There is a
bill in the House that would serve as a stopgap measure preventing the near total destruction the vapor business.
The Deeming Authority Clarification Act of 2017 would amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act to change the predicate date from Feb. 15, 2007, to when the deeming regulations came into effect.
But preventing the de facto prohibition of e-cigarettes should be but the first step in what needs to be a fundamental re-think of federal tobacco policy.
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Rather than hectoring smokers, policy makers should allow those who want to quit smoking to choose from new and better options that suit them so they can actually enjoy quitting while massively reducing their risk of death and disease.
There are reasons to be optimistic that Gottlieb recognizes the value of harm reduction, while not being tied to any particular ideological dogma. In an article for
Forbes in 2013, Gottlieb pointed to the potential benefits of reduced risk products.
"If the industry was earnest about transitioning away from the manufacture of smoked cigarettes, and getting into the development of new products that would still satisfy peoples’ taste for nicotine (with hopefully much lower risks) there could be public health virtue," wrote Gottlieb.