European Lawmakers Reject Tight Restrictions on E-Cigarettes

By ANDREW HIGGINS and MATT RICHTEL –

STRASBOURG, France -

The European Parliament on Tuesday scrapped proposals by health officials that electronic cigarettes be tightly regulated as medical devices, setting the stage for a debate in the United States over the extent of regulation.Multimedia

Franck Fife/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesE-cigarette users ingest nicotine in the form of vapors from heated fluid, an alternative to smoking commonly called vaping.

European lawmakers endorsed a permissive approach to the sale and use of e-cigarettes, although the products could not be sold legally to anyone younger than 18.

The Food and Drug Administration in the United States has said it wants to issue regulations on the nicotine-delivery devices soon. Industry leaders and public health officials had expected them by the end of October but the regulations may be delayed because of the partial government shutdown that has emptied F.D.A. offices.

The electronic cigarette measure in Europe was widely watched because the use of e-cigarettes, primarily by smokers seeking a way to kick the tobacco habit, has skyrocketed in Europe and the United States. Instead of smoke from burning tobacco, users ingest the nicotine in the form of vapors from a heated fluid — an alternative to smoking commonly called vaping.

The advent

of vaping has removed some of the stigma of tobacco use, and in some cases people can use e-cigarettes in places where smoking tobacco is prohibited. The European Union legislation, however, does not address the issue of where vaping is permitted, leaving that to national and local jurisdictions.

Some Wall Street analysts predict that sales of the battery-powered devices could surpass those of cigarettes within a decade. But the products and their use have quickly outrun any regulations on either side of the Atlantic. Some people hope this new technology will become a widely used alternative to tobacco. While their health effects are not fully understood, e-cigarettes are generally considered less harmful than smoking.

E-cigarette companies, supported by growing legions of e-cigarette users, had lobbied hard against medicinal regulation. They welcomed the European Parliament vote as a victory for good health and good sense.

“This is a fantastic result for public health and the millions of smokers around Europe who are switching to e-cigarettes,” said Charles Hamshaw-Thomas, corporate affairs director of Britain’s biggest e-cigarette brand by sales volume, E-Lites. “Common sense has prevailed.”

But while exempting e-cigarettes from an onerous and potentially costly certification process required for drugs, an amendment to the Tobacco Products Directive approved by parliamentarians imposes tight restrictions on advertising and sponsorship. In these areas, e-cigarettes face the same restraints as regular cigarettes, including the ban on sales to young people.

As expected, the European Parliament also voted to approve measures adopted this year by European Union officials, banning conventional cigarettes with menthol flavoring and requiring cigarette packs to carry health warnings in pictures and text covering 65 percent of the packages, up from 40 percent. But Parliament voted to delay the menthol ban by five years. It will take effect in eight years instead of three.

Regulators in the United States must now grapple with two serious concerns public health officials have raised about e-cigarettes. Scientists are not certain of the health impact of using e-cigarettes or of inhaling secondhand vapor. Perhaps more pressing, it is not clear whether e-cigarettes will revive an interest in smoking by celebrating a behavior that health officials have spent decades trying to demonize.

“These products threaten to undo all that,” said Matthew L. Myers, president of Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, who wants the F.D.A. to issue tough guidelines for how e-cigarettes can be marketed and sold. With such regulations, “e-cigarettes have potentially positive value,” he said, “but we’ve already seen that, if left to their own, e-cigarette manufacturers will reach out to our children, do everything to maximize sales, including re-glamorizing smoking, and that’s where we are today.”

The market for electronic cigarettes and related paraphernalia, which barely existed a few years ago, is now estimated to be worth more than $650 million a year in Europe, although no precise figures are available. E-cigarette sales in the United States have also exploded to create what Wall Street analysts predict will be a $1.7 billion market this year.

Stanton Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco, proposes that the F.D.A. move at a “deliberate” pace and then, if the benefits of e-cigarettes prove to outweigh the concerns, liberalize the rules.

