Few rules apply to electronic cigarettes

BURR RIDGE – Craig Rzepka has gotten a few dirty looks while using his electronic cigarettes. That is, he said, until the complainant realizes the vapor he’s exhaling smells more like dessert than cigarette smoke.

Depending on the day, the vapor exuded by Rzepka’s smoking device might smell like cherry, chocolate mint, or even blueberry waffles.

Despite the pleasant aroma, the devices aren’t allowed everywhere, including at Eddie Merlot’s restaurant in Burr Ridge, where Rzepka is a manager.

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Rush To Regulate Ecigs Could Destroy Effective Alternative

WASHINGTON, Sept. 24, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire

Last week, several organizations sent a joint letter to the President, asking him to order the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to promptly assert authority over all tobacco products not currently under its jurisdiction.

The organizations imply that the delay is resulting in negative health consequences. However, they never mention any specific consequences, and for a good reason: They are proposing a "solution" where no problem exists. Instead, enacting regulations without sufficient scientific evidence has the potential to do a great deal of harm to public health.

The Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association (CASAA) is writing the president today to urge him to advise the FDA to take the time needed to develop science-based regulations that will serve the interests of public health. CASAA is a non-profit organization that works to ensure the availability of low-risk alternatives to smoking and to provide smokers and non-smokers alike with truthful information about such alternatives.

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The Silent War Against Retail and E-cigarettes

Within the past six weeks, documents outlining New York City’s secret war against electronic tobacco were leaked to the public. The contents of the documents are hardly surprising given New York’s recent assault on items sold in convenience stores, fast-food restaurants and supermarkets.

The documents were leaked by the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association (CASAA), an advocacy group aimed at raising awareness and protecting rights to access to reduced harm alternatives. What’s more, while tobacco and menthol flavored e-cigarettes would still be available in retail stores, all other flavored e-cigarettes could only be sold in age-restricted “tobacco bars.” Unfortunately,  New York City prohibits the operation of “tobacco bars” unless they were already in operation prior to  Dec. 31, 2001.

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E-cigarettes on the rise, but still unregulated!

Expert says e-cigarettes could be effective in quitting cigarettes or even more addictive, depending on how regulated

TOPEKA — Four years ago, when Rick Hasan first started selling electronic cigarettes, they seemed destined to be little more than a novelty, he said — the same as compact pipes and other smoking accessories available at his store.

"People were curious, but few kept buying. They would go back to the real cigarette," said Hasan, owner of Payless Smokes, a convenience and tobacco shop in Topeka. Now, "the e-cigarettes are taking up quite a bit of market share."

These days, e-cigarettes account for 15 percent of his sales, he said. Nationwide e-cigarettes are booming, with annual sales projected to reach $1.7 billion by year’s end.

The battery-operated devices — which vaporize liquid containing nicotine — have yet to be regulated by the federal government, though officials have pledged for two years now that they ultimately will be.

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Some employers penalizing workers for e-cigarette use

By Steven Ross Johnson 

A growing number of employers, including UPS and Wal-Mart Stores, have decided that electronic cigarettes are an unhealthy habit rather than a stop-smoking tool and are imposing tobacco-use penalties on employees who use them.

Ivette Lopez, a spokeswoman for UPS, confirmed the company's health plan would begin charging a monthly fee of $150 in 2014 to employees who used tobacco products, including e-cigarettes that carry liquid nicotine.

“FDA testing has determined that various samples (of e-cigarettes) have carcinogens and other toxic chemicals,” Lopez said. “They're just not proven to be safe.”

Wal-Mart spokesman Randy Hargrove said the company considers e-cigarettes a form of tobacco use, and as such, charges employees who use them higher premiums than their nontobacco workers. “We have nontobacco and tobacco rights,” Hargrove said. He used the term “rights” for describing the two separate plans the company offers to tobacco and nontobacco users.

