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Hike in city cigarette tax will cut smoking, save lives, health chief says

BY FRAN SPIELMAN, City Hall Reporter, Chicago Sun-Times
Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s controversial plan to raise the city’s cigarette tax by 75-cents-a-pack will persuade 5,500 adults to quit smoking and 6,400 kids not to take their first puff, a top mayoral aide claimed Tuesday.
Health Commissioner Dr. Bechara Choucair went on the offensive for the most controversial element of Emanuel’s 2014 budget, armed with what he called an “independent analysis” conducted by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
It concluded that the 75-cents-a-pack tax that would leave Chicago with the nation’s highest combined state and local tax rate would persuade 6,400 kids “not to light up their first cigarette” and 5,500 adults to quit smoking.
The study further concluded that the tax would “save 3,500 lives long-term from premature death related to tobacco” and save the city $235 million in long-term health care costs.
Choucair and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids are hardly unbiased observers.
But the commissioner’s impassioned defense of the $10 million-a-year sin tax that Emanuel wants to use to expand health care for kids was aimed at persuading aldermen to think twice before attempting to snuff out the tax.
“The cigarette tax is a proven public policy approach to save lives, to save health care dollars and add revenue,” Choucair said Tuesday during testimony at City Council budget hearings.
A veteran family physician, Choucair added, “I saw a lot of patients here in Chicago. I also saw patients in Houston. I saw patients in Rockford, Lebanon, Iraq Guatemala and Mexico. And the No. 1 reason as to why people are dying in all of these places is related to smoking. So we have the responsibility to act.”
South Side Ald. Toni Foulkes (15th) said she’s concerned that the added 75-cents-a-pack will drive up the use of unfiltered, roll-up cigarettes.
“A lot of seniors—mostly male—[who] can’t afford cigarettes and wouldn’t go out and purchase loose cigarettes go for the roll-ups,” Foulkes said.
“They’re already at high-risk. They already have pre-existing issues. What are some of the health risks because I think more people, now younger, would probably go to the roll-ups because it’s much cheaper to buy the tobacco.”
Choucair noted that people who live in low-income communities are four times more likely to quit because of higher taxes.
He added, “When it comes to tobacco—whether it’s with filter or without filter—poison is poison. … We really need to be aggressively addressing this. Big Tobacco tries to give us the impression that, if we have a filter, that it’s safer. The reality is, tobacco is tobacco and people will die from smoking tobacco.”
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/23553833-418/hike-in-city-cigarette-tax-will-cut-smoking-save-lives-health-chief-says.html
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd), a smoker, said expanding the eye-care program for kids is a “noble cause” he wholeheartedly supports.
 
But Reilly said he remains concerned about the “potential unintended negative consequences” for Chicago retailers.
 
“I wouldn’t encourage anyone to pick up smoking. It’s a stupid thing to do. I’m just concerned this could pose a potential boon for suburban retailers who are literally across the street from the city of Chicago and put some of our, especially gas station owners, at a competitive disadvantage,” Reilly said.
 
Reilly noted that politicians at all levels love to link an unpopular tax to a feel-good program to make the bitter pill easier to swallow.
 
But he noted that the eye-care program is likely to “grow over time” while the cigarette tax has a history of going in the opposite direction.
 
“The higher the tax, the expectation is fewer people will purchase cigarettes. My concern is that we may not have a stable revenue source to support a very good program that helps lots and lots of kids,” the alderman said.
 
Choucair replied, “Keep in mind that we’re investing $2 million for this vision program. Expected revenue from the cigarette tax is around $10 million. So, we’ll keep an eye definitely on the expected revenue from the cigarette tax.”
 
Emanuel’s plan to raise the city’s cigarette tax by 75-cents-a-pack remains a key sticking point in a relatively non-controversial budget.
 
Critics contend it will encourage people to stand on street corners hawking loose cigarettes, exacerbating a black market that’s already worse than the ones for marijuana, cocaine and heroin.
 
“The human costs are devastating. It creates an underground economy,” Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6th) said when City Council budget hearings opened last week.
 
Ald. Leslie Hairston (5th) warned that the nation’s highest combined state and local tax would “disproportionately impact communities of color” by “creating a very large black market” for smokes.
 