“We can’t allow e-cigarettes to establish themselves the way cigarettes have and then, five years from now when we’ve answered all the open scientific questions, we have to try to stuff the genie back in the bottle,” he said.

For now, he said it was crucial to maintain advertising restrictions and establish a ban on indoor use until it is clear that secondhand vapor is not dangerous and to maintain smoke-free environments that encourage cigarette cessation.

In late September, 40 state attorneys general signed a letter urging the F.D.A. to assume “immediate regulatory oversight of e-cigarettes, an increasingly widespread, addictive product.” The letter said that the states, after years of fighting to protect their citizens from the dangers of tobacco products, want to see advertising restrictions and efforts to curb marketing and sale of e-cigarettes to young people.

The letter also referred to the findings of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which last month published an “emergency note from the field,” a form of advisory usually reserved for disease outbreaks. The C.D.C. note reported a doubling to 10 percent of experimentation with e-cigarettes by high school students from 2011 to 2012. It estimated that 1.78 million middle- and high-school students had tried e-cigarettes during 2012.

While other scientists share concerns about the lack of clear data, they are more hopeful that e-cigarettes will eventually reduce smoking rates. Their relative optimism stems from the fact that e-cigarettes help simulate the experience of smoking, which theoretically would make it easier to quit.

In a statement provided by e-mail, the chief executive of Lorillard, the tobacco company that recently bought blu eCigs, the largest e-cigarette company in the United States, sees less harm and more benefits. Murray S. Kessler said, “E-cigarettes might be the most significant harm reduction-option ever made available to smokers.” As a result, regulation should, while limiting access to children, not limit development of the product or access by adults, he said.

Craig Weiss, the chief executive of NJOY, the second-largest e-cigarette company, said he favored regulation that would require companies to disclose ingredients, adhere to manufacturing standards and require age verification for purchase.

But he opposed limits on television advertising, which he said could limit awareness. And he objected to bans on the use of e-cigarettes indoors, because, he said, permitting indoor use is one way to make e-cigarettes more convenient than traditional ones.

The European Commission, the European Union’s Brussels-based executive arm, and the European Council, which represents member governments, will still need to sign off on the final form of the legislation and the changes that Parliament made on Tuesday.

Individual countries would then have several years to adjust their national rules to conform to the new regulations.

The scale of lobbying by tobacco companies came to light in leaked confidential documents from the cigarette company Philip Morris International, whose brands include Marlboro. Obtained by antismoking activists and widely publicized by the European media, the documents detail an extensive lobbying campaign involving 161 Philip Morris employees.

A Philip Morris spokesman did not challenge the authenticity of the documents and said they appeared to have been “stolen.” He denied that the company wanted to block “effective regulation.”

Andrew Higgins reported from Strasbourg, France, and Matt Richtel from San Francisco.

A version of this article appears in print on October 9, 2013, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: European Lawmakers Reject Tight Restrictions on E-Cigarettes.

European Lawmakers Reject Tight Restrictions on E-Cigarettes

By Holly Yeager and Brady Dennis, Published: October 6, The Washington Post

The giants of the tobacco industry know what it’s like to face heavy government regulation. So as the makers of Marlboro, Newport and Camel enter the booming market for electronic cigarettes, they are pressing to keep their new products free of such strict oversight.

With the consumption of e-cigarettes projected by some analysts to surpass that of traditional cigarettes within the next decade, exactly how e-cigarettes are defined — and what kinds of regulations and taxes they will face — are critical to the industry’s future.

At the moment, that future looks very bright, with sales roughly doubling every year and projected to approach $2 billion this year.

The Food and Drug Administration has said it intends to start regulating the sprawling e-cigarette industry for the first time this month, under the 2009 tobacco-control law.

Industry executives have been making their case in high-level meetings at the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products in Rockville and with members of Congress who oversee the agency. Their main pitch: The battery-powered devices, which deliver nicotine, flavor and other chemicals in the form of a vapor, are essentially harmless, especially compared with the cancer-causing toxins in regular cigarette smoke, and therefore should get friendlier treatment.