Hargrove declined to comment on how much more Wal-Mart employees who are tobacco users have to pay in premiums compared with nontobacco users. But some tobacco users around the country may pay as much as $2,000 a year extra because of the surcharge. 

Employers that have such policies on e-cigarettes, including Wal-Mart, generally offer exemptions from the surcharge if workers participate in smoking cessation programs, but switching to e-cigarettes is not considered by these firms as participation in such programs.

The percentage of employers that have tacked a monthly surcharge on premium contributions for employees identified as tobacco users has increased from 35% in 2012 to 42% in 2013, according to an analysis conducted by the benefits consultant firm Towers Watson and the National Business Group on Health. That analysis projected the rate to rise to 62% by 2014.

Tower Watson Senior Consultant Michael Wood said he has advised clients who have asked what stand they should take on e-cigarettes to include them among products considered to be tobacco use.

“E-cigarettes have not been tested for safety,” Wood said. “Nobody knows what the ingredients really are and they have not been approved as a recognized and safe method for cessation like nicotine replacement therapy patches have or nicotine gum.”

Wood said no data have been collected yet on the number of companies deciding to include e-cigarette users among those hit with the premium surcharge. But he found among his clients that the initial reaction was in favor of penalizing them.

“They're just too many question marks about (e-cigarettes),” Wood said. “And if they're being manufactured by tobacco companies, they don't exactly have a stalwart track record of being forthcoming about what's exactly in their products.”

Employers application of surcharges to e-cigarette users is challenged by those who say standard cigarette smokers have been able to quit smoking through the use of e-cigarettes, which they claim are free of the harmful health effects of standard cigarettes.

“This is basically what I would call a harm reduction strategy,” said Michael Siegel, a public health professor at Boston University. He compared the use of e-cigarettes to help smokers quit tobacco with using methadone to wean addicts off heroin. “The whole idea of harm reduction is when you have a product that is not safe, but is a lot safer than the drug that's being used.”

Despite such claims, Helen Darling, president of the National Business Group on Health, said using e-cigarettes is still tobacco use and should be treated as such by employers. “Somebody could say if they smoked six cigarettes a day instead of 25 or 30, because they're smoking less and they're using it to taper down, they should not be penalized for using tobacco,” Darling said. “It's the same principle.”

The Food and Drug Administration is expected to come out with a proposed set of regulations on e-cigarettes in October. If the agency labels use of e-cigarettes as “tobacco use,” it could open the door for health insurers under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to charge users up to premiums as much as 50% higher than non-smokers.

Originaly published by Modern Healthcare

Is ‘Vaping’ Better Than Smoking?

A growing number of smokers are turning to electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) to get their nicotine fix instead of smoking traditional cigarettes. Is "vaping" better than smoking? The e-cigarette industry would like us to believe that it is. But more research needs to be done, and federal regulation is needed.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) currently does not regulate the manufacture, marketing and sale of e-cigarettes. In New York State, they cannot be sold to minors, but other states are still trying to determine how to deal with this relatively new product. As Mitch Zeller, Director of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, has said, "Right now, it's the wild, wild west." Buyer beware.

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International Vapor Group CEO, Nick Molina, Interviewed About E-Cigarette Industry

International Vapor Group CEO, Nick Molina, Interviewed About E-Cigarette Industry on Bloomberg TV

Carina Ost

MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - August 28, 2013) - International Vapor Group (IVG), a leader in the electronic cigarette industry, announced today that CEO, Nick Molina, appeared on Bloomberg TV's "Money Moves" with Deirdre Bolton. The show focuses on innovative companies and IVG leads through manufacturing, distributing and marketing some of the biggest names of e-cigarettes, including South Beach Smoke, EverSmoke, NutriCigs, and new retail concept VaporZone.

Bolton began the interview by highlighting the explosive growth of the e-cigarette industry thanks to celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio and companies like International Vapor Group.