“The loose sale of single cigarettes. The sale of cigarettes without tax stamps, which leads to increased loitering. Which means people who might be involved in illegal activity are visible and on the street. If I’m in a rival gang, then I’m going to come by and then we have another shooting,” she said.
 
Emanuel has a history of tinkering at the margins of his budgets to appease aldermen. But if the $10 million cigarette tax hike was thrown in as a bargaining chip to be dealt away, the mayor has not yet tipped his hand.
 
“Two years ago, the state increased the cigarette tax by $1. Last year, the county increased it by $1. We’ve increased it 75 cents and we’re putting it towards improving the health care of our children. That’s the right type of investment. And I think it’s the right step, because it also reduces health care costs for those associated with smoking,” the mayor said last week.

E-cigarettes Turn Up in Schools

BY LAURIE WELCH – lwelch@magicvalley.com
BURLEY, ID • Students have been sneaking off to the boys’ room to smoke since the advent of schools and the discovery of tobacco. But use of harder-to-detect electronic cigarettes is causing some educators and parents to worry.
“Any parent should be worried about this. It’s one more thing out there to distract our children from a healthy lifestyle,” said mother Jolene Graham, who serves on a parent advisory committee at Burley High School.
The Cassia County Sheriff’s Office cited five underage students at the school in October for possession, use or distribution of tobacco or e-cigarettes.
The battery-powered e-cigarettes provide aerosol doses of nicotine and other additives. The devices emit a vapor but no telltale smoke.
Depending on the brand, the cartridges can contain nicotine, a component to produce the aerosol and flavorings such as fruit, mint, candy and beer, reports the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The products resemble cigarettes, cigars, pipes or everyday items such as pens and USB memory sticks.
E-cigarettes not marketed for therapeutic purposes are unregulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
FDA studies show “significant quality issues that indicate control processes used to manufacture these products are substandard or non-existent.”
The FDA found cartridges containing nicotine but labeled as no nicotine as well as three different e-cigarette cartridges with the same label but that emitted markedly different amounts of nicotine with each puff.
Sheriff’s Cpl. Terry Higley responded to the incident at the high school.
“If someone doesn’t know about them, they would just think they were some type of marker or highlighter pen,” Higley said about the devices he confiscated.
E-cigarettes are available at stores, but a person must be 18 or older to buy them.
“Most of the kids are saying they just buy them online. All they have to do is check the box that asks if they are 18,” Higley said.
He said one student told him he was using the e-cigarettes to help him quit smoking, and one girl admitted she had used the e-cigarette in class.
Four of the five students’ parents said they did not know their children were using the products, Higley said.
Twin Falls High School hasn’t had any e-cigarette incidents since students were caught smoking them on campus a couple of summers ago, said Principal Ben Allen.
The school then had no policies to deal with the electronic “smokes.” Now e-cigarettes are in school policy for paraphernalia to encompass any changes in the devices, Allen said.
“I’m not saying that eliminated it,” he said. “We just haven’t had to deal with it lately.”
No students at Jerome High School have been caught with e-cigarettes, said Vice Principal Victor Arreaga.
“I guess our kids settle for the real thing or nothing,” Arreaga said. “The problem here at our school is chew (chewing tobacco), not cigarettes.”
Nonetheless, said Jerome High Principal Eric Anderson, the school staff will have to get educated on the product because it is sure to filter into the school at some point.
The Cassia County School District board intends to revisit the district’s policy on nicotine and tobacco to include the devices, said Superintendent Gaylen Smyer.
If students are caught with nicotine oils or tobacco, law enforcement is called and the school can discipline the student up to suspension.
“As an educator, my concern is that nicotine is a habit-forming drug. Sometimes students at that age want to experience things that may have lifelong consequences,” Smyer said. “When adults make a decision to smoke, I support that. But I hate to see young people dabble with something that may have a lifelong effect.”
District teachers will be taught to recognize the objects, he said.
Higley said he plans to use the confiscated paraphernalia as a teaching tool.
“The biggest issue here is, parents need to educate themselves on this. You can’t put the blinders on,” said Graham. “Parents need to have frank discussions with their children at home about these products.”
http://magicvalley.com/news/local/e-cigarettes-turn-up-in-schools/article_cba6a692-5b14-5f73-ab27-b74850525c67.html

