Here is the letter I sent to Macon City Council members.
Bill
----- Original Message -----
From: Bill Godshall
To:
nancy.white@macon.ga.us ;
rick.hutto@macon.ga.us ;
lonnie.miley@macon.ga.us ;
elaine.lucas@macon.ga.us ;
james.timley@macon.ga.us ;
mike.cranford@macon.ga.us ;
ed.defore@macon.ga.us ;
larry.schlesinger@macon.ga.us ;
tom.ellington@macon.ga.us ;
miriam.paris@macon.ga.us ;
charles.jones@macon.ga.us ;
virgil.watkins@macon.ga.us ;
lauren.benedict@macon.ga.us ;
beverly.blake@macon.ga.us
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2011 6:35 PM
Subject: Please amend definition of "smoking" in proposed smokefree workplace for accuracy and to improve public health
Dear Macon City Council members:
Please amend the definition of "smoking" [Sec. 13-39(a)(20)] in Macon's proposed smokefree workplace ordinance to eliminate its current ban on electronic cigarette usage since e-cigarettes emit
No Smoke, pose no known health risks to users or nonusers, appear to be at least 99% less hazardous than cigarettes, and have helped hundreds of thousands of smokers quit or sharply reduce cigarette consumption.
While Smokefree Pennsylvania strongly supports Macon's proposal to ban smoking in one hundred or so workplaces (that are currently exempt from Georgia's smokefree workplace law), there is no public health justification for banning the use of smokefree e-cigarettes in tens of thousands of Macon workplaces, and it is insincere to define the use of smokefree products as "smoking".
Banning the use of e-cigarettes in workplaces can harm public health because it would compel current e-cigarette consumers to inhale hazardous tobacco smoke pollution (at outdoor smoking areas), would encourage some e-cigarette consumers to switch back to lethal tobacco cigarettes, and would discourage smokers from reducing their health risks by switching to or substituting e-cigarettes. Besides, the "purpose" and "whereas" sections of the proposed ordinance don't mention e-cigarettes.
Since 1990, Smokefree Pennsylvania has advocated public policies to protect people from tobacco smoke pollution, reduce tobacco marketing to youth, increase cigarette tax rates, preserve civil justice remedies for injured smokers, increase funding for smoking prevention and cessation programs, and inform smokers that smokefree tobacco/nicotine products are far less hazardous alternatives to cigarettes. For disclosure, neither Smokefree Pennsylvania or I have ever received any funding from tobacco, drug or e-cigarette companies or trade associations.
Recent published studies have found that e-cigarettes pose exponentially fewer health risks than cigarettes because they emit no tobacco smoke, carbon monixide or airborne particulates, and they also relieve cravings of smokers.
Ecigarette mist harmless, inhaled or exhaled
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...eissenberg-study-vindicates-e-cigarettes.html
http://www.healthnz.co.nz/2010 Bullen ECig.pdf
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/centers-institutes/population-development/files/article.jphp.pdf
SEIKATSUEISEI : Vol. 55 (2011) , No. 1 p.59-64
About 500,000 smokers in Ameria have quit smoking or sharply reduced cigarette consumption by switching to e-cigarettes in the past several years, and many/most e-cigarette consumers have found the products effective for quitting smoking and improving respiratory health, which has confirmed by several recently published surveys at
http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-10-231.pdf
THR2010. (tobaccoharmreduction.org) (chapter 9)
http://www.ajpm-online.net/webfiles/images/journals/amepre/AMEPRE3013.pdf
In 2006, I coauthored a comprehensive scientific report "Tobacco harm reduction: an alternative cessation strategy for inveterate smokers" at
Harm Reduction Journal | Full text | Tobacco harm reduction: an alternative cessation strategy for inveterate smokers and in 2007 the Royal College of Physicians
issued a similar report "Harm reduction in nicotine addiction; Helping people who can't quit" at
http://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/pubs/contents/e226ee0c-ccef-4dba-b62f-86f046371dfb.pdf
Last year, the American Association of Public Health Physicians similarly petitioned the FDA
Regulations.gov and
Regulations.gov urging the agency to classify e-cigarettes as tobacco products (in accordance with the 2009 FSPTCA), and to issue a correction/clarification of inaccurate/misleading information previously issued by the agency about e-cigarettes.
Consistently, in ruling that the FDA can only regulate e-cigarettes as tobacco products (not drug devices), Federal Judge Richard Leon pointed out that the FDA offered no evidence that e-cigarettes posed health risks
https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2009cv0771-54 and in December the DC Court of Appeals upheld Judge Leon's ruling
http://www.casaa.org/files/ct app opinion on injunction.pdf Smokefree Pennsylvania and I were among many public and consumer health advocates that filed an amici curiae brief
http://www.casaa.org/files/amicus brief smokefree.pdf with the Appeals Court in support of e-cigarettes.
Just last week, the New Zealand Ministry of Health informed the NZ Parliamentary Health Committee that e-cigarette usage is far safer than smoking
E-cigarette - personal nicotine vapouriser and
http://www.endsmoking.org.nz/MoH on ecigs etc.pdf According to the NZ Ministry of Health “As the e-cigarette delivers only nicotine in a mist of propylene glycol, without the other 4,000 or so other chemicals in tobacco smoke, it is far safer than smoking.” and "The current safety data would therefore suggest that the e-cigarette poses few risks to people, and is safer than continuing to smoke."
In sum, the rapidly mounting evidence indicates that usage of e-cigarettes by smokers substantially benefits both consumer and public health, there is no evidence that e-cigarettes pose any harm to users or nonusers, and that hundreds of thousands of smokers have already quit or sharply reduced cigarette consumption by switching to e-cigarettes.
Once again, Smokefree Pennsylvania encourages Macon City Council to correct and amend the definition of "smoking" in its proposed smokefree workplace ordinance by eliminating the proposed usage ban for smokefree e-cigarettes.
Feel free to contact me any time for more information or for clarification.
Sincerely,
William T. Godshall, MPH
Executive Director
Smokefree Pennsylvania
1926 Monongahela Avenue
Pittsburgh PA 15218
412-351-5880
smokefree@compuserve.com
