Baltimore City Council held a hearing this morning on the proposed vaping ban (and their redundant sales to minors ban).
The bill's sponsor (who chaired the hearing) spoke for at least a half hour (spending much of the time criticizing vapers for smoking at Baltimore Orioles games, claiming he wanted to protect his children from seeing people smoking, and claiming that it was impossible to tell if people were smoking or vaping). He also misrepresented lots of scientific evidence on e-cigs, and had the audacity to say that Igor Burstyn's excellent study "raised more questions about the safety of e-cigs than it answered".
Then the Baltimore Health Commissioner spoke for about 20 minutes reading dozens of the same false and misleading fear mongering claims about e-cigs we've heard many times from the ANTZ (and of course she insisted that tobacco and other e-cig companies were blatantly advertising and target marketing their products to addict children).
Then CASAA's Ron Ward (who also owns a vape shop just outside Baltimore City limits) testified, urging the council to oppose the bill, and at least exempt vape shops.
Then Heartland's Greg Conley did such an excellent job, especially during Q&A.
Then I read my testimony (below), and created some controversy during the Q&A.
About a half dozen vapers, three other vape shop owners, and two e-cig company reps testified, and for the most part were very good.
And about a half dozen clueless ANTZ testified, repeating many of the same fear mongering claims as the Health Commissioner and the Chair of the hearing made.
Two Altria lobbyists and a Lorillard lobbyist were in the audience, but didn't testify.
My testimony is below.
Testimony to the Baltimore City Council
October 7, 2014
William T Godshall, MPH
Executive Director
Smokefree Pennsylvania
1926 Monongahela Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15218
412-351-5880
BillGodshall@verizon.net
I’m Bill Godshall, founder and director of Smokefree Pennsylvania. Since 1990, we’ve advocated local, state and federal policies to ban smoking in workplaces, stop cigarette marketing to youth, increase cigarette taxes, and help smokers quit.
For disclosure, neither Smokefree Pennsylvania nor I have ever received any funding from any tobacco, drug or e-cigarette company.
More than 100 studies have been published on e-cigarettes. But in sharp contrast to the many false and misleading fear mongering claims made by the Health Commissioner, the scientific evidence has consistently found that smokefree nicotine products, including nicotine gums, lozenges, patches, and e-cigarettes are >99% less hazardous than cigarette smoking. There is no evidence that vaping has ever caused any disease in any user worldwide.
E-cigs, or vapor products, have replaced more than a Billion packs of cigarettes in the US in the past five years; more than 99% of e-cigs are consumed by smokers and exsmokers who switched to e-cigs, and more than a million smokers have quit smoking by switching to vaping.
All surveys (including those by the CDC) have found that adult smokers are >50 times more likely than nonsmokers to report past e-cig use, and CDC’s survey found that <1% of teen nonsmokers have ever tried using an e-cig.
Vapor products are at least as effective for smoking cessation than FDA approved nicotine gums, lozenges, patches and inhalers, which have a 95% failure rate.
E-cigs pose no harm to nonusers, as they emit far less pollutants than many indoor products and activities including: paint, carpeting, furniture, cooking, smoker’s breath, hair and clothing, printers, copiers, cleaning products, dry cleaned clothes, hair sprays, perfumes, nail polish and even a cup of coffee.
Vapor products have never been found to create nicotine dependence in any nonsmoker, and have never been found to precede cigarette smoking in any daily smoker.
E-cigs have further denormalized cigarette smoking, as youth and adult smoking rates have declined every year since 2008 when e-cig sales began to skyrocket.
Vaping benefits many employers and managements since workers don’t waste company time on smoke breaks, and customers don’t disrupt businesses by going outside for a smoke. Some employers actively urge smokers to switch to e-cigs to improve employee health and save money.
Although it is wise to ban vaping at preschools and K-12 schools, there is no more justification for banning e-cig use in other workplaces or public places than there is for banning cellphone use.
Unfortunately, since 2009, Big Pharma funded groups and some unethical public health officials have been lobbying to ban e-cig manufacturing, sales and use by repeating false fear mongering claims, just as we heard today. And yet, vaping bans primarily protect cigarette markets, while threatening the lives of all vapers, smokers and secondhand smokers.
Besides, it’s impossible to enforce vaping bans, since e-cig users can eliminate all visible vapor by simply holding their breath for several seconds before exhaling.
But if this council decides to ban vaping, the council should at least exempt vape shops from the ban so they can continue to teach smokers how to use the products as substitutes to lethal cigarettes.
Thank you. I’ll be pleased to answer any questions.