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Flavored cigarette use increasing

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn (KFGO AM) — A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found four out of ten teen smokers prefer flavored little cigars or flavored cigarettes.
Bob Moffitt is with the American Lung Association of Minnesota and says the data also shows kids using the flavored products are less likely to think about quitting than those who smoke traditional cigarettes.
Moffitt says these products are also appealing to teens because they are cheaper and taxed differently.
Moffitt would like to see Minnesota lawmakers draft legislation that would close some of the tax loopholes involving flavored tobacco products.
http://kfgo.com/news/articles/2013/oct/24/flavored-cigarette-use-increasing/

Flavors lure 42% of young smokers

By Wendy Koch , USA TODAY

Two of every five youth smokers use cigarettes or look-alike cigars that are flavored, says a U.S. government report Tuesday that’s intensifying the call for federal control of all tobacco products including electronic cigarettes.
Of middle-school and high-school students who currently smoke, 42.4% reported using menthol cigarettes or flavored little cigars, which are often cheaper, says a survey by researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Such usage was higher among older teens than tweens.
“Flavors can mask the harshness and taste of tobacco, making flavored-tobacco products appealing to youth,” says the 2011 National Youth Tobacco Survey, adding they can cause kids to develop a lifelong tobacco habit. The survey notes smoking remains the nation’s single largest preventable cause of disease and premature death.
Flavored or not, “little cigars contain the same toxic and cancer-causing ingredients found in cigarettes and are not a safe alternative to cigarettes,” Tim McAfee, who directs CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health, said in releasing the results. “Many flavored little cigars appear virtually indistinguishable from cigarettes with similar sizes, shapes, filters and packaging.”
In 2009, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned candy and fruit-flavored cigarettes but exempted menthol ones. In July, the FDA reported that menthol cigarettes cause more youth to begin smoking, boost dependence on tobacco and reduce success in quitting smoking, especially among African Americans.
So sweet-flavored little cigars, not covered by the federal ban, have gained popularity not only among U.S. kids but also among adults. A recent government survey found that more than two-fifths of current adult cigar smokers used flavored cigars during 2009 and 2010.
“The FDA should act promptly to assert regulatory authority over all tobacco products, including cigars,” says Matt Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, arguing tobacco companies are circumventing the ban on sweet-flavored cigarettes by marketing similarly flavored look-alike cigars. “The FDA must close this loophole.”
The study also shows that among youth cigar smokers, almost 60% of those who smoke flavored little cigars are not thinking about quitting tobacco use, compared with just over 49% among all other cigar smokers. The CDC says sales of little cigars, taxed at a lower rate than cigarettes, jumped 240% from 1997 to 2007, and flavored brands account for nearly 80% of market share.
The youth survey, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health,found that slightly more than a third, or 35.4%, of current youth cigarette smokers said they used flavored cigarettes, which could include menthol ones or flavored little cigars that students mistook for cigarettes. The share went up to 42.4% when current cigar users were included.
Myers says some state and local governments — Maine, New York City and Providence — are moving to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products, including little cigars. More are also banning the sale to minors of electronic or e-cigarettes, which don’t burn tobacco but contain a nicotine solution that is emitted as vapor when a user inhales. This nicotine is derived from tobacco leaf.
A CDC-conducted survey last month found that youth usage of e-cigarettes, also not subject to FDA regulation, has recently doubled. Last year, 10% of high school students said they tried e-cigarettes, up from 4.7% in 2011. A doubling also occurred among U.S. middle school students saying they’ve experimented with e-cigarettes.
While some of the largest e-cigarette manufacturers, including R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris’ parent company Altria, don’t make sweet-flavored e-cigarettes, many other companies do. E-cigarettes — some marketed as “juice pens” — come in chocolate, Fuji apple, Bombay mango, vanilla, cherry crush, and peach schapps.
Blu e-Cigs, a brand that Lorillard bought last year, “are not attractive to kids” despite their multiple flavors, says James Healy, the company’s founder. Myers and other tobacco critics disagree, citing data showing how many kids are lured by flavors.
The FDA, which said three years ago that it would expand its authority to regulate other tobacco products, is expected soon to take the first steps in that direction.
 http://www.freep.com/article/20131023/FEATURES01/310230060/Flavors-lure-42-of-young-smokers

