Washington Post – April 28, 2010

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has ruled that battery-operated cigarettes known as e-cigarettes do not violate the state’s smoking ban.

Yes, battery-operated cigarettes. The devices have apparently been around for the last few years, marketed as a nicotine delivery system that doesn’t cause second-hand smoke. They work by simulating the feeling of smoking providing inhaled doses of nicotine in a vaporized solution.

Read the rest at:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/virginiapolitics/2010/04/battery-operated_cigarettes_do.html

News 10 in Sacramento had a good story on electronic cigarettes.  Check it out at:

http://www.news10.net/video/default.aspx?bctid=74560109001#/E%2Dcigarettes%3A+A+true+remedy+to+quit+or+teen+marketing+tool%3F/74560109001

CASAA sent the following letter to to the NY Senate Health Committee members (individually named, of course), and to all Assemblymembers. 

The Honorable Thomas K. Duane
Chair, Senate Health Committee
430 State Capitol Building
Albany, NY 12247

Re: S7234 – Currently pending before Senate Health Committee

Dear Senator Duane:

The Consumer Advocates for Smoke-Free Alternatives Association (CASAA) is shocked to learn that recently introduced legislation (A9529 & S7234) has been quickly advancing through the NY Legislature that would harm or kill many of our members by either forcing us to go back to smoking cigarettes, or requiring us to travel to other states and/or to purchase nicotine vaporizers (AKA electronic cigarettes or e-cigarettes) from a newly created black market throughout New York. We implore you to oppose and/or quickly amend this inhumane legislation that protects combustible cigarettes and threatens the health of ex-smokers and smokers alike.

CASAA is a nationwide non-profit organization created last year by hundreds of e-cigarette consumers who recently quit smoking or sharply reduced cigarette consumption by switching to these life saving products. Our association (comprised solely of concerned volunteers) works to educate the public about these products, and to protect the rights of our members and of smokers who want to switch to significantly less hazardous smokefree tobacco/nicotine alternatives.

In the past two years, several hundred thousand smokers in the US have switched to nicotine vaporizers, and virtually all have experienced significant improvements in breathing, taste, smell and overall health. Unlike traditional cigarettes, nicotine vaporizers don’t burn tobacco and don’t emit any smoke. Instead, these novel products emit a tiny amount of nicotine and propylene glycol vapor, which has been used for decades in air purifiers, asthma inhalers and other medications, and (in far greater amounts) theatrical fog, and is considered safe by the FDA and EPA.

Increasingly more public health experts and anti smoking advocates agree that nicotine vaporizers are far less hazardous alternatives to cigarette smoking and pose no known harm to users or nonusers, including the American Association of Public Health Physicians (AAPHP), the American Council on Science and Health, and Smokefree Pennsylvania. CASAA strongly supports the AAPHP’s two recently filed petitions to the FDA to classify and regulate e-cigarettes as tobacco products, and to truthfully inform
smokers that these products are far less hazardous alternatives to cigarettes. http://www.regulations.gov/search/Re…DA-2010-P-0095
http://www.regulations.gov/search/Re…DA-2010-P-0093

A key reason CASAA was created was in response to false accusations about e-cigarettes (and calls for their ban) by some abstinence-only tobacco prohibitionists who are heavily funded by drug companies that market nicotine gums/lozenges/patches and other smoking cessation drugs, which most CASAA members already tried using in unsuccessful quit smoking attempts. But nicotine vaporizers are marketed as alternatives to traditional cigarettes, not as smoking cessation aids. In January, Federal Judge Richard Leon agreed in a sharply worded ruling, stating the FDA can only regulate e-cigarettes as tobacco products, in SE v FDA, a case in which CASAA members along with other consumers submitted an Amicus Curiae brief.

Since nicotine vaporizers pose potentially devastating market competition to traditional combustible cigarettes (as virtually all e-cigarette consumers used to buy and smoke traditional cigarettes), the chief beneficiary of A9529 & S7234 would be cigarettes, while the legislation threatens the health of smokers, ex-smokers and those who will continue to be exposed to secondhand smoke. Ironically, we aren’t aware that any tobacco company is lobbying to ban e-cigarettes, just drug industry funded groups.

