CASAA denounces NY legislation to ban e-cigarette sales

[Bill Godshall]

For Immediate Release

Contact: Yolanda Villa, Esq. yvilla@gmail.com
504 Cedarwood Terrace, Rochester, NY 14609
585-267-5458

or
Theresa A. Whitt MD theresa.whitt@yahoo.com
325-370-9868

Smoke-Free Advocates Urge NY Legislature to Keep Electronic Cigarette Sales Legal​

A nationwide group of smokers who switched to smokefree tobacco/nicotine alternatives has urged New York lawmakers to reject legislation that would ban the sale of electronic cigarettes in the state. Sales of electronic cigarettes (AKA e-cigarettes or nicotine vaporizers) have skyrocketed in the past two years, with an estimated 300,000 - 500,000 cigarette smokers in the US (including tens of thousands in NY) switching to the novel products that look and feel like a cigarette, but emit no harmful smoke.

In letters sent to the NYS Assembly and Senate Health Committee, the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-Free Alternatives (http://www.casaa.org/) denounced the legislation (A9529 & S7234) because it would harm or kill electronic cigarette consumers in New York who go back to smoking cigarettes, and would create a black market for e-cigarettes that would be difficult and costly to enforce.

CASAA's legal director Yolanda Villa, who lives in Rochester, NY, said "This legislation would deny New Yorkers legal access to smokefree alternatives that have helped me and hundreds of thousands of other long-term adult smokers quit smoking, while deadly combustible cigarettes remain freely and legally available throughout the state." "It's outrageous that some lawmakers believe our health and lives are expendable," added Villa.

Electronic cigarettes are nicotine vaporizers that, when inhaled, emit a tiny amount of nicotine and propylene glycol, in a harmless vapor resembling smoke.

CASAA's medical director Theresa Whitt, MD,said "Nicotine vaporizers don't emit any smoke, which is what causes 99% of tobacco related disease and deaths. There is no evidence that anyone has ever been harmed by these smokefree alternatives, and they are clearly far less hazardous than smoking cigarettes." Dr.Whitt also quit smoking by switching to e-cigarettes.

The group's letter urged lawmakers to amend the legislation to only ban e-cigarette sales to minors. "Although there is no evidence that e-cigarettes are marketed to youth, we support banning their sales to minors just like all other tobacco products," added Dr. Whitt.

CASAA was created last year by smokefree tobacco/nicotine consumers concerned about false allegations made by drug company funded anti-tobacco groups that seek to ban e-cigarettes, and that provide lawmakers with misinformation about the products in their attempts to do so.

- - -

March 30, 2010

The Honorable Thomas K. Duane
Chair, Senate Health Committee
430 State Capitol Building
Albany, NY 12247

Re: S7234 - Currently pending before Senate Health Committee

Dear Senator Duane:

The Consumer Advocates for Smoke-Free Alternatives Association (CASAA) is shocked to learn that recently introduced legislation (A9529 & S7234) has been quickly advancing through the NY Legislature that would harm or kill many of our members by either forcing us to go back to smoking cigarettes, or requiring us to travel to other states and/or to purchase nicotine vaporizers (AKA electronic cigarettes or e-cigarettes) from a newly created black market throughout New York. We implore you to oppose and/or quickly amend this inhumane legislation that protects combustible cigarettes and threatens the health of ex-smokers and smokers alike.

CASAA is a nationwide non-profit organization created last year by hundreds of e-cigarette consumers who recently quit smoking or sharply reduced cigarette consumption by switching to these life saving products. Our association (comprised solely of concerned volunteers) works to educate the public about these products, and to protect the rights of our members and of smokers who want to switch to significantly less hazardous smokefree tobacco/nicotine alternatives.

In the past two years, several hundred thousand smokers in the US have switched to nicotine vaporizers, and virtually all have experienced significant improvements in breathing, taste, smell and overall health. Unlike traditional cigarettes, nicotine vaporizers don't burn tobacco and don't emit any smoke. Instead, these novel products emit a tiny amount of nicotine and propylene glycol vapor, which has been used for decades in air purifiers, asthma inhalers and other medications, and (in far greater amounts) theatrical fog, and is considered safe by the FDA and EPA.