E-cigarette makers large and small also have been lobbying across the country as cities and state legislatures debate how steeply to tax e-cigarettes and where people should be allowed to use them.

Late last month, attorneys general from nearly 40 states wrote to the FDA, urging the agency to treat e-cigarettes like traditional cigarettes and impose restrictions on marketing them to young people. Around the same time, top Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee wrote to Margaret Hamburg, head of the FDA, asking that the agency move quickly to regulate e-cigarettes. The letter cited a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that said e-cigarette use among middle and high school students has been rising rapidly. The lawmakers also asked the Republican chairman of the committee to schedule a hearing on the health effects of ­e-cigarettes and other tobacco products.

Since September 2012, the FDA’s tobacco center has held at least a dozen ­meetings with representatives of the ­e-cigarette industry, according to agency records and multiple participants. These “listening sessions” have been held at the companies’ request, the FDA said, and those who have participated describe them as a “one-way conversation,” with agency officials providing few clues to their thinking about e-cigarettes.

While e-cigarettes vary from brand to brand, they generally look like cigarettes but do not burn tobacco. Instead, when a user pulls air from the end, an atomizer converts liquid inside the device into a vapor. A starter kit, which typically includes two e-cigarettes, extra batteries and various nicotine cartridges, can cost anywhere from $20 to $200.

Regulators say too little research exists to understand how much nicotine or other potentially harmful chemicals are inhaled during e-cigarette use, or whether they might act as a stepping stone to getting children and nonsmokers hooked on conventional cigarettes. In the meantime, many anti-smoking activists complain that the industry is spending lavishly on advertising to glamorize ­e-cigarettes, potentially undermining decades of work to reduce smoking rates.

French doctors voice support for e-cigarettes

Ten French medical professionals have warned against a possible EU parliament move to re-classify “infinitely safer” electronic cigarettes as regulated medical products that would only be available in pharmacies.

By Tony Todd  -

A group of top French medical professionals on Sunday signed a letter voicing their support for electronic cigarettes, while warning the European parliament against re-classifying the smoking substitute as a medical product.

They say that e-cigarettes – a growing industry in France where there are an estimated 1.5 million “vapers” (people who use the devices) – are far less harmful than tobacco cigarettes, even if the long-term health effects have yet to be fully established.

They argue that a possible move by the EU Parliament to re-classify them as medical products (making the liquids used in e-cigarettes only available in pharmacies) would raise prices, hamstring the industry and keep smokers from making the switch away from tobacco.

‘Infinitely less’ dangers

In an unprecedented move, the French doctors wrote: “As medical professionals, we see patients every day who are victims of smoking. It is one of the most serious medical problems in France today.

“At the same time, we have noted the development of electronic cigarettes, which have helped a huge number of people stop smoking tobacco.”

The doctors include experts in tobacco addiction, cardiology, angiology, cancer, urology, neurology, foetal pathology, as well France’s senior ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialist.

“We recommend continued research into the improvement of e-liquids so that an even greater number of smokers can stop using tobacco,” they continued, adding that e-cigarettes were “infinitely less” dangerous than inhaling smoke from burning tobacco, which includes carbon monoxide and carcinogenic tars.

The safety of electronic cigarettes remains a hotly debated issue, however, and the World Health Organisation has warned that “the potential risks they pose for the health of users remain undetermined” while the devices’ safety “has not been scientifically demonstrated”.

Research published in British medical journal The Lancet in September, quoting from a New Zealand study, called them more effective than nicotine patches in helping smokers quit.

But the study also warned that “more research is urgently needed to clearly establish their overall benefits and harms at both individual and population levels”.

Possible ban on menthol and ‘slim’ cigarettes

MEPs are due to vote on new legislation regulating the sale of tobacco products from Tuesday.

The move includes proposals by the EU Tobacco Products Directive for health warnings to cover 75 percent of cigarette packets and bans on flavoured (including menthol) and “slim” cigarettes, as well as the proposal to re-classify electronic cigarettes.