Maryland should hike tobacco taxes again

By , Washington Post

BOOSTING TAXES on cigarettes is an effective way to cut smoking rates among adults and, even more, among those college-age and younger, along with tobacco-related disease and death. A case in point is Maryland, where the incidence of smoking fell by a third from 1998 to 2010, a period during which the state more than quintupled its cigarette tax.
By the same token, states that have allowed cigarette levies to remain low, under the sway of Big Tobacco or anti-tax sentiment, generally suffer from higher smoking rates and the resulting impact on public health. Virginia’s cigarette tax is second-lowest in the nation, after Missouri’s; it is an example of a state that extends its smokers a license to kill — themselves.
Pleased with the results in Maryland, anti-
tobacco advocates want to build on their success. On the merits, they have an easy case to make. After the state doubled its levy in 2008, to $2 per pack, cigarette sales dropped sharply. Now advocates want to raise the per pack tax again, to $3. Lawmakers should take note.
Higher taxes are particularly effective in cutting tobacco use among younger smokers, whose habits are less entrenched and who are more sensitive to price. As a direct result of the 2008 tax increase, youth smoking rates plummeted by almost a third in two years. In 2009, just 12 percent of Maryland youths were smokers, compared with a national rate of almost 20 percent.
And while adult smokers are somewhat less sensitive to price increases, Maryland’s 2008 tax hike helped cut the number of adult smokers by about 13 percent.
Complacency is the wrong course of action. Anti-tobacco advocates point out that following the big drop after 2008, smoking rates in Maryland have started to inch up again over the past few years. That coincides with an 80 percent cut in spending on the state’s main anti-smoking program, which aims to help people to quit or not start in the first place. Despite its relatively high tax rate on cigarettes, Maryland ranks just 34th nationally among the states in spending on its anti-smoking program.
Each of the three increases in Maryland’s cigarette tax over the past dozen years has been followed immediately by a sharp drop in sales. True, some Maryland smokers may simply cross the border to buy their cartons in low-tax Virginia. But more have quit or cut back, as state-by-state smoking rates suggest.
The tobacco lobby remains strong enough to push back against further increases. In Annapolis, a bill this year to raise the state’s per-pack tax to $3 died in committee. A similar effort in the legislative session starting in January may suffer the same fate. Anti-smoking advocates are focusing their efforts on the next year or two in the legislative calendar. They should be helped both by the counter-example of Virginia — and by the facts.
Washington Post Editorials –  Editorials represent the views of The Washington Post as an institution, as determined through debate among members of the editorial board. News reporters and editors never contribute to editorial board discussions, and editorial board members don’t have any role in news coverage.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/maryland-should-hike-tobacco-taxes-again/2013/11/03/820e5ffc-433b-11e3-a624-41d661b0bb78_story.html

E-Cigarettes A Blast From The Past, In A Bad Way

By Erica Sebastian and Jonathan Chaffee Special to the Olean Times Herald
Youth love to trick-or-treat on Halloween. Unfortunately, there is one product that is more trick than treat: e-cigarettes look and taste like a treat, but contain a nicotine solution that is turned into a vapor that users inhale.
The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Youth Tobacco Survey states that e-cigarette use among middle and high school students has doubled since 2011. This growth can be attributed to the variety of flavors of e-cigarettes, such as chocolate, vanilla, cookies and cream and fruit flavors that appeal to teens and young adults.
E-cigarette advertisements are also appearing on television and in magazines. E-cigarettes’ formula for success is not that much different from how the tobacco industry marketed cigarettes.
Stanton Glantz, who directs the Center For Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California-San Francisco, says, “They’re making health claims. They’re using celebrities, movies, television. It’s just like getting into a time machine.”
In 2009, the FDA tested e-cigarettes from two leading manufacturers and found detectable levels of toxins and carcinogens (cancer-causing agents) in their cartridges.
Any product designed to deliver more than trace amounts of nicotine can lead to addiction. As such, the sale and distribution of these products should only occur after these products are appropriately regulated by the FDA.
The FDA has not approved e-cigarettes as smoking-cessation devices. To date, there are no well-controlled studies that test the efficacy of e-cigarettes as a smoking-cessation device despite industry ads to the contrary.
New York has made great strides in reducing youth smoking rates. High school youth smoking rates are down nearly 60 percent from 2000 to 2012. The introduction of e-cigarettes threatens the substantial gains made in reducing youth smoking in New York.
(Ms. Sebastian is the Cessation Center coordinator for Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua and Wyoming counties; Mr. Chaffee is the Reality Check Program coordinator for Allegany, Cattaraugus and Chautauqua counties.)
http://www.oleantimesherald.com/editorial/article_779e64d0-4300-11e3-92ff-001a4bcf887a.html

