3/23/09 | Senator seeks to halt sales of 'e-cigarettes'

[nitewriter]

While we have that idiot Senator, here goes a Congressman who is a e-cig user himself.

Important to Read!

Check out that thread. We need to reach out to this guy !!

yvilla is on him like butter on a hot potatoe.

Should we bombard this guy with letters or a petition?

[Exylis]

I say petition and bombard him individually. Not rudely, of course...but cordially.

[Nicole]

I don't know what anyone else would want to say, but I borrowed Sean's letter from the "Contacting your representatives" thread, made the changes I needed to make it correct for myself, and I sent it to all of the U.S. representatives and senators in Louisiana. Here is what I said:

Mr/Mrs. Senator/Representative:
My name is Nicole. I am a student and housewife from Livingston, Louisiana. I am writing to you today to bring to light a subject which I am passionate about. I have been using a nicotine replacement product known as a personal vaporizer, or electronic cigarette. This product has allowed me to quit smoking actual cigarettes. I am active in the community which supports these personal vaporizers. The FDA has decided to start taking action against personal vaporizers due to unknown safety standards. Many people around the world, including myself, have used these without negative side effects for a good amount of time now. I realize that nicotine products are usually regulated by the FDA. The problem is that the FDA has decided to take negative action against our personal vaporizers without any research to the negative. There are a few studies independently done in Europe, but as of yet, there have been no U.S. studies. In the past four years of use with the personal vaporizers, there has not been one confirmed death due to the use of these products. These products contain few chemicals, none of which are cancer causing agents, unlike their tobacco counter parts.
Now, I am aware that the FDA regulates nicotine cessation products. Except for a few vendors that do not have the right to claim their product is a cessation product, no serious vendor makes this claim. I believe that my representatives need to intervene and stop the FDA from banning a product which has not been studied, yet has no negative cases against the product. I find it irresponsible for an agency such as the FDA to consider banning a product which allows myself and others to continue to subdue our nicotine addiction without the damaging and cancer-causing effects which exist in tobacco products. Illegally, the FDA has started confiscating personal vaporizers being shipped from other countries, when there is no law or regulation on the product. This is deceitful and an abuse of the power that has been granted to the FDA. I have never been able to quit my smoking habit until I found this product. I am twenty nine years old, have been a serious smoker for 11 years, and I feel that electronic cigarettes have saved my life. Never in many years of trying to quit have I been able to quit smoking cigarettes, until I started using the electronic cigarette. Gum, patches, and medicines didn’t work for me. The electronic cigarette DID. Please consider helping myself and others in our fight too keep these products legal and unregulated until the time that proper studies can be done on the subject. I don’t want to start smoking real cigarettes again, but if the personal vaporizers are banned, I fear I will have no choice.

Thank you for your time.
Nicole Ponville

[DaveB]

I am a poor writer as my numerous post show.
I will be calling his office and will give my opinion.
They are set up to take these type of calls.

Well Done Nicole

[Exylis]

Yeah. Good job, Nicole.

I think this'll be one heck of an uphill battle though.

[Lika]

I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. Trying ...

I'm not. Obviously he didn't do his own research before making such a ridiculous request to the FDA. The only reasoning he offers is how the devices work and a statement that WHO hasn't confrimed the product's safety. This absolutely holds no merit to warrant the FDA for an emergency intervention at this time. Though it surely may put a fire under their butts. I'm thinking this guy is just an ass anyway you look at it when it comes to smoking.

I'm hoping our new friends in Congress can even things out...

Hmm... I think I'll forward the Senator's letter to Congressman Stearn in Florida. Nothing like a good a House fight!

[sherid]

When we allow the freaks to get to this point over smoking, we have not only made it possible for our government to ban e cigs, but for the movement to go forward with this atrocity.
Blind Prejudice
Ali
23rd March 2009.

Signs that the NHS couldn't give a toss about the flimsiness of evidence they employ to discriminate against smokers have already been amply demonstrated by their willingness to banish smoking in the open air from hospital grounds, but Freedom2choose now have first hand photographic evidence that they are using a single, discredited, third hand smoke ‘study’ (not based on hard science, but opinions gathered in a small telephone poll) to instigate the most disgraceful prejudice against smokers.

A member of F2C recently had cause to attend the maternity section of the Royal Oldham hospital and was shocked to see the following sign displayed in the waiting room:



IN THE INTERESTS OF OTHERS, SMOKERS ARE NOT ALLOWED IN THIS ROOM.



