigarettes to aid smoking cessation.
Second, researchers have studied the effect of secondhand electronic cigarette smoking. This work, published in Inhalation Toxicology, found that nonsmokers who stayed in the same room with electronic cigarette users showed elevated nicotine concentration in the blood, comparable to that of secondhand cigarette smoke.
The Freedom to Breathe Act of 2007 protects nonsmokers, particularly those who work at bars and restaurants, from the harmful effect of secondhand smoking. Given the known effects of secondhand electronic cigarette smoking, the Legislature should consider expanding the act.
KELVIN CHOI, Minneapolis
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/letters/219329381.html

Letter: Harm-reduction not best public policy for tobacco

There has been a good deal of talk about “harm-reduction” strategies (promoting alternative tobacco products, such as chewing tobacco or e-cigarettes, as safer alternatives to smoking cigarettes) as being good options for tobacco users to reduce the risk of using tobacco while maintaining the addiction to nicotine.
Reducing-harm strategies can be an option for an individual who wants to try to reduce his or her own risk of harm while maintaining an addiction. However, when it comes to tobacco use, harm-reduction strategies are not the best public policy to use to address the population-based well-being that public health strategies must address.
• How would it be if the public health professionals advocated for food handlers to wash their hands most of the time after using the bathroom rather than every time? After all, it would reduce the chances of contracting disease from someone who never washed his/her hands. One could say it is better than never washing one’s hands. The public policy must continue to be the best method of preventing disease transmission, that is: wash one’s hands every time, not just sometimes.
• I hear a lot about smokeless tobacco being a good alternative for adult smokers who don’t want to quit using tobacco. Consider this: It is not just adults who use chew. The sweeteners added and new products that have come on the market make it an easy way to addict our next generation to tobacco. North Dakota’s youth consume smokeless tobacco at a rate almost twice the national average (N.D., 13.6 percent, U.S., 7.7 percent). In addition, smokeless tobacco is not without its health hazards.
• E-cigarettes are often touted as a good alternative to tobacco use. We are told by some that the vapor is harmless. This is not true. It has not been regulated or studied enough to know how dangerous it is, but it is not harmless. There is another issue to consider. Have you ever noticed how candy cigarettes and now e-cigarettes mimic the activity a smoker would do with a cigarette? It models the smoking behavior and should not be discounted as harmless.
One of the core functions of public health is to promote strategies that protect the health and safety of the community. Public health providers are accountable to the community to provide up-to-date information and advocate for tried-and-true strategies to improve or maintain a community’s health status.
As a public health nurse, I cannot support harm-reduction policies that supports maintaining one’s addiction to tobacco. Harm- reduction policy is not sound public health policy.
The rationale that was brought up recently in a letter to the editor, that the tobacco user who is not willing or able to quit should have chewing tobacco or e-cigarettes researched and funded with tobacco prevention dollars in the state of North Dakota, falls short. The evidence is readily available regarding what works and how to gain access to help. The options are available, and they are FDA-approved and researched for safety and effectiveness. They are called nicotine replacement therapy and NDQuits at (800)-QUIT-NOW.
Knox, RN, is master of public health and certified tobacco treatment specialist with the Grand Forks Public Health Department Tobacco Prevention Program.
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/408308/

Very little is known about the health effects of e-cigarettes

DEAR MAYO CLINIC: I’ve been a smoker for years. I’m thinking about switching to electronic cigarettes or to a nicotine inhaler because I’ve heard they aren’t as bad for you as regular cigarettes. Is that true?
ANSWER: Electronic cigarettes and nicotine inhalers both deliver nicotine to your body without tobacco. But that’s where the similarity ends. The two are quite different when it comes to how they’re used and how much doctors know about their safety. Nicotine inhalers are a proven safe and effective way to help people stop smoking. In contrast, very little is known about the health effects of electronic cigarettes.
Electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, are battery-operated devices that look like regular cigarettes. Like traditional tobacco cigarettes, they contain nicotine. When you use an e-cigarette, a liquid inside it that includes nicotine is heated and turns into a vapor you inhale. It also makes a vapor cloud that looks like cigarette smoke.
The manufacturers claim that e-cigarettes are a safe alternative to tobacco cigarettes. But there are significant questions about the safety of these products. When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) analyzed samples of two popular brands of e-cigarettes, they found varying amounts of nicotine and traces of toxic chemicals, including substances that are known to cause cancer.
The liquid inside many e-cigarettes contains a substance called propylene glycol. It creates the e-cigarette’s vapor. Other common uses of propylene glycol are in cosmetics and as an ingredient in fog machines and antifreeze. The specific health effects of this product are not clear.
No studies have been done to examine the safety of e-cigarettes. As a result, there is no evidence that doctors can use to assess the impact this product may have on a person’s body. Also, no convincing evidence shows that e-cigarettes are useful in helping people to eventually stop smoking.
It is also important to note that e-cigarettes are not regulated by the FDA. E-cigarettes are currently regulated as a tobacco product — even though they contain no tobacco. Because of this classification, there’s no oversight from the FDA to ensure they are safe. Like regular cigarettes, you can buy e-cigarettes without a prescription.
Nicotine inhalers, on the other hand, are classified as a type of medicine. They are regulated by the FDA and available by prescription only. They fall into a class of drugs known as nicotine replacement therapy, and they are used as part of stop-smoking treatment plans.
As with e-cigarettes, nicotine inhalers give you a dose of nicotine when you puff on them. Unlike e-cigarettes, the amount of nicotine you receive is controlled and small. And with nicotine inhalers you receive only nicotine. No other ingredients are included.
Nicotine inhalers have been carefully studied in controlled clinical research trials. They are safe and proven to be effective in helping people stop smoking. If you’re interested in using nicotine inhalers as part of a program to help you stop smoking, talk to your doctor. He or she can discuss the inhalers with you in more detail, as well as provide information about other medications and resources available to help you quit.
With the data available now, Mayo Clinic does not recommend the use of e-cigarettes. At this time, we simply don’t know enough about them. They have not been proven safe, nor have they been shown to be effective in helping people stop smoking. — Jon Ebbert, M.D., Nicotine Dependence Center, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.
(Medical Edge from Mayo Clinic is an educational resource and doesn’t replace regular medical care. E-mail a question to medicaledge@mayo.edu. For more information, visit http://www.mayoclinic.org.)
http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/sns-201308011500–tms–mayoclnctnmc-a20130801-20130801,0,536387.story