E-cigarettes forging new pathway to addiction, death and disease

By Ross P. Lanzafame and Harold P. Wimmer – Redwood Times
Electronic cigarette use among middle school children has doubled in just one year. Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that e-cigarette use also doubled among high school students in one year, and that one in 10 high school students have used an e-cigarette.
Altogether, 1.78 million middle and high school students nationwide use e-cigarettes. Yet, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) still is not regulating e-cigarettes. The absence of regulatory oversight means the tobacco industry is free to promote Atomic Fireball or cotton candy-flavored e-cigarettes to our children. Clearly, the aggressive marketing and promotion of e-cigarettes is reaching our children with alarming success.
It is well known that nicotine is a highly addictive substance, whether delivered in a conventional cigarette or an e-cigarette. The use of sweet flavors is an old tobacco industry trick to entice and addict young children to tobacco products, and the entrance of the nation’s largest tobacco companies into this market clearly is having an impact.
Why does Big Tobacco care about e-cigarettes? Tobacco use kills more than 400,000 people each year and thousands more successfully quit. To maintain its consumer ranks and enormous profits, the tobacco industry needs to attract and addict thousands of children each day, as well as keep adults dependent. Big Tobacco is happy to hook children with a gummy bear-flavored e-cigarette, a grape flavored cigar or a Marlboro, so long as they become addicted. We share the CDC’s concern that children who begin by using e-cigarettes may be condemned to a lifelong addiction to nicotine and cigarettes.
In addition, the American Lung Association is very concerned about the potential safety and health consequences of electronic cigarettes, as well as claims that they can be used to help smokers quit. With no government oversight of these products, there is no way for the public health and medical community or consumers to know what chemicals are contained in an e-cigarette or what the short and long term health implications might be. That’s why the American Lung Association is calling on the FDA to propose meaningful regulation of these products to protect to the public health.
The FDA has not approved e-cigarettes as a safe or effective method to help smokers quit. When smokers are ready to quit, they should call 1-800-QUIT NOW or talk with their doctors about using one of the seven FDA-approved medications proven to be safe and effective in helping smokers quit.
According to recent estimates, there are 250 different e-cigarette brands for sale in the U.S. today. With that many brands, there is likely to be wide variation in the chemicals that each contain. In initial lab tests conducted by the FDA in 2009, detectable levels of toxic cancer-causing chemicals were found, including an ingredient used in anti-freeze, in two leading brands of e-cigarettes and 18 various e-cigarette cartridges. That is why it is so urgent for FDA to begin its regulatory oversight of e-cigarettes, which must include ingredient disclosure by e-cigarette manufacturers to the FDA.
Also unknown is what the potential harm may be to people exposed to secondhand emissions from e-cigarettes. Two initial studies have found formaldehyde, benzene and tobacco-specific nitrosamines (a well-known carcinogen) coming from those secondhand emissions. While there is a great deal more to learn about these products, it is clear that there is much to be concerned about, especially in the absence of FDA oversight.
Ross P. Lanzafame is the American Lung Association National board chair and Harold P. Wimmer is the American Lung Association national president and CEO. For more information, contact Gregg.Tubbs@lung.org or 202-715-3469.