My initial reaction was, surely this must be a mistake? Surely the NHS couldn’t be adopting a policy of barring smokers from areas inside hospitals based on absolutely no hard scientific evidence at all? But then I came across this page on the Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital website called:

'Third Hand Smoke Risk to Kids'



Which gives the following information:"Kids are put at risk by smokers even if they are in a different room or outside, researchers say." And: "Poisons in cigarette smoke get stuck in hair and clothes. This means smokers carry the chemicals around. But less than half of smokers knew the risks of what scientists call 'third-hand' smoke."

And then the one and only highly publicised study itself is cited and presented as fact: "Experts already know that 'second-hand smoke can be dangerous. This is when other people breathe in smoke from soneone else's cigarette because they are in the same room. But now Professor Jonathan Winickoff, who did the study, says the toxic particles hang around even after the cigarette is finished. And they can be carried around on people's clothes and hair."

Jacob Sullum writing in the online Reason magazine describes the study thus:

“The genius of the study is that it tries to stir up alarm about third hand smoke without bothering to show that such trace levels of toxins and carcinogens cause any measurable harm to children (or to anyone else). Instead the authors simply assume that third hand smoke is dangerous and then do a survey to see how many people are aware of this "fact."

Anti-tobacco activist Michael Siegal writes:

"There is no convincing scientific evidence that exposures of this magnitude produce any significant health harm.”

So, we now find ourselves discriminated against on the basis of the results of one telephone survey. Quite how the NHS intends to police this is another question, but quite frankly, when their policies are based on unfounded opinion and blind prejudice it’s quite easy to see how this publicly funded, unaccountable monstrosity has got into the position of killing 72,000 of its patients per year.

[strayling]

Obviously he didn't do his own research before making such a ridiculous request to the FDA.

Didn't he study in science class? Any high school physics student knows that PV = NRT.

(Sorry, had to do it.)

[Kamanjah]

While 3 more pages were being added to this thread, I wrote this letter to the senator.

"I realize you are anti-smoking and have worked to ban cigarettes in many areas. Smoking is bad for one's health, with over 4000 nasty things being inhaled from a lit cigarette.

However, if you succeed in getting electronic cigarettes banned, you will be driving thousands of e-cigarette users back to smoking tobacco. I am sure you are aware of the contents of the liquids used in e-cigarettes: propylene glycol, flavorings and nicotine. Nicotine is not a known carcinogen. Propylene glycol vapor was studied in the 1940s and deemed safe, and it was also discovered that it kills bacteria and viruses. This important health property was also shown in recent studies conducted in New Zealand. NASA has also studied PG vapor and cite one study where monkeys were exposed to PG vapor for 12+ months and showed no adverse effects or biological changes. You can find their report summary at Spacecraft Maximum Allowable Concentrations for Selected Airborne Contaminants: Volume 5 and download the chapter as a pdf file by simply signing in. PG is a common ingredient in many prescription medications and is the sole ingredient of Rhinaris Nasal Spray, which is sold over the counter.

The e-cigarette device itself is simply a vaporizer.

Wouldn't it be more proactive to enlist existing e-cigarette users (note, we are not smokers any longer) into a clinical study instead of driving us back to smoking burning tobacco? Using nicotine in vapor form simply has to be less harmful than lighting up. I would certainly volunteer to be part of a study.

Unlike many drugs the FDA has approved, I feel the vapor from e-cigarettes will prove to have few side effects. Take Vioxx and Bextra for example. They received FDA approval and were subsequently pulled from the market due to deaths they caused. There are no known reports of deaths from use of the e-cigarette. A few people have reported allergies, however allergies are a very common side effect to many drugs, both prescription and OTC.

So, if I can get nicotine in patch, gum or inhaler form, and PG in a nose spray, why shouldn't I be able to use the two ingredients mixed together to vaporize when I choose?

Please rethink your request to the FDA to ban electronic cigarettes. I haven't smoked a cigarette in 67 days, and have no desire to ever smoke one again. If I have the right to choose to smoke tobacco, I certainly should have the right to choose to use an electronic cigarette, which I prefer to call a personal vaporizer, instead of tobacco.


Respectfully Submitted,"

I also found the Rhinaris nasal spray info - PG being sold to inhale! Info here

If you google it, you'll find lots of references to it.

[strayling]

That was a very impressive letter, Kamanjah. I wish I'd written it.