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Welcome to your e-cigarette news roundup for the day that Americans lovingly refer to as Black Friday. After a day of giving thanks for things we already have, it’s time to go get new things. Shameless plug, be sure to check out the Black Friday roundup. Back to the news, this was a big week with EU’s plot to completely eviscerate e-cigarettes exposed to the light of day and eliciting quite an opposition in Europe. In the US, it seems that the FDA might be up to something after all.
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Anti-nicotine Crusading Doctor Against Nicotine, eCigs
In the world of prohibition, there seems to be a divide between anti-smoking and anti-nicotine camps. Where the anti-smokers tend to go after the appearance of e-cigarettes, the latter have a general problem with people enjoying nicotine in any form. Yet a Florida doctor seems to have gone off the deep end.
E-cigarettes booming but benefits just smoke and mirrors, say doctors
Public health officials have pointed out there is little long-term science or studies regarding e-cigarettes and smokers are not quitting so much as they’re switching from one nicotine-delivery device to another.
”Are they safe?” said Dr Barry Hummel of the Tobacco Prevention Network of Florida. ”They’re probably safer than smoking regular cigarettes but they’re certainly not safe. Electronic cigarettes don’t help anyone quit nicotine and there’s plenty of harm from nicotine, like heart attacks and brain strokes. It’s not a cup of coffee.”
via E-cigarettes booming but benefits just smoke and mirrors, say doctors.
Oh really? So does that mean he doesn’t recommend traditional NRT for his patients? What about the many foods that contain nicotine? Has he had a raft of patients keel over from too much eggplant parmesan?
Is the FDA Plotting to Curb eCig Market? Regs Coming in December
We all know that the FDA was planning on coming out with some kind of regulations covering e-cigarettes. That got somewhat delayed when the government shutdown got the FDA’s proposal stuck at the OMB. It appears there has finally been some movement. The OMB published the FDA’s deeming regulation information on the December agenda. The full rule is kind of hard to read and is mostly boiler plate. However, there’s a bit at the very end of this rule template that is giving me the creeps.
View Rule
This deeming rule is necessary to provide FDA with authority to regulate these products (e.g., registration, product and ingredient listing, user fees for certain products, premarket requirements, and adulteration and misbranding provisions). In addition, the additional restrictions that FDA seeks to promulgate for the proposed deemed products would reduce initiation and increase cessation (particularly among youth). This rule is consistent with other approaches that the Agency has taken to address the tobacco epidemic and is particularly necessary given that consumer use may be gravitating to the proposed deemed products.
View Rule
It seems that the agency is intent not on ensuring e-cigarettes are safe and not marketed to children, but to slow down the uptake on products consumers are gravitating to. We all know that means e-cigarettes. I’m afraid things could indeed be getting very dark.
eCig Vendor sued for 'Free Trial' Scam
Free e-cigarette trials are generally a black mark on the e-cigarette industry (see my take on them). Frankly, I’m surprised this hasn’t actually happened before. Two e-cigarette companies are being sued over their free trial and autoship schemes in Chicago.
E-Cigarette Vendor Called Serial Scammer
“Vapor Corp. and GVP fail to clearly and conspicuously disclose to consumers – who are eager to receive their free trial of e-cigarettes – that 14 days following the transaction (in which consumers only pay $4.95 for shipping and handling) they will then charge consumers’ credit and debit cards over $100.
“If the initial charge wasn’t bad enough, defendants also enroll consumers in a monthly club and tack on additional, reoccurring monthly charges for Vapor Corp.’s products without disclosing to consumers – in any readily recognizable fashion – that this charge will be imposed,” according to the complaint.
Vapor Corp. states on its website that it owns the e-cigarette brands Smoker 51, Krave, Green Puffer, VaporX, and EZ-Smoker.
via Courthouse News Service.
I believe this is a class action suit. That means the plaintiffs won’t really get much out of the deal, but it will likely make life very uncomfortable for the merchants. In a perfect world it may send a chilling message to merchants who undertake this nefarious practice.