Too many American teens are smoking 'little cigars,' report says

Melissa Dahl, NBC News
They look like cigarettes, and they’re just as harmful as cigarettes — but “little cigars” are much cheaper, and they come in flavors like chocolate or candy apple, which makes them very attractive to kids, experts say.
Now, for the first time, kids’ use of flavored little cigars has been tracked by U.S. researchers. About four in 10 smokers in middle school and high school say they use flavored little cigars, according to the new report, using data from the 2011 National Youth Tobacco Survey.
Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, called the new data “disturbing.”
“Flavored little cigars are basically a deception,” Frieden says. “They’re marketed like cigarettes, they look like cigarettes, but they’re not taxed or regulated like cigarettes. And they’re increasing the number of kids who smoke.”
A little cigar looks almost exactly like a cigarette: It’s the same size and shape, but instead of being wrapped in white paper, it’s wrapped in brown paper that contains some tobacco leaf. Many little cigars have a filter, like a cigarette, according to the American Legacy Foundation, a nonprofit that seeks to prevent teen smoking.

An illustration shows a regular cigarette next to a little cigar.

© American Legacy Foundation

“What makes a cigar a cigar is that it has some tobacco in the paper. Little cigars — there’s just enough tobacco in that paper to make them cigars,” says Erika Sward, assistant vice president for national advocacy at the American Lung Association. “They really are cigarettes in cigar clothing.”
Not that cigars are healthy. Little cigars – and large cigars and cigarillos (a longer, slimmer version of the classic large cigar) – contain the same harmful and addictive compounds as cigarettes. They can cause lung, oral, laryngeal and esophageal cancers and they increase the smoker’s risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The only upside of a cigar is the way they are usually smoked: Cigar smokers tend to take shallower puffs instead of deep inhales. But some research has shown people tend to smoke little cigars just like they’d smoke cigarettes, by inhaling deeply, which can exacerbate the tobacco’s health risks.

cigars & cigarillos

© American Legacy Foundation

But because little cigars are technically not cigarettes, they are taxed far less than cigarettes, making them that much more appealing to teenagers, because “kids are especially price-sensitive,” Sward says. A pack of little cigars can cost less than half as much as a pack of cigarettes, experts say.
“We know if they were cigarettes, what they’re doing now would be banned,” Frieden says. “If they were cigarettes, there would be a much greater awareness of their harm. But because they’re seen as somehow different, they’re getting another generation of kids hooked on tobacco.”
Overall, tobacco use among American kids declined significantly from 2000 to 2011. The same is true for the smoking rate in U.S. adults, which dropped 33 percent in that decade. But the consumption of non-cigarette tobacco products — like cigars or loose tobacco — increased 123 percent in that same time period, Sward says.
Little cigar sales in particular have increased dramatically, more than tripling since 1997, says Danny McGoldrick, vice president of research for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. And most of those little cigars are flavored, thus making them more attractive to kids.
“They’re really cheap, and they’re really sweet, and they have an obvious appeal to kids,” says McGoldrick. “They’re not your grandfather’s cigar.”
Appealing flavors like chocolate, cherry, strawberry or candy apple make it easier for people — especially kids — to start smoking by masking the harshness of tobacco, anti-tobacco advocates say. It’s the same concept behind those “alcopops” – flavored, sweet alcoholic beverages like wine coolers that experts argue are especially tempting to underage drinkers. And adolescence is a crucial time to prevent smoking before it starts, because about 90 percent of smokers start by the time they turn 18, national statistics show.
In 2009, Congress gave the U.S. Food and Drug Administration immediate jurisdiction over cigarettes, smokeless and roll-your-own tobacco. Currently, Sward explains, the FDA has submitted a proposal that would allow it to regulate all tobacco products. She says this current study highlights the urgent need for the FDA to be able to regulate all tobacco products, including little cigars.
“They’re deadly – just like cigarettes,” Frieden says. “It’s really important that we use all means at our disposal to protect the next generation from getting hooked on tobacco.”
http://www.nbcnews.com/health/too-many-american-teens-are-smoking-little-cigars-report-says-8C11433058

Cotton Candy and Atomic Fireball flavored electronic cigarettes are forging a new pathway to addiction, death and disease

