December 19, 2013
Stanton A. Glantz, PhD
Including e-cigs in smokefree laws is not "banning" e-cigs
There is no question that e-cigarettes pollute the air, so it makes complete sense that they be included in clean indoor air laws, as New York City did yesterday.
In response, there is a lot of overheated rhetoric coming out of ecig advocates that doing so is banning ecigs and depriving them of these "life saving" devices that helped them quit smoking cigarettes.
Leaving aside the fact that population-based studies of ecigarettes consistently show that adults and kids who use smoke ecigs are less (not more) likely to quit cigarettes, there is nothing in the New York or any of the other clean indoor air laws that prohibit people who want to use ecigarettes because they think they will help them quit smoking. All these laws require is that that vapers use their ecigs in ways that do not hurt anyone else.
It may even be that including ecigs in smokefree laws will make it more likely that they will help people quit smoking because ecigs will no longer be available as "bridges" to replace cigarettes in smokefree environments while continuing to smoke cigarettes when possible (the current dominant pattern).
On December 18 I debated former Surgeon General Richard Carmona and now NJOY board member Richard Carmona on CNN. Carmona submitted testimony against the NY City smokefree law and defended his decision to join the NJOY board on the grounds that ecigs would reduce harm by replacing conventional cigarettes.
If Carmona and NJOY are serious about promoting ecigs for harm reduction or smoking cessation (as nicotine delivery devices, as he said on CNN), they should be supporting not opposing including ecigs in clean indoor air laws.
In the meantime, the attorneys generals, who, unlike t he FDA, have been actively engaged on law enforcement aspects of ecigs, to force the ecig companies to stop promoting them with the smoke anywhere" claim. There are already enough places that using ecigarettes is now prohibited that these ads are encouraging people to break the law.
Comments
Miselading Harm Reduction Arguments
I agree, Stan. Whether or not you believe that cigarettes are viable harm reduction products, there is no harm reduction argument I can find for exempting electronic nicotine delivery systems from clean air laws.
I was shocked to see the Times op-ed last week appear to make a harm reduction argument in favor of exempting e-cigarettes from clean air laws by talking about the principle of harm reduction, about needle exchange programs and HIV, about helping reduce exposure to the most dangerous consumer product still sold. But there was no actual harm reduction argument made as to how it would help for people to vape freely in the workplace, in restaurants, etc. The real issue of enabling dual use was ignored by Fairchild and Colgrove either out of ignorance or convenience.
Exempting vaping from smoking restrictions promotes dual use, frustrates enforcement by allowing a visually similar behavior, undermines norms around smoking that were a long time in the making, and, pollutes the air for the rest of us, albeit less than cigarettes do.
E-cigarettes may be a useful harm reduction product. If so, manufacturers should demonstrate that to FDA and apply to be approved as Modified Risk Tobacco Products. Even so, there is no evidence-based earthly reason why they should be allowed to be used where smoking is prohibited.
-Mark Gottlieb
Public Health Advocacy Institute
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