Prohibitionists Standing in Way of Safer Nicotine
Despite all the negative press that gets around about e-cigarettes these days, there are a number of health advocates who actually aren’t freaking out over imaginary threats of e-cigarettes. Normalization isn’t a scary threat, it’s the promise of a better tomorrow. e-Cigarettes’ natural ability to compete with and erode cigarette sales could be the greatest win for public health. Now it just requires the public health advocates to get the hell out of the way.
The ‘Incredible and Unprecedented’ Chance to Make Nicotine Safer
Part of the normalization of the e-cigarette industry involves separating the enjoyment of consuming nicotine as a drug from the harms of a defective, historically disastrous product: Tobacco smoke. The success of e-cigarettes, which are essentially stylized nicotine inhalers, has the potential of shifting nicotine into a category closer to caffeine: A socially-accepted stimulant people can enjoy in relative safety. That’s a long way from happening, and some may not want it to happen.
Top level guidance from the FDA will soon show how the government will approach the products, but how anti-tobacco campaigners end up viewing e-cigarettes could also color the way the industry grows, especially given the importance of local government policies in tolerating where the e-cigarettes can be used. If grassroots campaigners push for heavy restrictions, it would be bad news for the industry — and bad news for what some health experts think is a unique moment in the push against tobacco-related deaths.
via The ‘Incredible and Unprecedented’ Chance to Make Nicotine Safer – Corporate Intelligence – WSJ.
Of course, without a villain like Big Tobacco, what need is there for health campaigners exactly? Without cigarettes, there’d be no grants. We just can’t have that now.
Prohibitionst Sees Youth Quitting Cigs, Spins it Into Gateway
A new study of several thousand students in South Korea was recently published. The study found a fairly high smoking rate among those 13 to 18 years old, around 17%. While the study found that most e-cigarette users were currently smokers and many were trying to quit cigarettes, the Lex Luthor to vaping’s Superman saw something different in the numbers.
E-cigarettes a New Route to Youth Smoking Addiction
“We are witnessing the beginning of a new phase of the nicotine epidemic and a new route to nicotine addiction for kids,” according to senior author Stanton Glantz, UCSF professor of medicine and director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at UCSF.
via E-cigarettes a New Route to Youth Smoking Addiction.
It gets even more absurd when the report is further dissected as was done by Dr. Farsalinos. It turns out 0.6% of e-cigarette users were not current smokers, but most of that tiny percentage were FORMER smokers, that is to say they completely switched to vaping. I guess that just doesn’t exactly make for an epidemic of alarming proportions.
Lung Doctor Doesn't Seem to Care About Results
CBS This Morning ran a story about electronic cigarettes that was absolute classic clueless media. The piece featured the president of NJoy and a parade of prohibitionists. The list included a renowned lung doctor who essentially blew off the notion of e-cigarettes as something helpful.
Booming E-cigarette industry raises questions on safety, regulation
Still, some in the medical community — including Dr. Neil Schachter, a leading lung specialist at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital — remain unconvinced that e-cigarette manufacturers are the so-called good guys.
“Patients have come in and say, ‘Gee I’ve tried this new form of cigarette. Great. I’m smoking this non toxic form of cigarette.’ I say to them, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know if this is non toxic,’” Schachter told Glor.
via Booming E-cigarette industry raises questions on safety, regulation – CBS News.
Of all people, you’d think he’d be aware of the studies done on cytotoxicity of lung tissue. Plus, as a lung specialist who’s treated people switching to e-cigarettes, you’d think the improvements in lung function he would have seen in his patients wouldn’t have gone unnoticed.
EU: Revenge of the TPD
Former head of the anti-smoking charity ASH in the UK Clive Bates put up an interesting piece on his blog. It seems the prohibitionists behind the medicalization attempt in the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive will not go quietly. Part of the process of making laws in the EU involves a process where opposing sides go into conference to come up with some kind of compromise to present to the parliament. In this case the compromise consists of “we want to make things even worse.” Here’s a rundown of some hair raising aspects of the document that is circulating behind closed doors as a starting point for TPD 2.0.