A9529 & S7234 also would impose additional (and totally unnecessary) costs on state and local taxpayers for enforcement and adjudication, and would further burden already overwhelmed police departments and courts in New York.

While CASAA adamantly opposes banning the sale of e-cigarettes to adult smokers, we would support the provision in A9529 & S7234 that would ban their sale to minors. Although there is no evidence that any minor uses e-cigarettes or that any e-cigarette supplier markets to minors, CASAA urges you to support amending A9529 & S7234 to ban e-cigarette sales to “minors” (but not adults), as occurs with all other tobacco products.

Thank you for your attention and consideration.

Enc: Electronic Cigarette Fact Sheet

Maryland’s House Bill 720 that would ban electronic cigarettes has been voted down in a rollcall vote in the Health and Government Operations Committee.  Apparently the committee members saw through the hype and saw what a detriment this bill would have on the health of Maryland smokers that have chosen to switch to electronic cigarettes. 

We can only hope that the same thought is given to similar bills in Illinois, New York, and California.

Kristin Noll-Marsh

Here’s a link to the article:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2832754/7_biggest_electronic_cigarette_myths.html?cat=9

Bill Godshall, Executive Director of SmokeFree Pennsyvania, attended VapeFest 2010 and writes about it:

This past Saturday morning I drove to Vapefest 2010 at the Hilton Garden Inn in Fredricksburg, VA to attend the world’s largest gathering (so far) of electronic cigarette consumers (who prefer being called “vapers”) organized by the National Vapers Club.

Since those lobbying for laws/regulations to prohibit the sale and/or indoor usage of electronic cigarettes (also called “personal vaporizers”) have alleged the products are carcinogenic/toxic/hazardous for users and/or nonusers, and since some have claimed there is no evidence that cigarette smokers can quit smoking by switching to vaping, I decided to learn more about these novel products (whose sales have skyrocketed in the past two years) and their users.

Considering that the fundamental tenet of all toxicology is “the dose makes the poison” (e.g. consuming two gallons of water can kill a person) and that I experience severe headaches when exposed to even low levels of secondhand tobacco smoke, pesticides, glues and perfumes, I decided to expose myself to massive levels of e-cigarette vapor.

One hundred people registered for this free event held in the hotel’s conference room about 25′ by 50′ with a 10′ ceiling that displayed a Fire Marshall’s sign stating a room capacity of 98 people (although there were rarely more than 80 people in the room at any given time). Virtually everyone in attendance (except several spouses) was vaping, typically taking a puff or two every five or ten minutes.

Not wanting to stick out in the crowd, I also decided to try vaping an e-cigarette for the first time. Since I haven’t consumed nicotine since 1979 when I quit “cold turkey” my two/three pack a day cigarette addiction, Vapefest 2010 organizer Spike Babaian gave me a “no nicotine” vaporizer (that are used by about 10%-20% of vapers who have weaned themselves off nicotine) containing a “one day” disposable cartridge. Similar “one day” cartridges that contain nicotine are roughly equivalent to 15 tobacco cigarettes.

Over the next six hours, I deeply inhaled about 100 puffs from the vaporizer before it stopped emitting vapor. The only noticable symptom during and/or after my direct vaping experience was a bit of “dry mouth” that an was alleviated by an occassional drink.

