March 6, 2014
Today JAMA Pediatrics is publishing our study of the relationship between e-cigarette and cigarette use in 40,000 US kids. The paper is available here; the accompanying editorial is available here.
Here is the UCSF press release about the study:
UC SAN FRANCISCO
Jennifer O’Brien, Executive Director/Public Affairs
Source: Elizabeth Fernandez (415) 502-6397 (NEWS)
E-mail: [email protected]
Web: www.ucsf.edu
Twitter: @EFernandezUCSF
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
THURSDAY, MARCH 6, 2014
TO COINCIDE WITH PUBLICATION IN JAMA PEDIATRICS
E-Cigarettes: Gateway to Nicotine Addiction for U.S. Teens, Says UCSF Study
First National Analysis Strongly Associates E-Cigarettes with Smoking for Many Adolescents
March 5, 2014
On March 4, 2014 the City Councils for both Los Angeles and Long Beach, CA, unanimously passed laws adding e-cigs to their clean indoor air laws.
The ecig/tobacco companies pulled out all the stops to fight the LA ordinance, including hiring well-connected lobbyists, running radio ads and robocalls, but in the end the City Council resisted the pressure and enacted a strong law that will protect people in indoor workplaces, restuarants, bars and other public places and some outdoor areas from ecigarette air pollution.
The LA ordinance does allow e-cigarette use in vaping lounges; the specific language is being prepared now. It is important that these establishments be defined carefully as places that only sell e-cigarettes and related materials. In particular, they should not be allowed to serve food and drink to avoid opening up a loophole in the law.
The Long Beach law is even more comprehensive. Here is a summary of what happened there from the Coalition for a Smokefree Long Beach:
March 3, 2014
The e-cig/tobacco companies are trotting out the argument that the LA City Council does not need to include e-cigs in its clean indoor air law and instead wait for the FDA to regulate e-cigs.
This reminds me of how, back in the 1990s, while fighting federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration efforts to issue a smokefree workplace rule, the tobacco companies were telling local city councils that they didn't need to pass clean indoor air laws but rather wait for OSHA (which never did issue the rule).
The industry assertions that LA (and other cities and states) should wait for the FDA is even more cynical. Leaving aside the Obama Administration FDA's flaccid performance in actually doing anything meaningful to regulate tobacco, as I pointed out last summer, the fact is that the FDA has no jurisdiction to regulate WHERE people use e-cigarettes.
Big tobacco and their flacks know this.
The LA City Council should see past this (and the other) phony arguments and pass a strong law keeping indoor spaces free of e-cigarette pollution.
March 3, 2014
March 3, 2014
Mayor Eric Garcetti
Members, Los Angeles City Council
via email
Dear Mayor Garcetti and Council Members,
I am writing to support pending legislation you are considering that would include e-cigarettes in Los Angeles' current smokefree ordinance. This is a sensible piece of legislation that mirrors what cities large and small are doing all over the country (and the world).
Last December two colleagues at UCSF and I prepared an extensive review of the scientific evidence at the request of the World Health Organization, "Background Paper on E-cigarettes (Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems)."
While the scientific evidence is still accumulating, there is no question that e-cigarettes pollute the air breathed by bystanders with nicotine, ultrafine particles, volatile organic compounds, and other pollutants and that bystanders take these chemicals into their bodies. Having spent decades cleaning up the indoor air, there is no reason to reintroduce a new form of indoor air pollution.
February 28, 2014
While I have not been directly involved in the debate over the efforts to include e-cigarettes in the Los Angeles smokefree ordinance, it is clear from reports I am getting that the tobacco/e-cigarette industry is pulling out all the stops to block or water down the ordinance.
Here is a summary of the information that has been sent to me:
Yesterday (February 27, 2014) they started RoboCalls to all members of the City Council.
They hired campaign consultants (many of whom are fund raisers for Council members) to lobby the Council.
In advance of the committee hearing the e-cig companies started running ads on local radio stations encouraging e-cig users to attend the hearing, including on Jack FM and KNX 1070.
Here is the Blu e-cig (Lorillard Tobacco Company) Freedom Friday alert and the Protest Pro Tip and their Los Angeles specific alert. and the one SFATA put out.