They just don’t get it – Commission proposal for the regulation of e-cigarettes
The main troubling features include:
Allows only single-use cartridges. No refillable units or tanks will be permitted.
Allows only flavours already approved for use in NRT.
Limits nicotine density to 20mg/ml maximum with no justification
Limits nicotine content of any container to just 10mg/unit – this is extremely low and arbitrary (see new paper
Allows only devices that “deliver nicotine doses consistently and uniformly” – an unnecessary, severe and limiting technical challenge
Bans all advertising in press or printed publications (except trade), on radio, TV and other audiovisual services and the internet (through “information society services“)
Bans e-cigarette sponsorships that have cross border impact (e.g. anything that might be shown on TV)
Applies onerous and unnecessary warning, labelling and leaflet requirements that may be impractical
Bans cross border distance sales (internet etc)
Requires manufacturers to track so-called ‘adverse effects’ even though nicotine is widely used and understood
Requires the submission of large quantities of seemingly irrelevant technical and commercial data
Asserts (against the evidence) that e-cigarettes “simulate smoking behaviour and are increasingly used and marketed to young people and non-smokers”.
via They just don’t get it – Commission proposal for the regulation of e-cigarettes « The counterfactual.
There’s even more stuff hiding in there like the notion that companies must wait 6 months before putting anything on the market. Of course, as restricted as everything else would be, there’s not exactly much room for innovation in here anyway.
Some Object to Boston's eCig Parks Ban
It seems Boston’s new rules forbidding smoking (and vaping, and toking) has raised the ire of some locals. While there’s a veneer of protecting public health when it comes to combustibles, there is no logic behind e-cigarettes that can be justified by anything other than the city trying to control how people behave.
Smoking out true motive
“There is no known safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke, and secondhand smoke exposure in certain outdoor areas has been found to pose a significant health risk,” the ordinance approved by the Boston City Council reads.
But with the ban on the use of electronic cigarettes in public parks the council has moved to ban use of a product that produces no secondhand smoke. And there is no reliable scientific data to suggest that e-cigarettes pose a serious threat to the health of those who use them — never mind threaten those who happen to be playing on the jungle gym 100 feet away.
via Smoking out true motive | Boston Herald.
With Chicago also getting on board with this idea of banning anything even mildly like smoking, there’s probably more of these stories ahead of us.
Guardian 2nd Guesses e-Cigarette Users Naming Conventions
Apparently UK prohibitionists took the weekend off. The Guardian ran an oddball story about the new Vaping Zone at Heathrow airport. Really, the article was mostly about picking apart the terminology used by e-cigarette users.
Is 'vaping' really the best word for smoking e-cigarettes?
Is this what we’re supposed to call the act of smoking an electronic cigarette? Vaping? Are e-smokers vapists? Because vaping sounds worryingly like a form of sexual assault, or a bewilderingly ill-advised 1980s dance craze. Smokers must be furious. E-cigarettes were their big chance to become socially acceptable again, but whoever came up with “vaping” has ruined it. What’s worse: going outside to smoke, or sitting indoors to vap off?
via Is ‘vaping’ really the best word for smoking e-cigarettes? | Society | The Guardian.
Hey now! Vaping is our word, leave us alone. There’s plenty of people out there trying to suck the pleasure right out of vaping, can we at least let the users of e-cigarettes to name the activity? Ok, so perhaps I should have recused myself or something, given the name of the site and all.
Choosy Vapers Choose Different
One of the classic debates in the e-cigarette industry is whether smokers jump into the world of vaping because entry level e-cigarettes look more or less like cigarettes. At Wells Fargo’s recent eCig Forum, the number 1 (blu) and number 2 (NJoy) brands squared off on this idea. Blu came in on the side of different.
Product Debates at Wells Fargo’s E-Cig Forum
Jim Raporte, president of the clear industry leader blu Ecigs, argued that the numbers suggest otherwise.
“Our market growth has been largely at the expense of the No. 2 brand,” he said. “A big key is that we do not look like a traditional cigarette.”
