Dear Committee Members,
As a member of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, you will soon be considering a bill related to FDA oversight of nicotine and
tobacco products. I am writing as a concerned citizen and a case study in the effectiveness of the new so-called e-cigarettes, an electronic vapor-delivery system that may or may not contain nicotine. And I am one of the many "accidental quitters" who happened upon this safer alternative and abruptly quit smoking after a 30+-year, pack-a-day habit. I used to shush doctors when they'd start to talk to me about quitting. "I don't even want to hear it, you're wasting your breath and my time." I had NO intention of quitting smoking less than 2 months ago -- until I received my first e-cig. Since then, I've quit
tobacco cold turkey, and it's been nothing but positive. No more losing sleep from lying awake at night hacking. No more waking in the middle of the night and going on the porch for a smoke. No more fire hazard from lighters. No more ashes, burn holes, smelly butts to discard.
Dear Congressmember, my story is typical of thousands of others. Finally a way to give up all those toxic chemicals and quit polluting the atmosphere, and still satisfy a craving we're going to yield to one way or the other. Scores of doctors and scientists have come out in support of e-cigs. The only thing their prohibition would do is keep lining Big Tobacco's pockets.
Joel Niztkin, MD, MPH, DPA, FACPM, Chair, Tobacco Control Task Force, American Association of Public Health Physicians says of this product, We have every reason to believe the hazard posed by electronic cigarettes would be much lower than 1% of that posed by (tobacco) cigarettes. The testing guidelines in the current tobacco act (circulating through Congress) would represent a ban on electronic cigarettes, (yet) if we get all tobacco smokers to switch from regular cigarettes (to electronic cigarettes), we would eventually reduce the US death toll from more than 400,000 a year to less than 4,000, maybe as low as 400.
Jacob Sullum, senior editor at Reason magazine, says, Telling smokers they may not use electronic cigarettes until theyre approved by the FDA is like telling a floundering swimmer not to climb aboard a raft because it might have a leak.
William T. Godshall, MPH, Executive Director, Smokefree Pennsylvania, says, Smokefree Pennsylvania strongly urges the FDA to consider the enormous public health disaster the agency would create by banning electronic cigarettes. Denying 45 million (tobacco) cigarette smokers access to this exponentially less hazardous alternative would result in millions of preventable deaths among smokers and millions of nonsmokers continuing to be exposed to tobacco smoke pollution. It is absurd to even contemplate protecting the deadliest nicotine products (tobacco cigarettes) from market competition by these less hazardous nicotine products.
With these points in mind, I respectfully urge you to amend the Kennedy FDA tobacco bill to allow e-cigarettes and other smokefree tobacco/nicotine products to remain on the market and to be reasonably and responsibly regulated as a separate category of tobacco products. Do not impose an outright ban on them or allow them to be seized at customs. Allow entrepreneurs to go into business developing and distributing them during the testing process. The market for e-cigs is exploding now, with supply struggling to keep up with demand, as generations of hard-core smokers seek an alternative they can literally live with.
Please don't force me to go back to tobacco! I haven't gotten rid of my loose tobacco and cigarette-stuffing supplies in the event that e-cigs be officially banned in the U.S., but I would love to toss them for good, once I know the government will not prevent me from using this safer alternative.
Thank you very much for your consideration.
Very respectfully,