My conversations with and observations of nearly all Vapefest 2010 participants revealed that:
- every vaper had been a cigarette smoker until they discovered vaping during the past year or two,
- nearly all vapers had been heavy smokers who had previously consumed one to three cigarette packs per day,
- most attendees vape more often and in greate quantities than typical e-cigarette users,
- the vast majority of vapers exclusively switched from smoking to vaping, while 10%-20% still smoked cigarettes occassionally,
- nearly all vapers I spoke to indicated that their breathing, taste and smell had significantly improved,
- many vapers had unsuccessfully tried to quit smoking using nicotine gums, lozenges, patches and/or other Rx drugs,
- all attendees distrust and have a seething hatred for the FDA and others that are trying to ban vaporizers and/or vaping,
- most attendees had considered themselves either apolitical or liberal, but nearly all now dislike Obama and Democrats for trying to ban e-cigarettes,
- all attendees enjoyed the rally/party-like atmosphere, and most plan to attend similar events in the future,
- all attendees were Caucasian except for one Asian, with about 60 men and 40 women,
- nearly all attendees were between the ages of 30 and 60, several were older, but nobody was under 25,
- participants came from about 20 different states mostly east of the Mississippi, and virtually all drove to the event,
- nearly all attendees were low or middle income, and a key reason many/most switched to vaping was to save money,
- nearly all graduated from high school, about 30% had a college degree, and most lived in cities or suburbs,

As the only smokefree policy activist in attendance, the most common questions I was asked included “Why do e-cigarette opponents:
- lie and scare people about the health risks/benefits of vaping compared to cigarette smoking?
- have no respect for my right to decide what I put in my own body?
- want to ban these products that are the only thing that got me off cigarettes?
- want to force me to go back to smoking cigarettes now that I’ve finally quit?
- hate smokers and vapers, and/or want to harm/kill us?

These were not easy questions to answer, especially since I’ve been asking many similar questions during the past 18 months about e-cigarettes (and during the past decade about smokefree tobacco products as harm reduction alternatives). For some insight, attached is a new article by Alderman, Dollar and Kozlowski entitled “Understanding the origins of anger, contempt, and disgust in public health policy disputes: Applying moral psychology to harm reduction debates”.

In response to these questions, I informed them that the goal of most public health and tobacco control advocates is to reduce tobacco disease and death (nearly all of which is caused by daily cigarette smoking) by encouraging/helping smokers to quit, raising cigarette taxes, preventing/reducing youth smoking, reducing secondhand smoke exposure to nonsmokers, and that a growing number of public health advocates are advocating e-cigarettes and other smokefree tobacco harm reduction products for smokers.

But I also explained that some abstinence-only activists (many of whom are government health officials or heads of well financed anti-tobacco groups that have received lots of drug industry funding) want to eliminate all tobacco/nicotine use and/or ban all tobacco/nicotine products (except nicotine gums/lozenges/patches that are marketed only for temporary use as smoking cessation medicine). But since the new federal law lobbied for by CTFK, ACS, AHA, ALA, etc. prohibits the FDA from banning the deadliest tobacco product (i.e. cigarettes) and other traditional tobacco products (e.g. cigars, smokeless and smoking tobacco), I explained that these same groups (and others) are now aggressively trying to ban any/all new smokefree tobacco/nicotine product alternatives even though they appear to be at least 99% less hazardous than cigarettes and pose no known risks for nonusers.

During the ten hours I was in the Vapefest 2010 conference room on Saturday, participants collectively vaped the equivalent of 2,000-3,000 tobacco cigarettes. While the visible vapor disappeared one or two seconds after vaping occured, there was a slightly visible vapor mist in the room (but insignificant compared to outdoor fog or theatrical fog) since dozens of people were vaping simultaneously most of the day. There also was a mild pleasant smell in the room due to the many different flavorings that most vapers added to their e-cigarettes (by dripping a drop of flavoring into their vaporizer), and that were being sold by most of the ten e-cigarette vendors who paid $50 to sponsor (i.e. cover the costs of) the event.

As one who experiences severe headaches, sneezing, watery eyes and other sinus problems from exposure to very little secondhand tobacco smoke (a key reason I’ve been an outspoken smokefree indoor policy/law activist since 1986), I’m delighted and relieved to report that I experienced NO adverse reactions during or after my mega exposure to e-cigarette vapor.

Realizing that personal experiences are not a substitute for air quality data or other scientific research, I’ve been advocating laboratory emission tests, air quality tests and other studies on e-cigarettes and vapers for the past several years with limited success. Several days before Vapefest 2010, I invited many tobacco control advocates, researchers and public health officials to attend the event (and invited some researchers to bring testing equipment to measure air quality inside the conference room). Unfortunately, I was the only person from the tobacco control community that was interested enough to attend the event.