The first question was focused on how Molina is preparing for FDA regulations. Molina noted that all International Vapor Group's brands, including South Beach Smoke, were well prepared and actually embraced FDA regulations. "We are diversifying our distribution through distributors, authorized retailers and our own brick and mortar stores in the confines that may be set by the regulators," said Molina. Molina reminded Bolton that the main issue was in age verification to prevent selling to minors and that is something IVG takes very seriously.

The company CEO was careful to note that e-cigarettes were a more convenient alternative to smoking traditional cigarettes and can tout things like no smoke and no ash.

When Bolton pressed on competition in the industry and how Molina is protecting his brands' position, he responded that innovation is key. The CEO added, "When you look at e-liquid, we are one of the few companies that manufacture it in the U.S. Most of my competitors manufacture their e-juice in China." This 100% USA made liquid nicotine juice is a huge differentiator across all International Vapor Group brands including: South Beach Smoke, NutriCigs, EverSmoke and a new retail concept called VaporZone.

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FDA Denies Talk of Online E-Cigarette Sales Ban

SILVER SPRING, Md. -- Despite media reports that the online sale of electronic cigarettes could soon be banned, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a statement saying that it did not discuss any possible regulations in a series of listening sessions held last week.

"The FDA did not raise or weigh in on potential regulatory options -- including any potential restrictions on e-cigarettes or any other particular product category -- during these listening sessions," said Mitch Zeller, director of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products. "Any details about the agency's intent to regulate additional categories of tobacco products will be made publicly available to all interested parties at the same time, through the issuance of a proposed rule."

According to the statement from the agency, the FDA frequently meets with members of the tobacco industry, as well as with public health groups and other stakeholders, to better understand any concerns or questions they may have. As part of this effort, listening sessions with e-cigarette companies have been held at their request and have given the FDA an opportunity to listen to their concerns and views.

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009 gave the FDA the authority to regulate tobacco products. In April 2011, the agency said it was developing a strategy to regulate electronic cigarettes as tobacco products under the 2009 measure.

Via CSNews

E-cigarettes targeted for state regulation

From Winchester Star By Colleen Quinn:

Winchester, MA —

As electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, grow in popularity, it is legal in most Massachusetts cities and towns for minors to buy the smoke-free products marketed as an alternative to traditional paper cigarettes.

Boston is one of about two dozen Massachusetts communities that prohibit store owners from selling the nicotine alternative to minors. But some owners say they assumed those restrictions were nationwide.

The Food and Drug Administration has yet to step in and regulate the decade-old products that appear to be gaining popularity. The FDA recently said it would issue guidelines later this year.

While waiting for the federal government to weigh in, a Boston lawmaker wants the state to make it illegal to sell e-cigarettes and other nicotine delivery products to anyone under 18 years old in Massachusetts.

Twelve states have passed legislation restricting e-cigarette sales in some way, including Colorado and Minnesota.

Rep. Jeffrey Sanchez, D-Jamaica Plain, said current state laws are "silent" on electronic cigarettes and other products like it, and minors have easy access to them unless cities and towns take action. Sanchez wants statewide regulations, and filed a bill last week to prohibit sales to minors.

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Arguments just a smokescreen for opponents of electronic cigarettes

Aug 16, 2013 by Kelly Kaderabek

Picture by Des Barry

The junior minister has written to Health Minister James Reilly and State’s chief medical officer, Dr Tony Holohan, asking them to “clarify the legal status” of the products “for which the health effects are uncertain.”

He claims to have been approached by people “worried” by what he calls “glamorous advertising”, and he cites a World Health Organisation conclusion that until these devices are deemed safe consumers should be strongly advised not to use any of these products. Kehoe wants “strong regulation of these devices”.

Kehoe is the first prominent Irish politician to fall in line with a pattern emerging throughout Europe, and other parts of the world, where electronic cigarettes seem to be upsetting people almost as much as the real things.

Denmark, Belgium and Norway have banned them, as have Turkey, Brazil, Argentina and Singapore. Despite the absence of smoke — which means there can be no impact on non- smokers as caused by second hand smoke from real cigarettes — France is looking at banning their use in pubs and restaurants and other public places.