Increasingly more public health experts and anti smoking advocates agree that nicotine vaporizers are far less hazardous alternatives to cigarette smoking and pose no known harm to users or nonusers, including the American Association of Public Health

Physicians (AAPHP), the American Council on Science and Health, and Smokefree Pennsylvania. CASAA strongly supports the AAPHP's two recently filed petitions to the FDA to classify and regulate e-cigarettes as tobacco products, and to truthfully inform smokers that these products are far less hazardous alternatives to cigarettes. Regulations.gov
Regulations.gov

A key reason CASAA was created was in response to false accusations about e-cigarettes (and calls for their ban) by some abstinence-only tobacco prohibitionists who are heavily funded by drug companies that market nicotine gums/lozenges/patches and other smoking cessation drugs, which most CASAA members already tried using in unsuccessful quit smoking attempts. But nicotine vaporizers are marketed as alternatives to traditional cigarettes, not as smoking cessation aids. In January, Federal Judge Richard Leon agreed in a sharply worded ruling, stating the FDA can only regulate e-cigarettes as tobacco products, in SE v FDA, a case in which CASAA members along with other consumers submitted an Amicus Curiae brief.

Since nicotine vaporizers pose potentially devastating market competition to traditional combustible cigarettes (as virtually all e-cigarette consumers used to buy and smoke traditional cigarettes), the chief beneficiary of A9529 & S7234 would be cigarettes, while the legislation threatens the health of smokers, ex-smokers and those who will continue to be exposed to secondhand smoke. Ironically, we aren't aware that any tobacco company is lobbying to ban e-cigarettes, just drug industry funded groups.

A9529 & S7234 also would impose additional (and totally unnecessary) costs on state and local taxpayers for enforcement and adjudication, and would further burden already overwhelmed police departments and courts in New York.

While CASAA adamantly opposes banning the sale of e-cigarettes to adult smokers, we would support the provision in A9529 & S7234 that would ban their sale to minors. Although there is no evidence that any minor uses e-cigarettes or that any e-cigarette supplier markets to minors, CASAA urges you to support amending A9529 & S7234 to ban e-cigarette sales to "minors" (but not adults), as occurs with all other tobacco products.

Thank you for your attention and consideration.

Very truly yours,

Yolanda Villa, Esq. Theresa A. Whitt, MD
CASAA Legal Director CASAA Medical Director
504 Cedarwood Terrace, 3501 Brookhollow
Rochester, NY 14609 Abilene, TX 79605
585-267-5458 yvilla@gmail.com 325-370-9868 theresa.whitt@yahoo.com





Michal Douglas Thaddeus Marney
CASAA Board President CASAA Board of Directors

Elaine D. Keller Kristin Noll-Marsh
CASAA Board of Directors CASAA Board of Directors

- - - - - -​

ELECTRONIC CIGARETTE FACT SHEET​

· Electronic cigarettes ("e-cigarettes") were introduced in China in 2005 and are now sold in more than 50 countries around the world. In the United States, it is estimated that more than 1 million smokers have switched from traditional cigarettes to electronic cigarettes.

• E-cigarettes are comprised of a battery and an atomizer, which work together to heat a liquid solution contained in a cartridge. This creates an almost completely odorless vapor mist that many smokers find mimics the act of smoking closely enough to be a satisfying alternative to smoking traditional cigarettes.

· A recent survey found that 99% of electronic cigarette consumers are former smokers, and thattheir average age is 44. Virtually all e-cigarette users report dramatic improvements in breathing, taste, smell, and overall health. There is no evidence that young people use e-cigarettes.

• Anti-tobacco advocates are divided about the topic of electronic cigarettes and about the concept of tobacco harm reduction in general.

o Although almost all recognize that electronic cigarettes are less hazardous than traditional cigarettes, abstinence-only advocates don't want cigarette smokers to switch or to even have legal access to less hazardous smoke-free tobacco/nicotine alternatives.

o Others believe that—since 48 million Americans continue to smoke despite aggressive anti-smoking campaigns, medications, and programs—smokers should be truthfully informed about comparable health risks and have legal access to less hazardous, smoke-free alternatives. A recent study showed that switching to these products reduces health risks nearly as much as quitting all tobacco/nicotine. Harm Reduction Journal | Full text | Debunking the claim that abstinence is usually healthier for smokers than switching to a low-risk alternative, and other observations about anti-tobacco-harm-reduction arguments

• Nicotine itself does not cause tobacco-related disease or death. It carries about the same health risk as another widely used addictive drug: caffeine. This is documented on New York State’s own website; see, myths one through eight: http://www.oasas.state.ny.us/admed/documents/TobaccoMyths.pdf

• The American of Association of Public Health Physicians (AAPHP), a leading proponent of tobacco harm reduction, states: "We have every reason to believe that the hazard posed by electronic cigarettes would be much lower than 1% of that posed by (tobacco) cigarettes." The AAPHP has further noted, "[O]n the basis of extensive literature review and analysis, [the AAPHP] has concluded that a national harm reduction initiative, based partly on the potential attractiveness of E-cigarettes to current smokers, could save the lives of 4 million of the 8 million current adult American smokers who will otherwise die of a tobacco-related illness over the next 20 years." http://www.aaphp.org/special/joelstobac/ecigcontext.pdf

