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

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

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

Will your children buy candy, gum or little cigars?

By Dr. Tom Frieden, Special to CNN
Editor’s note: Dr. Tom Frieden is director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
(CNN) — They’re on display at cash registers all across America: Candy bars, packs of gum — and little cigars.
In some cases, those cigars aren’t tucked away behind the counter where only the attendant can get to them but right in front for anyone to pick up.
Traditional fat cigars are a small part of today’s cigar industry. Newer types of cancer sticks include cigarette-sized cigars, or little cigars, designed to look like a typical cigarette but which evade cigarette taxes and regulations.
Flavored little cigars can be sold virtually anywhere, and kids are a prime target of these new products.
Unlike cigarettes, many are sold singly or in small, low-priced packs, at a fraction of the cost of a cigarette in most states.
These little cigars have names like “Da Bomb Blueberry” and “Swagberry.” The flavors themselves — chocolate mint, watermelon, wild cherry and more — can mask the harsh taste of tobacco and are clearly attractive to children.
The Food and Drug Administration banned candy and fruit flavors in cigarettes so young people would not be enticed. But cigars weren’t covered.
The tobacco industry claims that its marketing efforts are solely aimed at adults. It has long argued that its marketing doesn’t increase demand or cause young people to smoke but instead is intended to increase brand appeal and market share among existing adult smokers.
How many grown-ups do you know who smoke grape-flavored cigars?
Little cigars have become more popular in recent years. Flavored brands have almost 80% of the market share.
In 2011, among middle school and high school students who currently smoke cigars, more than one in three reported using flavored little cigars.
Six states — Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Wisconsin — have youth cigar smoking rates the same as or higher than those of youth cigarette smoking.
Despite industry statements to the contrary, the link between marketing and youth tobacco use is clear.
Some legislative and regulatory actions that tackle elements of tax discrepancies, youth appeal and marketing are in place or under consideration.
New York and Providence, Rhode Island, have enacted city-wide ordinances prohibiting the sale of flavored tobacco products, including flavored little cigars. Both ordinances have been challenged and upheld in U.S. District Court.
In April, the Tobacco Tax and Enforcement Reform Act was introduced in the Senate. This bill aims to eliminate tax disparities between different tobacco products, reduce illegal tobacco trade and increase the federal excise tax on tobacco products.
Based on decades of evidence, the 2012 surgeon general’s reporton tobacco use among youth and young adults concluded that tobacco industry marketing causes youths to smoke, and nicotine addiction keeps them smoking.
This sobering fact holds true in spite of bans on advertising and promotions that target children and youths, and restrictions on certain other marketing activities.
Nearly 90% of smokers started before they were 18 years old, and almost no one starts smoking after age 25.
To prevent the needless death, disability and illness caused by smoking, we must stop young people from even starting to smoke.
A key part of prevention efforts must be action that will eliminate loopholes in restrictions on tobacco marketing, pricing and products that encourage children and youth to smoke.
I don’t think it’s too much to expect of our society that we protect our kids so they can reach adulthood without an addiction that can harm or kill them.
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The opinions expressed are solely those of Dr. Tom Frieden.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/11/health/frieden-little-cigars/