NC law takes effect banning e-cigarettes to minors

MITCH WEISS
Associated Press
CHARLOTTE, NC (AP) — At North Carolina smoke shops and other retailers, the warning signs are going up.
A law banning the sale of e-cigarettes to minors takes effect Thursday.
Retailers now face the same misdemeanor charge if they sell e-cigarettes to a minor as they already did for other tobacco products. Penalties can be as high as a $1,000 fine.
So retailers say they’ll be careful.
E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that heat a liquid nicotine solution, creating vapor that users inhale. Some are made to look like a real cigarette with a tiny light on the tip that glows.
Devotees tout them as a way to break addiction to real cigarettes.
But public health officials say the safety of e-cigarettes and their effectiveness in helping people quit regular smokes haven’t been fully studied.
http://www.wwaytv3.com/2013/07/31/nc-law-takes-effect-banning-e-cigarettes-to-minors

E-Cigarette Sales to Hit $1 Billion

By ALAN FARNHAM
E-cigarettes—a relative novelty three years ago–are about to hit $1 billion in sales, according to Wells Fargo securities analysts.
While that’s only 1 percent of sales of traditional cigarettes, the number of consumers who say they’ve tried e-smokes is growing fast. The sale of e-cigarettes totaled just $500 million last year.
According to the most recent survey by the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, in 2011 about 21 percent of adults who smoke traditional cigarettes said they had tried the electronic alternative, up from about 10 percent in 2010.
“Overall,” says a CDC press release, “about 6 percent of all adults have tried e-cigarettes, with estimates nearly doubling from 2010.”
“E-cigarette use is growing rapidly,” said CDC director Tom Frieden in a February 2013 release announcing the survey’s findings. “There is still we do not know about these products.”
E-cigarettes, in their most popular form, look like conventional tobacco cigarettes. They do not, however, contain leaf tobacco and they do not burn. As described by CDC, they are battery-powered devices that provide inhaled doses of nicotine vapor and flavorings. Because they do not burn and do not produce smoke, their advocates consider them more socially acceptable than traditional cigarettes.
Their detractors do not. The Long Island Rail Road declared earlier this month that e-cigarettes violate LIRR’s smoking ban, which declares it unlawful for railroad patrons to “burn a lighted cigarette, cigar, pipe or any other matter or substance which contains tobacco or any tobacco substitute.”
SAFER SMOKE OR NEW BAD HABIT?
In the eyes of some, the mere appearance of someone smoking—even smoking a non-tobacco, electronic substitute—creates the dangerous impression that smoking is okay.
“The use of e-cigarettes in public areas in which cigarette smoking is prohibited could counter the effectiveness of [smoke-free compliance] policies by complicating enforcement and giving the appearance that smoking is acceptable,” the CDC report says.
Gregory Conley, legislative director at the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-Free Alternatives Association, scoffs at that attitude, saying, “It looks like smoking…so it must be evil.”
Conley’s association, he says, represents some 5,000 e-cigarette users. Conley says e-cigarettes “annoy people who don’t understand that they’re a great advertisement for smoking-cessation” and “people who believe no one should be allowed to have nicotine in any form.”
NO PROOF E-CIGARETTES COMBAT ADDICTION
The question whether e-cigarettes can be viewed as an aide to quitting smoking, for conventional tobacco users, is a contentious one. Eli Alelov, CEO of LOGIC Technology, makers of LOGIC e-cigarettes, says e-cigarettes are not a health product, and that he’s not claiming they are. At the same time, however, he points out, an e-cigarette contains no tar and no tobacco. It produces no second-hand smoke. Regulations prevent his suggesting that his product is healthier or safer, he says. “So, we leave that up to the public: they can use their logic.”
Alelov says that the people who hate e-cigarettes most include both big tobacco and the tax man. E-cigarettes aren’t taxed the same as regular cigarettes, so “the states hate us, because they’re losing money,” Alelov said.
Five years from now, he thinks, 30 to 40 percent of traditional smokers will have switched to e-cigarettes—perhaps as many as 20 million customers. In five years e-cigarette sales will grow to $15 billion to $20 billion a year, he thinks.
As for what further restrictions might be coming down the pike, Alelov says he’s not particularly worried about any regulations the FDA may eventually promulgate. (The FDA currently does not regulate e-cigarettes, but it is expected to in the future.) He expects the FDA’s regulations, when they come, would apply to packaging, labeling, and minimum age of the buyer.
Alelov says there are some venues where he, personally, won’t smoke an e-cigarette. They include McDonalds, movie theaters and children’s playgrounds. Everywhere else, however — everywhere that nicotine gum or nicotine patches are permitted — he feels e-smokes should be, too.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/electronic-cigarette-sales-billion/story?id=19815486
 