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Harm of E-cigarettes?

Aug 14, 2013 by Kelly Kaderabek

Three Piece E-cigarette

There is no doubt that smoking is harmful. Tobacco is thought to kill nearly 6 million people every year, but do electronic cigarettes provide the answer to this assault on the nation’s health? As with conventional cigarettes, there is often an information deficit on the chemicals that electronic cigarettes contain and although some just use flavoured water vapour, others can contain a cocktail of chemicals including nicotine of varying concentrations and quality.

E-cigarettes have emerged onto the UK market relatively unregulated. In countries such as Brazil, Norway and Singapore they have been banned entirely or are only available as a regulated medicinal product. From 2016 the UK will follow New Zealand’s example and license e-cigarettes as a medicine so all e-cigarettes on the UK market will have to prove their quality, safety and effectiveness to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. Is this really an appropriate response to a product which already appears to be used reasonably safely by 1.3 million people in the UK?

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FDA to Propose New Regulations on E-Cigarettes

Aug 10, 2013 by Kelly Kaderabek

From The Legal Examiner by David Mittleman:

E-Cigarettes No Better Than Regular Cigarettes

You’ve probably seen those ads for the E-cigarette, which promise to allow you to get your nicotine fix while leaving you sans-ash try smell. In one commercial for Blu E-cigarettes, Stephen Dorff tells you how you can “stop feeling guilty” when you want to light up, stop “smelling like an ashtray”, and that you can even enjoy your E-cigarette at a basketball game. Dorff also casually mentions that he’s been a smoker for 20 years, which is what I find most problematic about this commercial, and apparently so does the Food and Drug Administration.

FDA Ponders the Regulation of E-cigarettes for Three Years

E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that heat nicotine solution and create an inhalable vapor. The FDA has discussed the possibility of regulating E-cigarettes since 2010, and rightly so. The cigarette companies are likely trying to attract a new slew of smokers by first hooking them to a slightly less harmful E-cigarette with the hopes of getting them to move into the full-blown addiction.

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CNBC Article...

Bloomberg Is Trying To Snuff Out Your E-Cigs

Aug 9, 2013 by Kelly Kaderabek

E-cigs

The Bloomberg administration is quietly working to explicitly categorize electronic cigarettes as tobacco products and enact a sweeping ban on flavored e-cigs.

The details of the plan come from a newly leaked draft of three tobacco-related bills currently making their way through the City Council; one would raise the tobacco age to 21, while another would prohibit the display of cigarette advertising in stores. A third bill would prohibit the use of tobacco coupons, create a $10.50 price floor for cigarette packs, and increase the fines against those selling illegal cigarettes.

Initially the bills, drafted by the Health Department and introduced into the Council at the request of Mayor Bloomberg, were silent concerning the City's position on electronic cigarettes.

"The bills were written with no intention of addressing electronic cigarettes at all," Health Department Commissioner Thomas Farley told e-cigarette proponents [PDF] at a hearing in May.

The draft language reveals that this is no longer the case. While menthol and tobacco flavored e-cigarettes would ostensibly remain available at convenience stores, the burgeoning flavored e-cig market would ironically be relegated to "tobacco bars," of which there are very few in New York City—mostly because they must have been in existence before December 31, 2001.

"This is a de facto ban on electronic cigarettes,"

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E-cigs ad blitz goes unregulated

Aug 3, 2013 by Kelly Kaderabek

From News.com.au:

COMPANIES vying for a stake in the fast-growing e-cigs business are reviving the decades-old marketing tactics the tobacco industry used to hook generations of people on regular cigarettes.

They're using cab-top and bus stop displays, sponsoring race cars and events, and encouraging smokers to "rise from the ashes'' and take back their freedom in slick TV commercials featuring celebrities like TV personality Jenny McCarthy.

The Food and Drug Administration plans to set marketing and product regulations for electronic cigarettes in the near future. But for now, almost anything goes.