NYC Council gets tough on tobacco, approves raising purchase age to 21

By Rande Iaboni, CNN
New York (CNN) — The New York City Council voted on Wednesday night to approve an anti-tobacco law that will raise the tobacco-purchasing age from 18 to 21.
In addition to the “Tobacco 21” bill, which includes electronic cigarettes, the council also approved a second bill, “Sensible Tobacco Enforcement.” It will prohibit discounts on tobacco products and increase enforcement on vendors who attempt to evade taxes.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg has 30 days to sign the bills into law. Given his previous support, that is likely to happen soon.
“By increasing the smoking age to 21, we will help prevent another generation from the ill health and shorter life expectancy that comes with smoking,” Bloomberg said in a statement on Wednesday.
“Tobacco 21” will take effect 180 days after it is enacted, according to the council’s news release.
New York City has now become the largest city to have an age limit as high as 21. Needham, Massachusetts, raised the sale age to 21 in 2005, according to the New York City Department of Health.
Neighboring states and counties have raised the tobacco sale age to 19, including New Jersey in 2005, the Department of Health said.
Raising the sales age “will protect teens and may prevent many people from ever starting to smoke,” Health Commissioner Thomas A. Farley, said in a statement after the vote.
While many lawmakers appeared to be applauding the bills, some younger New Yorkers were not so pleased.
“You’re an adult; you should be able to buy a pack of cigarettes,” one New Yorker told CNN affiliate NY1. “I mean, you can think for yourself.”
“I think it’s ridiculous,” another New Yorker said, “Let us be, let us live.”
This is another step in Bloomberg’s mission for healthier NYC lifestyles.
In September 2012, the Board of Health voted to ban the sale of sugary drinks in containers larger than 16 ounces in restaurants and other venues, a measure Bloomberg spearheaded.
The ban was later repealed by a New York State Supreme Court judge.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/30/us/new-york-city-tobacco-age/

Editorial: Kids and e-cigs

Gainsville Sun Editorial:
As anti-smoking campaigns reduce tobacco use among young people, public health advocates see a new threat in electronic cigarettes.

E-cigarettes convert liquid nicotine into a vapor that users inhale. They come in flavors such as various types of fruits and candies, potentially attracting children to use them.
The 2013 Florida Youth Tobacco Survey found that 12 percent of high school students had tried e-cigarettes, an increase of 102 percent since 2011.
Alachua County Commissioner Robert Hutchinson asked staff to draft an ordinance to ban the sale of e-cigarettes to minors, require them to be placed behind counters in stores and prohibit their use in non-smoking areas. Clay County has enacted and Marion County is considering similar measures.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is also considering the regulation of e-cigarettes. A federal rule would be more effective than a patchwork of local ordinances.
In the meantime, Alachua County and other municipalities are right to work to keep e-cigarettes out of the hands of minors. Yet the county should resist the urge to regulate the personal behavior of adults that doesn’t affect others.
Some research suggests that e-cigarettes help a small percentage of tobacco users quit. But the health effects of inhaling nicotine vapor are unclear, and the track record of the tobacco companies that sell some e-cigarette brands gives reason to be skeptical of claims that it is a safe alternative to smoking.
It’s reasonable to regulate an addictive product that poses potential health risks. Hopefully the FDA soon does it job and prevents the need for Alachua County to act.
http://www.gainesville.com/article/20131102/OPINION01/131039866/-1/entertainment?Title=Editorial-Kids-and-e-cigs&tc=ar