• Opponents of tobacco harm reduction cite an FDA press release issued in July 2009 regarding an FDA analysis of 18 cartridges from two companies as evidence that e-cigarettes are dangerous. In fact, the FDA analysis found detectable but only trace levels of nitrosamines, which are suspected to be carcinogenic, at about the same levels as are found in the FDA approved nicotine patch. See, The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary: Comparison of Carcinogen Levels Shows that Electronic Cigarettes are Much Safer Than Conventional Ones

In January 2010, Judge Richard Leon (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia) decisively rejected the FDA's claim that e-cigarettes were drugs, devices, or drug-device combinations, and ruled that the FDA only has jurisdiction to regulate e-cigarettes as a "tobacco product" under the Tobacco Act. (Smoking Everywhere v. FDA, Civil Case No. 09-771 (RJL), currently on appeal.) Judge Leon also noted in his ruling that, in the U.S. alone, e-cigarette companies "have already sold hundreds of thousands of electronic cigarettes, yet FDA cites no evidence that those electronic cigarettes have endangered anyone." https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2009cv0771-54

 

[D103]

For Immediate Release

Contact: Yolanda Villa, Esq. yvilla@gmail.com
504 Cedarwood Terrace, Rochester, NY 14609
585-267-5458

or
Theresa A. Whitt MD theresa.whitt@yahoo.com
325-370-9868

Smoke-Free Advocates Urge NY Legislature to Keep Electronic Cigarette Sales Legal​

A nationwide group of smokers who switched to smokefree tobacco/nicotine alternatives has urged New York lawmakers to reject legislation that would ban the sale of electronic cigarettes in the state. Sales of electronic cigarettes (AKA e-cigarettes or nicotine vaporizers) have skyrocketed in the past two years, with an estimated 300,000 - 500,000 cigarette smokers in the US (including tens of thousands in NY) switching to the novel products that look and feel like a cigarette, but emit no harmful smoke.

In letters sent to the NYS Assembly and Senate Health Committee, the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-Free Alternatives (http://www.casaa.org/) denounced the legislation (A9529 & S7234) because it would harm or kill electronic cigarette consumers in New York who go back to smoking cigarettes, and would create a black market for e-cigarettes that would be difficult and costly to enforce.

CASAA's legal director Yolanda Villa, who lives in Rochester, NY, said "This legislation would deny New Yorkers legal access to smokefree alternatives that have helped me and hundreds of thousands of other long-term adult smokers quit smoking, while deadly combustible cigarettes remain freely and legally available throughout the state." "It's outrageous that some lawmakers believe our health and lives are expendable," added Villa.

Electronic cigarettes are nicotine vaporizers that, when inhaled, emit a tiny amount of nicotine and propylene glycol, in a harmless vapor resembling smoke.

CASAA's medical director Theresa Whitt, MD,said "Nicotine vaporizers don't emit any smoke, which is what causes 99% of tobacco related disease and deaths. There is no evidence that anyone has ever been harmed by these smokefree alternatives, and they are clearly far less hazardous than smoking cigarettes." Dr.Whitt also quit smoking by switching to e-cigarettes.

The group's letter urged lawmakers to amend the legislation to only ban e-cigarette sales to minors. "Although there is no evidence that e-cigarettes are marketed to youth, we support banning their sales to minors just like all other tobacco products," added Dr. Whitt.

CASAA was created last year by smokefree tobacco/nicotine consumers concerned about false allegations made by drug company funded anti-tobacco groups that seek to ban e-cigarettes, and that provide lawmakers with misinformation about the products in their attempts to do so.

- - -

March 30, 2010

The Honorable Thomas K. Duane
Chair, Senate Health Committee
430 State Capitol Building
Albany, NY 12247

Re: S7234 - Currently pending before Senate Health Committee

Dear Senator Duane:

The Consumer Advocates for Smoke-Free Alternatives Association (CASAA) is shocked to learn that recently introduced legislation (A9529 & S7234) has been quickly advancing through the NY Legislature that would harm or kill many of our members by either forcing us to go back to smoking cigarettes, or requiring us to travel to other states and/or to purchase nicotine vaporizers (AKA electronic cigarettes or e-cigarettes) from a newly created black market throughout New York. We implore you to oppose and/or quickly amend this inhumane legislation that protects combustible cigarettes and threatens the health of ex-smokers and smokers alike.

