Most of the posted comments criticize Bloomberg's editorial. After I posted my lengthy comment (below), I found out that 140 other comments had already been posted, and realized that mine would soon be lost in the clutter.
This editorial is dead wrong, grossly misrepresents the scientific and empirical evidence about e-cigarettes, and fails to disclose the editors huge financial conflict of interest (i.e. working for Bloomberg, whose NYC Health Dept just proposed banning the sale of many e-cigarettes after claiming it wouldn't).
The growing mountain of scientific and empirical evidence consistently indicates that e-cigarettes:
- are 99% (+/-1%) less hazardous than cigarettes,
- pose no risks to nonusers,
- emit similar levels of constituents as FDA approved nicotine gums, lozenges, patches and inhalers.
- are consumed almost exclusively (i.e. 99%) by smokers and former smokers who quit by switching to e-cigs,
- have never been known to addict any nonsmoker (or youth) to nicotine,
- have helped several million smokers quit and/or sharply reduce cigarette consumption,
- have replaced/reduced about 750 million packs of cigarettes in past five years,
- are more effective than nicotine gums, lozenges and patches for smoking cessation and reducing cigarette consumption, and
- pose fewer risks than FDA approved Chantix or Wellbutrin.
Had FDA been able to ban e-cigarettes (as the agency unlawfully did in 2009 until 13 federal judges ruled the ban unlawful), several million e-cigarette consumers would have smoked an additional 750 million packs of cigarettes.
Since 2011, the FDA has restated its intent to regulate e-cigarettes as
tobacco products by imposing the "deeming" regulation and by imposing additional regs on e-cigs.
But the FDA and the news media refuse to acknowledge that the "deeming" regulation would ban all e-cigarettes (per Section 905(j) and Section 910 of the Tobacco Control Act), would prohibit e-cig companies from truthfully claiming that e-cigs "emit no smoke" (per Section 911), and would otherwise decimate the e-cigarette industry.
Even if the FDA exempts e-cigarettes from these worst provisions in Chapter IX of the federal Tobacco Control Act, imposing the "deeming" regulation and additional regulations on e-cigarettes would likely ban 99% of e-cigarette companies and products, and basically give the e-cigarette industry to the existing oligopoly of Big Tobacco companies.
Besides, all of the following products and activities emit far more indoor air pollution than does an e-cigarette, but Bloomberg editors haven't called for a ban on any of them.
- plywood and other building materials
- glues
- paint
- carpeting
- furniture
- appliances
- cooking
- every exhale by every smoker for more than an hour after smoking every cigarette
- smoker’s clothes and hair
- printers
- photocopiers
- computers
- cleaning products
- dry cleaned clothes
- hair sprays
- perfumes
- nail polish and nail polish remover
- air fresheners
Bill Godshall
Executive Director
Smokefree Pennsylvania
1926 Monongahela Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15218
412-351-5880
smokefree@compuserve.com