Tobacco Marketing Costs Exceed Those of Prevention Efforts

By Marisa DeCandido – email
There’s been a statewide effort over the past several years to cut down on tobacco use in North Dakota. And state lawmakers now know exactly how much those prevention programs are costing.
It’s not easy for smokers in North Dakota to find a place to light up, and state lawmakers now know just how much it costs to keep it that way.
The Center for Tobacco Prevention and Control Policy says it spends about fifty-five dollars on each North Dakota Tobacco user. That money goes towards programs that help users break the habit.
“A great portion of the program is focused on preventing young people, youth and young adults, from ever using tobacco so we don’t have to spend as much on cessation, or getting them to quit later in life,” says Prom
And Prom says youth smoking rates have gone down in the last year. Even though the tobacco industry spends about one-hundred and ninety five dollars a year marketing to North Dakotans.
“It’s odd that we have a situation today where we have an industry, the tobacco industry, who promote a product that when used as intended kills. There’s really nothing normal about that. So we want to change that to where not using tobacco is the norm,” says Jeanne Prom, North Dakota Tobacco Prevention.
Prom presented these numbers on the same day that New York City proposed a law that would change the tobacco buying age from eighteen to twenty-one. But North Dakotans don’t thing that will happen here.
“North Dakota, at this time, we need to focus on our taxes and raising that, and that is going to make the biggest impact for stopping our youth from starting and helping others to quit,” says Kim Schneider, American Lung Association.
That’s because the tobacco tax here is only forty-four cents, one of the lowest in the country.
“We’ve spent a lot of time in the past year just educating again on the smoke-free law and on the tobacco tax. It’s a big issue in North Dakota,” says Schneider.
Tobacco prevention groups in the state say raising the tax is the next step towards fighting tobacco use.
For more information on how much smoking costs North Dakotans, visit breathend.com.
http://www.kumv.com/story/23842127/tobacco-marketing-costs-exceed-those-of-prevention-efforts

City Council to Vote on Raising Cigarette Purchase Age

In the latest move to snuff out smoking in New York, the City Council could vote Wednesday to bar anyone under the age of 21 from buying cigarettes and e-cigarettes.

Under federal law, no one under 18 can buy tobacco anywhere in the country, but some states and localities have raised it to 19.

Public health advocates say a higher minimum age discourages, or at least delays, young people from starting smoking and thereby limits their health risks. But opponents of such measures have said 18-year-olds, legally considered adults, should be able to make their own decisions about whether or not to smoke.

Some communities, including Needham, Mass., have raised the minimum age to 21, but New York would be the biggest city to do so.

Officials say 80 percent of NYC smokers started before age 21, and an estimated 20,000 New York City public high school students now smoke. While it’s already illegal for many of them to buy cigarettes, officials say this measure would play a key role by making it illegal for them to turn to slightly older friends to buy smokes for them. The vast majority of people who get asked to do that favor are between 18 and 21 themselves, city officials say.

Under Mayor Bloomberg and the health commissioners he has appointed, including Farley, New York has rolled out a slate of anti-smoking initiatives.

Bloomberg, a billionaire who has given $600 million of his own money to anti-smoking efforts around the world, began taking on tobacco use in the city shortly after he became mayor in 2002.

Over his years in office, the city — at times with the council’s involvement — helped impose the highest cigarette taxes in the country, barred smoking at parks and on beaches and conducted sometimes graphic advertising campaigns about the hazards of smoking.

Earlier this year, the Bloomberg administration unveiled a proposal to keep cigarettes out of sight in stores until an adult customer asks for a pack, as well as stopping shops from taking cigarette coupons and honoring discounts, but the proposal was dropped earlier this week, according to the New York Times.

Bloomberg’s administration and public health advocates praise the initiatives as bold moves to help people live better. Adult smoking rates in the city have fallen from 21.5 percent in 2002 to 14.8 percent in 2011, Farley has said.