CASAA is a nationwide non-profit organization created last year by hundreds of e-cigarette consumers who recently quit smoking or sharply reduced cigarette consumption by switching to these life saving products. Our association (comprised solely of concerned volunteers) works to educate the public about these products, and to protect the rights of our members and of smokers who want to switch to significantly less hazardous smokefree tobacco/nicotine alternatives.

In the past two years, several hundred thousand smokers in the US have switched to nicotine vaporizers, and virtually all have experienced significant improvements in breathing, taste, smell and overall health. Unlike traditional cigarettes, nicotine vaporizers don't burn tobacco and don't emit any smoke. Instead, these novel products emit a tiny amount of nicotine and propylene glycol vapor, which has been used for decades in air purifiers, asthma inhalers and other medications, and (in far greater amounts) theatrical fog, and is considered safe by the FDA and EPA.

Increasingly more public health experts and anti smoking advocates agree that nicotine vaporizers are far less hazardous alternatives to cigarette smoking and pose no known harm to users or nonusers, including the American Association of Public Health

Physicians (AAPHP), the American Council on Science and Health, and Smokefree Pennsylvania. CASAA strongly supports the AAPHP's two recently filed petitions to the FDA to classify and regulate e-cigarettes as tobacco products, and to truthfully inform smokers that these products are far less hazardous alternatives to cigarettes. Regulations.gov
Regulations.gov

A key reason CASAA was created was in response to false accusations about e-cigarettes (and calls for their ban) by some abstinence-only tobacco prohibitionists who are heavily funded by drug companies that market nicotine gums/lozenges/patches and other smoking cessation drugs, which most CASAA members already tried using in unsuccessful quit smoking attempts. But nicotine vaporizers are marketed as alternatives to traditional cigarettes, not as smoking cessation aids. In January, Federal Judge Richard Leon agreed in a sharply worded ruling, stating the FDA can only regulate e-cigarettes as tobacco products, in SE v FDA, a case in which CASAA members along with other consumers submitted an Amicus Curiae brief.

Since nicotine vaporizers pose potentially devastating market competition to traditional combustible cigarettes (as virtually all e-cigarette consumers used to buy and smoke traditional cigarettes), the chief beneficiary of A9529 & S7234 would be cigarettes, while the legislation threatens the health of smokers, ex-smokers and those who will continue to be exposed to secondhand smoke. Ironically, we aren't aware that any tobacco company is lobbying to ban e-cigarettes, just drug industry funded groups.

A9529 & S7234 also would impose additional (and totally unnecessary) costs on state and local taxpayers for enforcement and adjudication, and would further burden already overwhelmed police departments and courts in New York.

While CASAA adamantly opposes banning the sale of e-cigarettes to adult smokers, we would support the provision in A9529 & S7234 that would ban their sale to minors. Although there is no evidence that any minor uses e-cigarettes or that any e-cigarette supplier markets to minors, CASAA urges you to support amending A9529 & S7234 to ban e-cigarette sales to "minors" (but not adults), as occurs with all other tobacco products.

Thank you for your attention and consideration.

Very truly yours,

Yolanda Villa, Esq. Theresa A. Whitt, MD
CASAA Legal Director CASAA Medical Director
504 Cedarwood Terrace, 3501 Brookhollow
Rochester, NY 14609 Abilene, TX 79605
585-267-5458 yvilla@gmail.com 325-370-9868 theresa.whitt@yahoo.com





Michal Douglas Thaddeus Marney
CASAA Board President CASAA Board of Directors

Elaine D. Keller Kristin Noll-Marsh
CASAA Board of Directors CASAA Board of Directors

- - - - - -​

ELECTRONIC CIGARETTE FACT SHEET​

· Electronic cigarettes ("e-cigarettes") were introduced in China in 2005 and are now sold in more than 50 countries around the world. In the United States, it is estimated that more than 1 million smokers have switched from traditional cigarettes to electronic cigarettes.

• E-cigarettes are comprised of a battery and an atomizer, which work together to heat a liquid solution contained in a cartridge. This creates an almost completely odorless vapor mist that many smokers find mimics the act of smoking closely enough to be a satisfying alternative to smoking traditional cigarettes.

· A recent survey found that 99% of electronic cigarette consumers are former smokers, and thattheir average age is 44. Virtually all e-cigarette users report dramatic improvements in breathing, taste, smell, and overall health. There is no evidence that young people use e-cigarettes.