By:  Ross P. Lanzafame, American Lung Association National Board Chair
Harold Wimmer, American Lung Association National President and CEO
E-cigarette use among middle school children has doubled in just one year.  Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that e-cigarette use also doubled among high school students in one year, and that 1 in 10 high school students have used an e-cigarette.  Altogether, 1.78 million middle and high school students nationwide use e-cigarettes.  Yet, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) still is not regulating e-cigarettes.  The absence of regulatory oversight means the tobacco industry is free to promote Atomic Fireball or cotton candy-flavored e-cigarettes to our children.  Clearly, the aggressive marketing and promotion of e-cigarettes is reaching our children with alarming success.
It is well known that nicotine is a highly addictive substance, whether delivered in a conventional cigarette or an e-cigarette.  The use of sweet flavors is an old tobacco industry trick to entice and addict young children to tobacco products, and the entrance of the nation’s largest tobacco companies into this market clearly is having an impact.   Why does Big Tobacco care about e-cigarettes?  Tobacco use kills more than 400,000 people each year and thousands more successfully quit.  To maintain its consumer ranks and enormous profits, the tobacco industry needs to attract and addict thousands of children each day, as well as keep adults dependent.   Big Tobacco is happy to hook children with a gummy bear-flavored e-cigarette, a grape flavored cigar or a Marlboro, so long as they become addicted.  We share the CDC’s concern that children who begin by using e-cigarettes may be condemned to a lifelong addiction to nicotine and cigarettes.
In addition, the American Lung Association is very concerned about the potential safety and health consequences of electronic cigarettes, as well as claims that they can be used to help smokers quit.  With no government oversight of these products, there is no way for the public health and medical community or consumers to know what chemicals are contained in an e-cigarette or what the short and long term health implications might be.   That’s why the American Lung Association is calling on the FDA to propose meaningful regulation of these products to protect to the public health.
The FDA has not approved e-cigarettes as a safe or effective method to help smokers quit. When smokers are ready to quit, they should call 1-800-QUIT NOW or talk with their doctors about using one of the seven FDA-approved medications proven to be safe and effective in helping smokers quit.
According to recent estimates, there are 250 different e-cigarette brands for sale in the U.S. today. With that many brands, there is likely to be wide variation in the chemicals that each contain.  In initial lab tests conducted by the FDA in 2009, detectable levels of toxic cancer-causing chemicals were found — including an ingredient used in anti-freeze — in two leading brands of e-cigarettes and 18 various e-cigarette cartridges. That is why it is so urgent for FDA to begin its regulatory oversight of e-cigarettes, which must include ingredient disclosure by e-cigarette manufacturers to the FDA.
Also unknown is what the potential harm may be to people exposed to secondhand emissions from e-cigarettes. Two initial studies have found formaldehyde, benzene and tobacco-specific nitrosamines (a well-known carcinogen) coming from those secondhand emissions. While there is a great deal more to learn about these products, it is clear that there is much to be concerned about, especially in the absence of FDA oversight.
http://www.gilmermirror.com/view/full_story/23870545/article—Cotton-Candy-and-Atomic-Fireball-flavored-electronic-cigarettes-are-forging-a-new-pathway-to-addiction–death-and-disease?instance=home_news_bullets