Logic’s president Miguel Martin agreed with this assessment, noting that the two e-cig companies experiencing the most growth in the Nielsen numbers—Logic and blu—in no way look like traditional cigarettes.
“We believe that when adult smokers move to this category, they want that bartender or friend across from them to know that they’re not smoking a cigarette,” he concluded.
via Product Debates at Wells Fargo’s E-Cig Forum | CSPnet.
I always thought anything that kept you away from the bad side of the local bouncer or mall cop was probably a good idea.
The HuffPo's Latest Anti eCig (and anti-woman) Hit Piece
I’ve always wanted to write a headline like that. Mostly to take away from the monotony of reporting that yet again the Huffington Post ran an article blasting electronic cigarettes. As is typical, the article misses the point of e-cigarettes, making the claim that just because people quit smoking cigarettes but still use e-cigs they must still be smokers. Oh, and then there’s this part.
The Truth About The Safety Of E-Cigarettes
This great unknown of possible negative health effects, along with the lack of regulation of e-cigarettes, scares experts like Leone. The products come bereft of health warnings. How many pregnant women will vape following McCarthy’s promotion?
As for their merits in smoking cessation, e-cigarettes don’t appear very helpful. A study published last month in the journal Addictive Behaviors found that most smokers who used them while they tried to quit either became hooked on vaping, or reverted back to smoking cigarettes. A study published Nov. 16 in the journal The Lancet found no statistically significant difference in the merits of the e-cigarette over the nicotine patch in terms of helping people quit. via The Truth About The Safety Of E-Cigarettes.
That’s right pregnant women, you are incapable of thinking for yourselves. It must be all those baby chemicals running around in your icky women parts or something. So instead, you do something the first random bimbo in a commercial tells you to do. What’s next will the HuffPo be offering advice on how to properly hand your man his pipe and slippers after a long day at the ad agency?
Mother Abandons Girl, 7. Gives her eCig - What is wrong with people?
This isn’t really an e-cigarette story exactly. Some lowlife ditched her 7 year old daughter and gave her an e-cigarette to play with while the mother took a nap inside their apartment.
Police: OKC mom left daughter outside in cold, gave her e-cigarette
An Oklahoma City mom is facing child neglect charges after police say she left her young child out in the cold and gave her an electronic cigarette to smoke.
A neighbor called police after they found a 7-year-old girl standing out in the cold with no way of getting into her apartment. The child’s mother, Daphne Lynn Steen, 46, was sleeping inside the apartment and told police she didn’t hear her daughter knocking on the door because she was in a “deep sleep” from all the medications she was taking that day, police said.
via Police: OKC mom left daughter outside in cold, gave her e-cigarette | Oklahoma City – OKC – KOCO.com.
Obviously, she could have given the kid any sort of inappropriate thing and the story wouldn’t have changed. Why did it have to be an eCig?
Turning the Tables: Report Finds Prohibitionists Prone to Exaggeration
The same independent Oklahoma news site that found Oklahoma cities might be banning e-cigarettes for the benjamins, reports that some anti-smoking advocates are full of hot air. In particular the report covered in the article points out how some groups are still hanging on to the deeply flawed 2009 FDA press release claiming all kinds of nasty things about e-cigarettes.
New study counters health arguments against e-cigarettes
“
Over the past four years, public health advocates have embellished, exaggerated and distorted statements from that January 2009 press conference to suggest that e-cigarettes might be even more harmful than cigarettes. It simply is not so. FDA, for its part, continues to repeat statements from this conference, but is careful not to compare the hazard posed by e-cigarette vapor to the hazard posed by cigarette smoke,” Dr. Nitzkin contends in his new report.
via New study counters health arguments against e-cigarettes « Watchdog.org.
Since we don’t know the long-term negative impacts of unchecked prohibitionists, the prudent move should be to ban prohibitionists until further evidence proving their safety and efficacy have been published.
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Originally posted: e-Cigarette News Round for 11-29 – Black Friday
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