The aim of the legislation – which has been held up by “unprecedented” lobbying by the tobacco industry, according to a senior Irish diplomat – is to reduce nicotine addiction among the young and cut down on the estimated 700,000 EU citizens who die of smoking-related causes each year.

The proposed measures were agreed among EU member states in June, and the 750-member parliament will vote Tuesday to decide whether to move forward with negotiations or allow time for further amendments.

French doctors voice support for e-cigarettes

The haze around e-cigarettes

It’s not yet certain whether ‘vaping’ is dangerous. But policymakers are deciding now whether to regulate e-cigarettes.

E-cigarettes became a sales phenomenon so quickly that they left scientists as well as local, state and federal governments scrambling to catch up. (Jim Watson / AFP / Getty Images / October 3, 2013)

October 3, 2013

Americans are becoming more familiar with e-cigarettes, which are beginning to appear in restaurants, bars and coffeehouses where regular cigarettes have long been banned. An e-cigarette is, in effect, a battery-operated nicotine delivery system that works by heating a mixture of water, nicotine and other chemicals. The user inhales and exhales the resulting vapor rather than smoke.

E-cigarettes look like regular cigarettes and, for many people, substitute for them. But enormous questions remain. Are they a relatively harmless tool that helps people quit, or are they an attractive gateway into smoking for young people? If they’re substantially less dangerous than regular cigarettes but substantially more dangerous than not smoking at all, should they be subject to the laws that govern cigarettes on TV advertising, sales to minors and restrictions on smoking?

E-cigarettes became a sales phenomenon so quickly that they left scientists as well as local, state and federal governments scrambling to catch up. To date, there is little in the way of definitive, evidence-based answers to the many questions that have been raised.

Many cigarette smokers who have switched from smoking to “vaping” swear they could never have beaten their tobacco habit without the e-cigarette, which provides both the nicotine and some of the experience of smoking. Not that nicotine is safe; in addition to being addictive, it raises the heart rate and is one of the components of smoking associated with heart disease. But e-cigarettes don’t have the tar that is the main cause of smoking-related cancers.

It seems reasonable to assume that e-cigarettes are, if not harmless, at least more benign than tobacco. But scientists warn that such assumptions could be mistaken. A Greek study last year found e-cigarettes almost immediately inflamed and constricted the users’ airways at the same time, but another Greek study — a relatively limited one — found no heart damage from the e-cigarette, which would be a significant advantage over regular cigarettes.

According to the FDA, e-cigarettes contain many chemicals and ultrafine particles that can become embedded in the lungs, just as regular cigarettes do. The effect on people sitting nearby — in other words, people inhaling secondhand vapor — isn’t known. The mist certainly isn’t as smelly, cough-inducing or annoying as tobacco smoke. One German study found that toxins were still a problem in secondhand vapor, but at about 20% of the level from tobacco cigarettes. And a report this year by the German Cancer Research Center concluded that harm to secondhand inhalers couldn’t be ruled out because of metals and carcinogenic chemicals. The paper also cited the substances that irritate people’s airways as a reason not to assume that “vaping” indoors harms no one other than the person puffing on the e-cigarette.

Are we all thoroughly confused yet?

In the absence of extensive research, policymakers must rely on common sense while committing to research to learn more. In some ways, e-cigarettes are markedly different from regular cigarettes. For example, they don’t result in toxic trash on the beach (partly because most are reusable and because they don’t need to be stubbed out). Nor do they create smoke — and the vapors they do create dissipate quickly outdoors. So restrictions on their use at beaches, parks and near the entrances of buildings seem like overkill.

In contrast, there is a good argument for policies to prevent minors from taking up an e-cigarette habit. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported in September that use among middle and high school students more than doubled from 2011 to 2012. Unlike regular cigarettes, which under federal law cannot be candy-flavored, e-cigarettes come in a variety of flavors, such as bubble gum and cherry, that draw minors. The devices are heavily advertised on TV. In only half of states are sales to minors banned (California is one of them).