• Anti-tobacco advocates are divided about the topic of electronic cigarettes and about the concept of tobacco harm reduction in general.

o Although almost all recognize that electronic cigarettes are less hazardous than traditional cigarettes, abstinence-only advocates don't want cigarette smokers to switch or to even have legal access to less hazardous smoke-free tobacco/nicotine alternatives.

o Others believe that—since 48 million Americans continue to smoke despite aggressive anti-smoking campaigns, medications, and programs—smokers should be truthfully informed about comparable health risks and have legal access to less hazardous, smoke-free alternatives. A recent study showed that switching to these products reduces health risks nearly as much as quitting all tobacco/nicotine. Harm Reduction Journal | Full text | Debunking the claim that abstinence is usually healthier for smokers than switching to a low-risk alternative, and other observations about anti-tobacco-harm-reduction arguments

• Nicotine itself does not cause tobacco-related disease or death. It carries about the same health risk as another widely used addictive drug: caffeine. This is documented on New York State’s own website; see, myths one through eight: http://www.oasas.state.ny.us/admed/documents/TobaccoMyths.pdf

• The American of Association of Public Health Physicians (AAPHP), a leading proponent of tobacco harm reduction, states: "We have every reason to believe that the hazard posed by electronic cigarettes would be much lower than 1% of that posed by (tobacco) cigarettes." The AAPHP has further noted, "[O]n the basis of extensive literature review and analysis, [the AAPHP] has concluded that a national harm reduction initiative, based partly on the potential attractiveness of E-cigarettes to current smokers, could save the lives of 4 million of the 8 million current adult American smokers who will otherwise die of a tobacco-related illness over the next 20 years." http://www.aaphp.org/special/joelstobac/ecigcontext.pdf

• Opponents of tobacco harm reduction cite an FDA press release issued in July 2009 regarding an FDA analysis of 18 cartridges from two companies as evidence that e-cigarettes are dangerous. In fact, the FDA analysis found detectable but only trace levels of nitrosamines, which are suspected to be carcinogenic, at about the same levels as are found in the FDA approved nicotine patch. See, The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary: Comparison of Carcinogen Levels Shows that Electronic Cigarettes are Much Safer Than Conventional Ones

In January 2010, Judge Richard Leon (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia) decisively rejected the FDA's claim that e-cigarettes were drugs, devices, or drug-device combinations, and ruled that the FDA only has jurisdiction to regulate e-cigarettes as a "tobacco product" under the Tobacco Act. (Smoking Everywhere v. FDA, Civil Case No. 09-771 (RJL), currently on appeal.) Judge Leon also noted in his ruling that, in the U.S. alone, e-cigarette companies "have already sold hundreds of thousands of electronic cigarettes, yet FDA cites no evidence that those electronic cigarettes have endangered anyone." https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2009cv0771-54

Thank you so much Mr. Godshall for that post!! That is without a doubt a very comprehensive, reasoned and compelling letter to the NY legislature and one that I feel strongly should become the 'template' as it were for all future correspondence to state legislatures attempting to establish Bans. This post does an excellent job of stating our case, explaining who and what CASAA is and the role it is playing in conjunction with AAPHP and others in advocating for 'healthy choice' through appropriate classification of this product by the FDA as opposed to the current wave of Bans, the continued dissemination of false and misleading information designed to scare people and play upon those fears in order to further an agenda of abstinence-only which is clearly shown to be a seriously flawed public health strategy (very aptly demonstrated by the AAPHP as well as other Public Health Advocates and researchers (Harm-Reduction.org.). Very impressive piece of work by all those involved. My deepest of thanks!

 

[ImArchimedes]

Looking to organize some sort of get together to protest in Albany. So far, I'll be bringing 3 (including myself). Anyone else available?

 

[yvilla]

Looking to organize some sort of get together to protest in Albany. So far, I'll be bringing 3 (including myself). Anyone else available?

Archimedes, we are planning to be in Albany, hopefully en masse, to appear and speak out at the Senate Health Committee meeting, whenever they address S7234.

It's just that we don't know for sure when that will be. It could be Tuesday, April 27, so please keep that date available, but we are looking to find out for sure.

Please stay in touch about this!

 

[yvilla]

Update: I just got off the phone with Senator Duane's office. Supposedly, it is still not known whether the bill will be on the meeting agenda for the 27th, but I was told that by Thursday of this week the agenda will be known, and available on the Senate website.

 

[dk2]

Great release from CASSA!

 

[rothenbj]

Archimedes, we are planning to be in Albany, hopefully en masse, to appear and speak out at the Senate Health Committee meeting, whenever they address S7234.

It's just that we don't know for sure when that will be. It could be Tuesday, April 27, so please keep that date available, but we are looking to find out for sure.

Please stay in touch about this!

If you're looking for warm bodies, I'm in PA but if the schedule works out for me, I'll volunteer to join the fun. Can you vape in the meeting?