"Right now it's the wild, wild west,'' Mitch Zeller, director of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

Electronic cigarettes are battery-powered devices made of plastic or metal that heat a liquid nicotine solution, creating vapor that users inhale. Users get their nicotine without the thousands of chemicals, tar or odor of regular cigarettes. And they get to hold something shaped like a cigarette, while puffing and exhaling something that looks like smoke.

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E-Cigarette Sales to Hit $1 Billion

Jul 31, 2013 by Kelly Kaderabek

E-cigarette

a relative novelty three years ago--are about to hit $1 billion in sales, according to Wells Fargo securities analysts.

While that's only 1 percent of sales of traditional cigarettes, the number of consumers who say they've tried e-smokes is growing fast. The sale of e-cigarettes totaled just $500 million last year.

According to the most recent survey by the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, in 2011 about 21 percent of adults who smoke traditional cigarettes said they had tried the electronic alternative, up from about 10 percent in 2010.

"Overall," says a CDC press release, "about 6 percent of all adults have tried e-cigarettes, with estimates nearly doubling from 2010."

"E-cigarette use is growing rapidly," said CDC director Tom Frieden in a February 2013 release announcing the survey's findings. "There is still we do not know about these products."

E-cigarettes, in their most popular form, look like conventional tobacco cigarettes. They do not, however, contain leaf tobacco and they do not burn. As described by CDC, they are battery-powered devices that provide inhaled doses of nicotine vapor and flavorings. Because they do not burn and do not produce smoke, their advocates consider them more socially acceptable than traditional cigarettes.

Their detractors do not. The Long Island Rail Road declared earlier this month that e-cigarettes violate LIRR's smoking ban, which declares it unlawful for railroad patrons to "burn a lighted cigarette, cigar, pipe or any other matter or substance which contains tobacco or any tobacco substitute."

SAFER SMOKE OR NEW BAD HABIT?

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Regulator to Act on e-Cigarettes

Jul 27, 2013 by Kelly Kaderabek

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will resolve in a month whether to regulate or ban electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) after medical groups raised health concerns on its use.

Kenneth Y. Hartigan-Go, director-general of the FDA, said inputs presented in a public hearing yesterday as well as position papers of various stakeholders on e-cigarettes will be considered in the decision.

"The regulators will study these and come back to you in a period of one month's time with a clear position of what we need to do as far as this item is concerned," Go said.

In April 2013, the FDA issued an advisory that it has "not registered any electronic cigarette product and will not register them as health products." The FDA also said in the advisory that e-cigarettes violate Republic Act (RA) 9211 or the Tobacco Regulation Act of 2003 since it promotes smoking among children and the youth.

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E-Cigarette Vendors and Makers Fret As Government Officials Plan to Regulate Their Industry

Jul 18, 2013 by Kelly Kaderabek

They come to Paul Davey for help every day. Most have little to no knowledge of the electronic smoking world and just stare, wide-eyed and perplexed, at the devices behind the glass: batteries, flavored e-cigarette liquid, chambers to hold liquids, mouthpieces. They're smokers—some lifers, some short-timers—who all have the same plea: They need to quit. "They'll say, 'I smoke seven [cigarettes] a day, and I've been trying to use these electronic ones, but I have no idea what's in it. I just know you buy it, you use it, and you throw it away.'"

Blu eCigs

He tells them his story. "I smoked for 27 years," he says, "and I bought my first e-cigarette online. Within a week, I had quit." Within a year, armed with his pharmaceutical background, he opened up the Vapor Loft in Orange. He sells all the necessary bits and bobs to start "vaping," the term used by e-cigarette users. But he also set out to educate customers in a community riddled with bad information, explaining everything from why it's called vaping (the devices create a water vapor that can be inhaled) to troubleshooting questions to helping them choose the right e-liquid. When the Vapor Loft opened in 2012, there were only a couple of such shops; now, Orange County is home to around 60, one of the highest concentrations of e-cig businesses in the United States.