The FDA has indicated that it will propose some e-cigarette regulations this month, and these are the fronts it should hit hard. We don’t need to help more adolescents develop a nicotine habit, and it’s logical to think that vaping could lead more teens to smoking.

The more difficult question is the one that is most important to the e-cigarette industry and its customers: Should the devices be considered virtually the same as cigarettes when it comes to secondhand inhalation indoors? At the moment, we lack the knowledge to decide this with confidence.

Still, New Jersey and various municipalities have banned e-cigarettes in all the places where regular cigarettes are prohibited. A bill to do the same in California was held over to the next legislative session.

The U.S. Department of Transportation moved early, banning e-cigarettes on airlines in 2011.Amtrak also prohibits them. Of course, planes and trains are particularly tight, enclosed quarters where the mist alone could be an annoyance. But when is an indoor area spacious enough to say that e-cigarettes should be allowed? A tiny bar? A spacious, airy hospital waiting room?

Because of the scientific concerns raised about the safety of secondhand vapor, the prudent course for now would be to keep them out of public buildings, restaurants and the like. Though the users and makers of the devices act as though this is an unconscionable trampling on vapers’ rights, the fact is that former cigarette smokers — who make up a good portion of e-cigarette users — already are used to having their habit excluded from such spaces.

The restrictions should be temporary, pending the outcome of better research. It’s quite possible that scientists will conclude that the amount of toxic material in secondhand vapor is minute. If so, then perhaps restrictions will not be necessary in the future. E-cigarettes should not be targeted for regulation solely because they look like something that so many people rightly abhor.

Copyright © 2013, Los Angeles Times

The haze around e-cigarettes

E-Cigarettes May Dig Big into Tobacco’s Profits

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By Jenna Cyprus    |   Wednesday, October 2, 2013-

Not too long ago, the electronic cigarette, or e-cigarette, was viewed as a novelty item sold in smoke shops and convenience stores. Yet according to a 2011 survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 21 percent of adults who smoke traditional cigarettes have tried the electronic ones, and that was up from 10 percent the year before.

“E-cigarette use is growing rapidly,” said CDC director Tom Frieden in a February 2013 release that announced the results of the survey.

The reason so many people giving these alternatives are a try is simple: to help them quit the real things. One survey in Britain found that 27 percent of smokers who said they were trying to quit had used electronic cigarettes for that purpose.

In a clinical study to measure the e-cigarette’s effectiveness against other nicotine replacement methods, like the patch, showed that it yielded some positive results.

The study involved 292 subjects who relied on electronic cigarettes containing a nicotine cartridge, 73 who used the device without a nicotine cartridge, and 292 who were given nicotine patches. The subjects were all adult smokers who smoked at least 10 cigarettes a day for the previous year and expressed a desire to quit.

Six months after the test started, 7.3 percent of those with the nicotine-filled electronic cigarettes were able to refrain from smoking, 5.8 percent of those with nicotine patches were able to quit, and 4.1 percent of the subjects who were given the nicotine-less e-cigarettes had successfully quit. Additionally, 57 percent of the volunteers who received electronic cigarettes with nicotine but did not quit were able to cut their regular cigarette use in half.

How E-Cigarettes Work

The electronic cigarette is a tube-shaped device, sometimes designed to look like a real cigarette.The device heats up nicotine liquids using a battery, and the liquids inside the device then turn to vapor that is inhaled to deliver nicotine to the body, giving the feeling and sensation of smoking a real cigarette; only without the smoke. For this reason, it is believed by many to be much healthier than the alternative of inhaling the smoke from a regular tobacco cigarette (usually laced with hundreds of toxic chemicals).

The product’s lack of smoke also produces no odor so the user’s clothing and hair do not smell like cigarette smoke, nor does the air surrounding the person using the electronic cigarette.

