April 29, 2014
After years of inaction, just last week, the Obama Administration finally let the FDA issue its long-awaited (and disappointing) proposal to "deem' that it had authority to regulate e-cigarettes as well as cigars and other tobacco products.
The FDA’s proposed rule is weak -- and it is only a proposal. It will likely be years, if ever, before it takes effect.
And, aside from restricting in person (but not internet) sales of e-cigarettes to minors, it does not offer any of the common sense protections recently passed by City Councils in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and other cities.
New York and Chicago's laws went into effect today.
For example, Chicago requires e-cigarettes to be put behind the counter, out of the reach of children. The FDA did not.
Through licensing, Chicago limited the type of retailers who can sell these products. The FDA did not.
Chicago has prohibited the sale flavored e-cigarettes, which come in dozens of kid-friendly flavors like cotton candy and bubble gum, near schools. The FDA did not.
The FDA did not even attempt to restrict advertising of e-cigarettes to kids. Even if the FDA’s proposed rule takes effect, advertising addictive e-cigarettes to kids will still be completely legal.
April 23, 2014
I could not find the actual rule on the FDA website. This is my first reaction based on what was in the NY Times the evening of April 23, 2014.
While establishing minimum age to purchase e-cigarettes at 18 is sensible, the FDA's proposal does nothing to reign in the wild west marketing of e-cigarettes to kids (that the FDA itself recognizes).
It does not ban flavors that are well-dcoumented to appeal to kids in cigarettes. It does not apply the same restrictions on television and radio advertising of ecigarettes that apply to cigarettes. The FDA's failure to act to reign in youth-rated marketing will allow the ecigarette companies to continue building the youth market for years.
Press reports indicate that there will be a warning that ecigarettes contain the addictive drug nicotine. The specific size and placement of the warning is important. We need to see details. Simply saying "nicotine is addcitive" probably does not inform youth of the risks very well because the idea of "addiction" is so abstract.
April 18, 2014
Just when you thought the Obama Administration's (non) handling of e-cigarettes could not get any more dysfunctional, the FDA posted this announcement on its website on Friday afternoon April 18, 2014:
A Special Statement from CTP [FDA Center for Tobacco Products]
04/18/2014
Updates from the Center for Tobacco Products
The FDA has not issued its proposed rule regarding what additional tobacco products should be regulated by the agency. We are aware that the Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association has indicated publicly that they have a copy of our proposal. The proposal is still in draft form and under review. As a matter of policy, the FDA does not share draft rules with outside groups while a rule is still under review.
April 17, 2014
On April 14, 2014, several members of Congress released an important report, Gateway to Addiction: A Survey of Popular Electronic Cigarette Manufacturers and Targeted Marketing to Youth, in which they surveyed the major e-cigarette companies about their advertising and promotional activities (and, when the companies ignored requests for information collected information directly from their websites and other sources). The report' findings are:
Major findings:
April 17, 2014
While the Obama White House sits on the FDA, communities all over the country are moving forward to control e-cigarettes in two important ways (1) including them in clean indoor air laws, and (2) regulating sales to youth.
The tobacco companies (and make no mistake, it is the big tobacco companies) are mounting a nationwide push to preempt (take away the rights of) local communities to enact this sensible legislation. And, as they did in the 1980s, the tobacco companies are using legislation that nominally protects kids from e-cigarettes as "Trojan Horse" legislation to enact preemption and other bad policies (such as making it harder to tax e-cigarettes).
This issue is very hot right now in Florida, where the industry is pushing House Bill 169 that would do just that.
Flordia was the first state, back in the 1980s, to pass a state law preempting clean indoor air after communities started passing strong, for the time, local laws. Unfortunately, Big Tobacco won that victory with the help of the health organizations who were unwilling to cross powerful legislators aligned with the cigarette companies. It took decades to get a strong state clean indoor air law and bars remain preempted.