Ironically, it appears that the grass roots volunteer organizers and participants of Vapefest 2010 are now doing more (than are any tobacco control professionals) to help cigarette smokers quit and to truthfully inform the public about the known health risks/benefits of vaping e-cigarettes versus smoking cigarettes.

An estimated 300,000 – 500,000 cigarette smokers in the US have switched to e-cigarettes in the past two years. And an estimated $100-$200 million of e-cigarettes (and related vaping equipment and supplies) were sold in the US in 2009, which reduced tobacco cigarette sales by an estimated $200-$400 million (as vaping e-cigarettes costs about half the price of smoking cigarettes). It is critically important to understand that every dollar that smokers and exsmokers spend on e-cigarettes eliminates $2 that previously had been (and would otherwise be) spent on tobacco cigarettes.

If the number of vapers and e-cigarette sales continue growing at similar rates, another million cigarette smokers will switch to vaporizers in 2010, and sales may surpass the estimated $600 million in combined sales of nicotine gums, lozenges and patches. And if e-cigarette usage and sales continues growing at similar rates in future years, the number of e-cigarette users and sales could surpass smokeless tobacco products in several years, and could surpass tobacco cigarettes within a decade.

Ironically and tragically, while e-cigarettes appear to pose the greatest threat yet to the future of the cigarette industry, efforts by the FDA and others to ban the sale and/or use of e-cigarettes primarily protect cigarette markets and make it even more difficult for smokers to quit. So it is vitally important to continue asking why some tobacco control activists are aggressively campaigning to protect the cigarette industry at the expense of smokers and public health.

That is also why Smokefree Pennsylvania and other tobacco harm reduction advocates have been urging the FDA to reclassify and to reasonably and responsibly regulate e-cigarettes as tobacco products (instead of trying to ban them by claiming they are drug devices), and have been urging the FDA to begin to truthfully inform smokers and the public that e-cigarettes and other smokefree tobacco/nicotine products are far less hazardous alternatives to cigarettes that pose no known risks to nonusers.

Since 1990, Smokefree Pennsylvania has advocated policies that have reduced indoor tobacco smoke pollution, increased cigarette taxes, reduced tobacco marketing to youth, preserved civil justice remedies for those injured by cigarettes, expanded and funded smoking cessation services, and that inform smokers that smokefree tobacco/nicotine products are far less hazardous alternatives to cigarettes. For disclosure, neither I nor Smokefree Pennsylvania have ever received any funding (directly or indirectly) from any tobacco, drug or e-cigarette company or trade assocation.

Bill Godshall
Executive Director
Smokefree Pennsylvania
1926 Monongahela Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15218
412-351-5880
smokefree@compuserve.com

Here’s a good article on forbes.com published on 3/9/10.

http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/09/barack-obama-smoking-fda-opinions-contributors-jeff-stier.html

Some quotes:

True, smokeless tobacco is not 100% safe (what is?), but it makes no sense for regulators and antitobacco activists to rob current smokers of this less-harmful option. The regulators’ approach suggests that “quit or die” is the only acceptable choice to offer people.

A panel to advise the FDA on tobacco issues has just been named, and unfortunately it will comprise people who will advise against the use of smokeless tobacco and e-cigarettes. One of the twelve chairs is occupied by a pharmaceutical industry consultant whose NRT products stand to lose a slice of the market if smokeless tobacco or e-cigarettes are approved.

I grew up in upstate New York and know that money talks when it comes to politics.  Now they’re wanting to ban e-cigs.  One of the reasons is that we’re marketing to children.  WHAT???  Besides being untrue, how many kids have $80 to spend on a Starter Kit when they can go down the the local convenience store and buy a pack of smokes for $7?  We can’t even get any 20-somethings to get interested in this product.  What a crock!  Here’s the bill:

http://open.nysenate.gov/legislation/api/1.0/html/bill/A9529

Electronic Cigarettes are mentioned on “The Doctors” for a 2nd time.  See:

http://thedoctorstv.com/main/procedure_list/1354