Here's my prepared testimony, which I presented twice (as the first bill on yesterday's Cmte hearing agenda was a bill that would have banned smoking and e-cig use at all MD State Parks, which several of had also signed up to oppose). While I was halfway through my testimony opposing the vaping ban in parks bill, the Cmte Chair interrupted me to say that e-cig use was being removed from the bill, which prompted me to stop testifying and thank the Chair (followed by Ron Ward and Carl Phillips also thanking the chair instead of testifying).
Testimony to the
Maryland House Committee on Economic Matters
Opposing HB 1291
March 5, 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 policies to ban smoking in workplaces, stop cigarette marketing to youth, increase cigarette tax rates, hold cigarette companies accountable in civil court, and during the past decade, we’ve been informing the public that cigarettes are 100 times more hazardous than smokefree tobacco/nicotine alternatives, including smokeless tobacco, nicotine gums, lozenges, patches, inhalers, and e-cigarettes.
For disclosure, neither Smokefree Pennsylvania nor I have ever received any funding from any tobacco, drug or e-cig company.
In 2009, we urged then FDA Deputy Commissioner Josh Sharfstein to support e-cigs as alternatives for smokers, and we collaborated with two e-cig companies in successfully suing the FDA in federal court for banning e-cigs and seizing their shipments. We’ve also helped convince 28 state legislatures to ban e-cig sales to minors.
Since our goal is to reduce the leading cause of disease and death, we urge this committee to reject HB 1291 because it protects cigarette markets, threatens the health of vapers, discourages smokers from quitting, and deceitfully redefines smokefree e-cigs as “smoking devices” to confuse and scare people.
In sharp contrast to fear mongering propaganda by Obama’s FDA, Big Pharma funded CTFK, ACS, AHA, ALA and other e-cig prohibitionists since 2009,
the scientific and empirical evidence consistently indicates that e-cigarettes are 99% (+/-1%) less hazardous than cigarettes, have helped several million smokers quit or sharply reduce cigarette consumption, and are consumed almost exclusively by smokers and by exsmokers who switched to e-cigs.
Public health benefits every time a smoker uses an e-cig instead of smoking a cigarette.
E-cig have replaced about 1 Billion packs of cigarettes in the US in the past five years, and last year US cigarette consumption plummeted by 4.6% as e-cig sales skyrocketed.
E-cigs are proving more effective for smoking cessation than FDA approved nicotine gums, lozenges, patches and inhalers, which have a 95% failure rate.
E-cigs pose no harm or risks to nonusers. Hundreds of common workplace and household products and activities emit far greater levels of indoor air pollution than an e-cig (including furniture, carpet, paint, printers, copiers, cooking, cleaning products, dry cleaned clothes, hair spray, perfume, and even a cup of coffee), but we don’t ban those things.
Meanwhile, e-cigs have never been found to create daily dependence in any nonsmoker (youth or adult), and have never been found to precede cigarette use by any daily smoker.
While e-cig use among teens doubled from 2011 to 2012, the CDC’s survey and all others found that teen smokers were at least 20 times more likely than teen nonsmokers to report past use of an e-cig, that fewer than 1% of teen nonsmokers reported e-cig experimentation, and that teen smoking declined to record lows.
Regardless, just as we don’t ban adults from using alcohol, coffee or smokeless tobacco because some teens use those products, its absurd to ban e-cig use by adults for that reason.
E-cigs benefit employers and managements since workers don’t waste time on smoke breaks, and customers don’t have to go outside.
Finally, its impossible to enforce vaping bans, as users can eliminate all visible vapor by simply holding their breath for two seconds. Illegal use of e-cigs has skyrocketed in the three states and several dozen municipalities that banned vaping during the past four years, and we’re aware of only one citation issued.
Please reject HB 1291. But if you are going to approve this misguided bill, at least amend the bill to exempt “vape shops” and “enclosed areas where children aren’t permitted”.
I knew it. Taxes come next... God, I hate this state.