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Cigarettes-Vote-New-York-Wednesday-229822281.html

Conceal and carry: kids with e-cigarettes

By KEPR-TV, Pasco, WA
KEPR went to Kennewick High School to talk candidly with your kids; they say electronic cigarettes and pocket vaporizers are in their peers’ pockets and right under parents’ noses.
What you need to know about this growing trend.
“Is it here in the Tri-Cities,” KEPR asked a high school student, “yeah, definitely,” he replied.
We’re not just talking tobacco, we’re talking pot smoked through e-cigarettes. Within a minute of school getting out, KEPR found out not just if kids were using it, but where to go. “Go over there to the park,” another student told us.
A park, car, even your house to smoke and you probably won’t know. “The house won’t stink, clothes won’t stink, car won’t stink,” said Randy Schiewe, the owner of 9’s Electronic Cigarette shop in Kennewick. The same reason many adults are switching from a cigarette to an electronic smoker, but for kids consider it conceal and carry.
“It probably looks like a pen to them,” said Schiewe about parents who don’t know. He says it’s not the intent for electronic smokers to look like something they’re not. They were never intended for kids, and you have to be 18 to buy them. But just like kids can get their hands on alcohol, Schiewe says kids can get their hands on these and that’s why he wants to make sure you know what to look for.
The pens are elongated and most have a tapered end. “This would be the easiest way you would see liquid marijuana being used,” he said. People put liquid THC, the active ingredient of pot, or hash oil in the vaporizer instead of tobacco. As a parent, he says you might not find the vaporizer laying around, but you might find the charger and dismiss it. It looks like a cell phone charger, USB port on one end, a small box with a female screw port on the other. “You might find it plugged into a wall, computer or car,” he said.
Pull up You-Tube and in less than two minutes, a kid has a way to smoke pot without a trace.
“If there’s a way to do something bad with it, they will find a way,” said Schiewe. The one benefit says Schiewe, right now liquid THC isn’t as easy to get. “I am in the business and I don’t know how to get it,” he said. It’s a matter of being informed of the new trends hitting your kids to keep them safe. Schiewe hopes it’s a conversation you’ll now be ready to have.
Reporter’s notes:  However you feel on the electronic cigarette issue, I did find when talking to kids one overwhelming trend.  All the kids who knew teens who smoked e-cigs, called it a safe alternative.
http://www.keprtv.com/Conceal-and-carry-kids-with-e-cigarettes-229818931.html

E-cigarette industry lobbies to avoid regulation as tobacco product

By Stuart Pfeifer
They have the shape, feel and nicotine of tobacco cigarettes, but e-cigarettes should not be regulated like tobacco products, makers of the popular new product say.

The Smoke Free Alternatives Trade Assn., an industry group, is lobbying to avoid Food and Drug Administration regulation under the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.
“This is a critical time for … the e-cig industry at large,” said Cynthia Cabrera, the trade group’s executive director. “While our industry understands reasonable and appropriate regulation is needed, it is vital our young industry not be grouped with combustible cigarettes as federal guidelines are developed for these products. Excessive regulation could limit adult access to e-cigs and stifle growth and innovation in the segment.”
Members of the trade organization said they are traveling to Washington on Nov. 4 to urge members of Congress to not classify the devices as tobacco products.
Last month, attorneys general from 40 states urged the FDA to regulate e-cigarettes as tobacco products, noting the cigarette alternatives contain highly addictive nicotine and, unlike cigarettes, can be advertised and sold to children.
“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,” Massachusetts Atty. Gen. Martha Coakley said. “We urge the FDA to act quickly to ensure that these products are regulated to protect the public, and are no longer advertised or sold to youth.”
E-cigarettes are plastic or metal devices, shaped like oversized cigarettes, that use batteries to heat nicotine oil and create a vapor that users inhale. They provide nicotine without inhaling the smoke of burning tobacco.
The products have become so popular that some tobacco companies have been acquiring e-cigarette manufacturers as a way of getting into the business.
The Centers for Disease Control reported recently that e-cigarette use by middle and high school students doubled from 2011 to 2012. The trade group has scoffed at that report, noting that it was based on the number of students who tried the product, not those that regularly used them.
Further, the group said, studies have found that e-cigarettes are a safe alternative to tobacco cigarettes, the health risks of which are widely known.
“There is no evidence of which we are aware which would suggest that the risk/safety profile of e-cigarettes is in any way comparable to that of tobacco products,” Todd A. Harrison, an attorney for the trade group, said in an Oct. 17 letter to the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-ecigarette-industry-lobby-tobacco-product-20131024,0,2455539.story#axzz2iesS7W00