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FDA faces important decisions on regulation of e-cigarettes

Jul 17, 2013 by Kelly Kaderabek

The FDA faces a dilemma as electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, grow in popularity, according to researchers.

The agency initially tried to block the sale of e-cigarettes, claiming that they were unapproved “drug/device combinations.” Manufacturers successfully challenged the FDA's position, but in a 2010 ruling, a federal appeals court held that e-cigarettes could be regulated by the agency as tobacco products.

In 2010, 11.4% of U.S. smokers report ever using an e-cigarette, and 4.1% report using one within the last 30 days, the most recent data from two surveys that involved more than 6,000 people indicate. In the city of Boston, 28 permits to sell e-cigarettes were given out in June 2013, compared with only three in June 2012.

Yet many of the alleged benefits of e-cigarettes are unproven and tighter regulations to ensure the quality of the product are needed to protect public safety.

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E-cigarettes an emerging alternative

Jul 15, 2013 by Kelly Kaderabek

E-cigarettes remain in a regulatory haze in Illinois.

The one bill sent to Gov. Pat Quinn in the spring legislative session bans sale of the cigarette alternative to anyone younger than 18. But the debate continues on just how to regulate e-cigarettes.

About all that both sides agree on is that some type of regulation is coming with the growing popularity of the products.

“I expect there will be some things to come as more vapor stores are opening online and in communities,” said Niki Castleman, who opened Tribble Vapors at 2413 Denver Drive in Springfield last spring.

Tribble Vapors is among the first group of e-cigarette retail outlets in the region. The shop is named for Castleman’s partner in the business.

Castleman lives in St. Louis but stays with family in Springfield as needed to take care of the shop. Herself a smoker for nearly 30 years, Castleman said there are probably 15 to 20 e-cigarette shops in the St. Louis metro area.

“It’s just growing in leaps and bounds,” said Castleman, who also uses her products.

Bloomberg News reported in June e-cigarette sales are expected to hit $1 billion within a few years.

Awaiting FDA

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E-cigarettes: Is a smoking alternative being choked by regulation?

Jul 6, 2013 by Kelly Kaderabek

Dozens of countries are introducing legislation restricting the use of e-cigarettes, but their proponents say they are harmless and their use could in fact save millions of lives. Could they be right?

A group of friends sits around a table in a pub in south London, exchanging stories and putting the world to rights in a cloud of scented vapour.

One of them is 31-year-old Jonny Lavery.

"I had a big problem with death, a really big problem with dying," he says. "I wanted to avoid dying at all costs."

But three years ago, Lavery realised that as a smoker of 15 years, his chance of doing this was diminishing. Roughly half the world's smokers die from their habit. The trouble was Johnny just enjoyed it too much to quit.

Then he found an alternative - the electronic cigarette.

These gizmos contain batteries and "e-liquid" - a solution of propylene glycol or glycerine - containing a nicotine dose. A battery inside the e-cigarette heats up a coil attached to a wick. When the liquid is presented to the hot wick it produces vapour which can be inhaled.

They don't quite match the nicotine hit of a real cigarette, but they come close enough to have won over 1.3 million users in the UK alone (compared to nine million tobacco smokers). In the US, e-cigarette sales could pass $1bn (£650m) this year - up from $600m (£390m) in 2012.

Since there is no smoke, puffing on e-cigarettes is called vaping, not smoking. The group of men and women sitting in the pub call themselves vapers - they meet regularly to vape and to talk about vaping.

A little nerdy, they resemble a gang of home-brewing enthusiasts more than a stop-smoking support group.

They inspect one another's vaporisers - which come in all manner of shapes and sizes - and sniff one another's vapour. "I'm currently vaping toffee popcorn," says Shari Levy, emanating sweetness. "And this one here is coffee. And this one is tutti frutti - that's nice for the summer. Amaretto with a morning coffee is just delicious."

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