Booming Business

It is estimated that revenue from electronic cigarettes will be between $1 billion and $1.7 billion this year and according to Bloomberg, sales of these devices could surpass traditional cigarettes by the year 2047. Much of this growth is expected to come from suppliers’ ability to advertise the e-cigarette, something that tobacco companies cannot do. Cost also plays a big role. “Our products are usually about a third of the cost [of traditional cigarettes],” said Andries Verleur, CEO and co-founder of electronic cigarette manufacturer V2 Cigs. But that might change he said, as future taxes may cause prices to increase. However, he said, in 90 percent of all markets that has not yet happened.

Further studies on how much electronic cigarettes can benefit someone looking to quit smoking will likely determine how much tax, and government regulation, this newest craze will receive in the future.

 

E-Cigarettes May Dig Big into Tobacco’s Profits

The Harmful Effects of Tobacco On Fertility

The dangers of tobacco use have been widely publicized and talked about in many forums involving even the general public. In part this widespread availability of smoking information has played an undisputed role in reducing overall the number of smokers worldwide. Certainly there other important factors which have also played a role in this decline including higher tobacco taxes, no smoking laws banning smoking in public places and so on. In all this thee is one particular effect of tobacco smoking that has been overlooked. This is also because medical science took longer to conclude the effects of tobacco on fertility in both males and females.

It is now conclusively believed that tobacco use has a negative impact on fertility in both male and female smokers. This means the health risk of using tobacco go beyond high blood pressure and heart disease. women who smoke have a difficult time falling pregnant compared to their non-smoking counterparts. Doctors believe a substance found in cigarettes harms the ovaries by interfering with the natural processes. Altogether smoking is known to lead to a loss of eggs in women. This is also related to menopause which can then occur earlier than it should in women. Menopause occurs about the age of 50 in many women. Cigarette smoking apart from causing infertility may also cause cervical cancer in women. This occurs in the uterus the place where the baby grows in the womb.

Doctors have long noted the role of tobacco use in repeated miscarriages in women. Ectopic pregnancies may also occur due to smoking. Kids born to mothers who smoked whilst pregnant are also prone to a conditions called SIDS which is a short for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. In as far as those who do not smoke but live with smokers is concerned, doctors disturbingly note that women exposed to passive smoking also commonly known as second hand smoke may suffer the same fate in as far as fertility is concerned. In fact there is a slight difference between the effects of smoking on women who smoke and on women who do not smoke but are exposed to passive smoke.

In as far as men are concerned, studies show that men who smoke have a lower sperm count relative to their counterparts. This may also have a negative impact on the ability of a couple to conceived more so if both individuals involved smoke. Quitting smoking is the only viable way of ensuring fertility. Stopping smoking for a period of time before trying to conceived has been shown to improve the chances.

Learn in detail about the dangers of smoking while pregnant. Follow link to also learn in detail how tobacco use may cause high blood pressure in both males and females.

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The Harmful Effects of Tobacco On Fertility

Lorillard Buys UK-Based Electronic Cigarette Firm

RICHMOND, Va. October 1, 2013 (AP)

By MICHAEL FELBERBAUM AP Tobacco Writer

Lorillard Inc. says it has acquired British-based electronic cigarette maker SKYCIG for 30 million pounds (about $49 million).

The nation’s third-biggest tobacco company said Tuesday that the move helps expand its global presence of the fast-growing business.

Electronic cigarettes battery-powered devices heat a liquid nicotine solution, creating vapor that users inhale. The category has grown from thousands of users in 2006 to several million worldwide.

Lorillard said it will pay up to another 30 million pounds ($49 million) more in 2016 if the company meets certain financial performance benchmarks.

SKYCIG will operate as a separate subsidiary. Lorillard intends to keep its current management team and locations in Great Britain.

Greensboro, N.C., based Lorillard acquired e-cigarette maker Blu Ecigs for $135 million last year as part of an industrywide push to diversify beyond the traditional cigarette business.

Lorillard Buys UK-Based Electronic Cigarette Firm