POV: Seven reasons the FDA should regulate e-cigarettes

By Kevin Keenan
In a recent online blog post by Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, it was clearly explained why e-cigarettes should soon be regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The CDC recently reported that rates of electronic cigarette use among U.S. youths more than doubled from 2011 to 2012, when 10 percent of high school students reported ever having used e-cigarettes.
These numbers are troubling but not surprising. There has been an explosion in e-cigarette marketing in recent years, and e-cigarette manufacturers are using the same slick tactics long used to market regular cigarettes to kids. The following are seven ways in which makers of the e-cigarette are using the same marketing strategies as the tobacco industry used back in the 1950s through the early ’70s:
1. They have celebrity spokespeople.
Like cigarette ads of old, television, online and print ads for e-cigarettes feature catchy slogans and celebrity endorsers, including actor Stephen Dorff and rock musician Courtney Love for NJOY. Their message: Using these products is trendy and cool.
2. Their magazine ads feature rugged men … and glamorous women.
These ads feature today’s equivalents of the Marlboro Man and the Virginia Slims woman, depicting e-cigarette use as masculine, sexy or rebellious. E-cigarette ads have appeared in magazines that reach millions of teens, including Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated, InStyle and Us Weekly.
3. They know sex sells.
Like cigarette companies have long done, e-cigarette makers portray use of their products as sexually attractive. The allure for young people to start using is just as real; particularly in the Internet age we live in.
4. They sponsor sports … and music festivals.
For decades tobacco companies used sponsorships of sports and entertainment events, especially auto racing and music festivals, to promote cigarettes to huge audiences, including kids. Cigarette sponsorships are now banned, however today e-cigarette brands have auto racing sponsorships of their own. The Blu Cig company is one of them.
5. Their products come in sweet flavors.
A 2009 federal law banned fruit- and candy-flavored cigarettes, but many e-cigarette companies gleefully pitch similar flavors. Apollo Vapors, for example, offers Almond Joyee (“the candy bar taste without the calories!”), French Vanilla (“like biting into a deliciously sweet vanilla cupcake”) and Banana Cream (“yummy ambrosia of bananas and whipped cream”).
6. They use cartoons.
The website for blu eCigs has featured a cartoon pitchman named “Mr. Cool.” It was reminiscent of the Joe Camel cartoon character that so effectively marketed cigarettes to kids in the 1990s.
7. Their ads say, “Switch, Don’t Quit.”
Tobacco companies have long tried to discourage smokers from quitting by marketing cigarette changes as reducing health risk. Some e-cigarette ads carry a similar message. No wonder youth e-cigarette use is on the rise. These developments underscore the need for the FDA to quickly regulate e-cigarettes and take steps to prevent their marketing and sale to kids.
Kevin Keenan is project director for Smoke-Free NOW, a program of Genesee/Orleans Council on Alcoholism and Substance Abuse.
http://thedailynewsonline.com/opinion/article_84e8a47a-32f7-11e3-a8fc-001a4bcf887a.html

City mulls underage e-cigarette ban

By Lucas High
lhigh@wyomingnews.com

CHEYENNE — The Cheyenne City Council is considering an ordinance that would add electronic cigarettes to the city’s list of tobacco products that cannot be sold to minors.

Electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, are “products often shaped like cigarettes, cigars or pipes that are designed to deliver nicotine or other substances to a user in the form of a vapor,” according to the Tobacco Control Legal Consortium.
“Typically, e-cigarettes consist of battery-powered heating elements and replaceable cartridges that contain nicotine or other chemicals, and an atomizer that, when heated, converts the contents of the cartridge into a vapor that a user inhales.”
The state already has laws banning the sale of e-cigarettes to people under the age of 18.
But by adding the proposed ordinance to city code, fines collected from violators would flow into city coffers, rather than to the state, city attorney Dan White said.
White added, “That’s the principle reason for having this as a violation under city code, because it’s a city fine and would then become part of the (city’s) budget.”
The Legislature voted earlier this year to amend the state’s smoking laws to include e-cigarettes on its list of regulated tobacco products, placing them alongside items like cigarettes, cigars and snuff.
The city has not yet done so.
Councilwoman Georgia Broyles, the sponsor of the proposed ordinance, said she introduced it to increase awareness of the dangers of e-cigarette use, especially in minors.
“I believe they are poisonous,” Broyles said. “I don’t see any good in them at all.”
A secondary goal of the ordinance is to bring city code in line with state law and improve uniformity, she said.
Lisa Ammons with the Prevention Management Organization of Wyoming told the council’s Public Services Committee on Tuesday that while e-cigarettes have been around since the 1960s, they have exploded in popularity recently.
The percentage of sixth- through 12th-graders in Wyoming who have tried e-cigarettes more than doubled between 2011 and 2012, Ammons said.
Electronic cigarette manufacturers have marketed their products, especially flavored e-cigarettes, toward minors, Ammons said.
“No one really buys an e-cigarette in bubble gum flavor as an adult,” she said.
Part of the reason for the increased popularity is the nationwide spread of smoke-free laws that ban smoking in places like bars and restaurants, Ammons said.
Electronic cigarettes are often not included in these bans, which allows smokers to use them inside bars and restaurants.
“E-cigarettes aren’t usually addressed (in smoking bans) because they are so new,” Broyles said.
Broyles’ proposed ordinance only addresses the sale of e-cigarettes to minors, not whether they can be used indoors.
But Broyles said she is “certainly open to looking at (adding an indoor e-cigarette smoking ban) as an amendment” to Cheyenne’s citywide ban on smoking indoors in public buildings.
While the proposed ordinance was recommended unanimously by the committee, several of its members expressed some skepticism about its necessity.
That skepticism was based on the redundancy of the ordinance, which mirrors the state law already on the books.
Councilman Bryan Cook said while he understands the problem of e-cigarette use by minors, he needs some more information before he can “really stand behind this (ordinance).”
“I’m still on the fence with the need, and maybe the push, for this,” Cook said.
Councilman Sean Allen expressed a similar sentiment.
“I just don’t know if it is necessary if (selling electronic cigarettes to minors) is already illegal by state statute,” Allen said.
The proposed ordinance goes to the full council for second reading next Monday night, then back to committee and back to the council again for a third reading and final vote.
http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2013/10/10/news/01top_10-10-13.txt