Reading the smoke signals on e-cigarettes: Can you puff away on a plane, train or in your local bar?

By / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Where there’s smoking, there’s no longer fire — but there’s plenty of heated debate.
Electronic cigarettes, known to smokers as e-cigarettes, are lighting up the city as puffers snuff out their butts in favor of the refillable, rechargeable alternative, which produces a not-so-smelly vapor instead of pungent smoke.
But should tokers treat these devices like cigarettes themselves, keeping the habit out of restaurants, bars, barbershops and airplanes? Or should they light up wherever the mood strikes, taking advantage of industry claims that the synthetic nicotine sticks are as harmless to passersby as nightclub fog machines?
Depends on who — and where — you ask.
Trains, planes and buses are out of the question.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority told the Daily News it allows no e-cigs on the E train or any of its rides, for that matter.
“We would interpret our prohibition on smoking as applying to electronic cigarettes,” a spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail.
The Long Island Rail Road also extends it cigarette ban to e-cigarettes.
The U.S. Department of Transportation says no smoking — or “vaping,” as e-cigarette enthusiasts call it — on airplanes.
But that’s where the formal prohibitions end. The city Parks Department doesn’t consider vaping to be smoking, meaning Mayor Bloomberg’s ban on puffers in parks is not airtight.
More importantly, the city’s Department of Health says Bloomberg’s defining Smoke Free Air Act, which prohibits smoking inside public places, does not govern electronic smoking. That means as far as the city is concerned, any bar, restaurant, movie theater, nightclub, bowling alley, nail salon or shopping mall is fair game for vaping.
That is, of course, if business owners choose to allow it.
Some do, and some don’t: Starbucks recently snuffed out the chance for patrons to enjoy coffee and e-cigarettes, while lower East Side bars Iggy’s, Whiskey Ward and Coal Yard don’t have a problem with it. On the other hand, many Times Square bars and Broadway theaters say no to e-smoking.
It’s a legal area that’s grayer than a smoker’s lungs, according to Phil Roseman, co-owner of VapeNY, Manhattan’s first electronic-cigarette shop.
“What we tell our customers is that you can vape anywhere you like,” says Roseman, whose newly opened lower East Side storefront sells the battery-powered devices for about $40 a pop, as well as flavored refills like coffee, vanilla and “juicy fruit.” “I’ve taken it on planes, into restaurants and movie theaters, and never had a problem.”
The store has been doing brisk businesses, as more and more nicotine addicts decide they don’t want to pay $15 for a pack of real cigarettes when there’s a cheaper, less-taxed, and more socially permissable alternative.
Not to mention, one that doesn’t stink up the whole apartment.
“I can use this e-cigarette as much as I want and my wife doesn’t complain about the smell,” says lower East Side resident Mike Chan, 41, a VapeNY regular who spends about $30 a month on the liquid refills, down significantly from his cigarette-smoking days.
That’s not to say all New Yorkers are welcoming the glowing tip of these electronic devices.
“There was a time when I was wasted, vaping an e-cigarette, and someone came up to me and told me to put it out,” says Alex Catarinella, 26. “I blew smoke in his face and then pretended to put out my cigarette on his chest. He jumped!”
Writers and regular e-smokers Christelle Gérand, 27, and Joel Johnson, 35, toured the city with the Daily News and vaped openly in bars, restaurants, a dry cleaner and even a grocery store without anyone telling them to cut it out.
“I am surprised at how many places don’t seem to mind — especially bars,” says Johnson.
One place that will never turn e-smokers away is the Henley Lounge, planned to open in SoHo in September. The local e-cigarette company hopes to screen films and host talks, all while passing out samples of its Henley e-cigs.
“Our job with this company is to educate people that nicotine is like caffeine,” says Henley co-founder Talia Eisenberg. “Yes, it’s addictive, but it’s not going to hurt you.”
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/rules-e-cigarettes-article-1.1412964?pgno=1#ixzz2ajJYNc2i