e-cigarettes

FDA Tobacco Regulation May Harm Public Health By Blocking Healthy Alternatives

by Hans Bader on June 23, 2009

in Features, Healthcare, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Precaution & Risk, Regulation, Sanctimony, Zeitgeist

Yesterday, Obama signed into law a deceptive FDA “tobacco regulation” bill that will undermine public health in the long run by protecting cigarette manufacturers against competition from less deadly tobacco products (which is why the nation’s largest cigarette maker supported the bill). As Bill Godshall of Smoke Free Pennsylvania notes, the bill “protects the most hazardous tobacco product (cigarettes) from market competition by the least hazardous (smokefree) tobacco products, as it:

* bans all new and recently introduced smokefree products, while keeping cigarettes on the market.
* deceives consumers to believe that smokefree tobacco products are just as hazardous as cigarettes
* prohibits industry from telling smokers that smokefree products are less hazardous than cigarettes . . .

“Cigarettes are 100 times deadlier than smokefree tobacco products, but 85% of smokers incorrectly believe that smokefree tobacco products are just as hazardous as cigarettes. By switching to smokefree tobacco/nicotine products, smokers reduce their health risks by nearly as much as by quitting all tobacco/nicotine, and millions have already done so.”

Patrick Basham calls the new law “an epic public health mistake.” As I noted earlier, FDA regulation may actually undermine public health by making it harder to market to smokers other tobacco products, like snus, that are not as lethal as cigarettes. As Jacob Sullum notes, the law will require snus “to carry a warning that it ‘is not a safe alternative to cigarettes,’” even though “there’s no question that snus is far less hazardous than cigarettes.” And to even “introduce a ‘modified risk product,’ a manufacturer has to convince the FDA not only that the product will ‘significantly reduce harm and the risk of tobacco-related disease to individual tobacco users’ but also that it will ‘benefit the health of the population as a whole, taking into account both users of tobacco products and persons who do not currently use tobacco products.’”

The Examiner earlier described how the bill would reduce competition in the tobacco industry and enrich the biggest cigarette company at the expense of consumers and competitors alike. Although the bill is supported by the most well-funded anti-smoking groups (which indirectly receive money from Big Tobacco through the $246 billion Master Settlement Agreement), the bill’s “most important ally” is “the largest cigarette maker in the world.”

In other news, the FDA is blocking importation of so-called “E-cigarettes,” which are infinitely less dangerous than cigarettes because they do not emit any smoke. “If the FDA were to succeed in banning or restricting e-cigarettes, which are already illegal to sell in Australia and Hong Kong, the potential health risks to American smokers looking for a tar-free and less offensive cigarette alternative would be enormous.”

E-Cigarette Smokers Could Be Left Out in the Cold

by Evan Banks on June 21, 2009 · 4 comments

in Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Precaution & Risk, Regulation

The “smokes” may be different, but the Food and Drug Administration’s ever-vigilant watch to keep us safe from ourselves in its quest to quantify and purge all health risks from society continues. Their latest target? Smokeless cigarettes, or so called “E-cigarettes.”

The devices in question utilize an atomizer to vaporize a nicotine and propylene glycol (a substance commonly found in fog machines) solution that the user inhales and exhales as a vapor. Since there’s no tobacco, combustion, smoke, or smell involved, savvy individuals have taken advantage of the devices, which can be bought online or in mall kiosks here in the States, to get around heavy taxes on tobacco products and stringent smoking bans in public places.

But that hasn’t stopped the FDA, which as of this writing has “refused [the importation of] 17 shipments of various brands of these ‘electronic’ cigarettes, cigars, and pipes, and their components,” on the basis that the devices are drugs and as such need regulatory approval before being marketed in the US.

Even without the FDA’s newly-gained jurisdiction over tobacco products (though clearly e-cigs aren’t tobacco products), the Administration already had the authority to regulate drugs containing nicotine (such as patches, sprays, inhalers, or gum) that are designed to help users kick the habit.

All this recent buzz about e-cigarettes seems to have come from a front-page article in the June 1 New York Times, in which the director of the Nicotine Dependence Center at the Mayo Clinic stated that “We basically don’t know anything about them. They’ve never been tested for safety or efficacy to help people stop smoking,” despite this Health New Zealand safety report on Ruyan e-cigarettes, the Chinese product on which U.S.-imported versions are based, and the fact that the FDA has approved of nicotine for use in various and sundry quitting aids (some of them inhalant-based). As for propylene glycol, the substance is already generally considered by the FDA to be safe for consumption. From the FDA’s report:

“Propylene glycol is metabolized by animals and can be used as a carbohydrate source. Propylene glycol can be ingested over long periods of time and in substantial quantities (up to 5 percent of the total food intake) without causing frank toxic effects.”

If the FDA were to succeed in banning or restricting e-cigarettes, which are already illegal to sell in Australia and Hong Kong, the potential health risks to American smokers looking for a tar-free and less offensive cigarette alternative would be enormous.