E-Cigarette trend catching on, but what are the effects?

by Stephanie Zepelin
BOISE — It might be a trend you have noticed: electronic cigarettes. The devices use battery power to heat a liquid (usually containing nicotine) the user inhales. Some folks are choosing this option over traditional cigarettes.
Electronicstix, a company that started in Utah, just opened their first store in Boise.
“We have three stores that have been pretty seasoned down in Utah,” said Devin Norager, who works at ElectronicStix.
Norager smoked traditional cigarettes before switching to vaping, and says a lot of people are in that same situation.
“Ninety-nine percent of it is people that do smoke and want a healthier alternative,” Norager said.
Kody Girard smoked for more than a decade, and is using vaping to cut costs from purchasing traditional cigarettes. Girard said he doesn’t know much about the health effects of vaping.
“It’s just like smoking,” said Girard. “You don’t know much about it you try to ignore it the best you can because it’s bad. So this might not be, but it’s gotta be better than cigarettes.”
Doctor Jim Souza, Vice President of Medical Affairs at St. Luke’s Medical Center in Boise, talked with KTVB about the health effects of e-cigarettes.
“I think the state of the science right now is there’s not enough information to draw a conclusion,” said Souza.
Dr. Souza said the main concern in health care is e-cigarette marketing targeting to kids.
“It’s estimated now that 10 percent of high school seniors have used e-cigarettes, of that 10 percent, 75 percent of them also use tobacco,” Souza said. “So because nicotine is so powerfully addictive, the concern from a public health perspective is that this could be a gateway into traditional tobacco for young people, and that would be a public health disaster.”
However, the reserve effect could be good for public health.
“I think most folks in health care think that if all smokers could convert to e-cigarettes, that would probably be a public health boon, although we don’t know that for sure,” said Souza.
He said it does help people kick the habit.
Audra Johnson started smoking years ago, and has been vaping for about three months.
“I figured it would help because I’ve tried patch, the pill, everything else, Chantix, nothing has really worked,” said Johnson.
Johnson said she is saving money by switching over to e-cigarettes, and feels better.
E-cigarettes range anywhere in price from a few bucks for a disposable one to several hundred dollars for the high-end products.
http://www.ktvb.com/news/E-Cigarette-trend-catching-but-what-are-the-effects-226619581.html

E-Cigarette Ads Spark Lawmakers’ Concern for Youths

By 
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/