From: 4dangers
E-CIGARETTES -- ASH Legal Complaint Hits E-Cigarettes: New Product Poses Dangers For Both Smokers and Nonsmokers
COMING SOON TO A NO-SMOKING SECTION WHERE YOU ARE SITTING:
A new device for addicted smokers who want to be able to get their nicotine fix by smoking in places where smoking is prohibited, and do so by exhaling a cloud of smoke made up of a chemical which is both toxic and addictive.
This new product, already being sold and used in many U.S. cities, is called an e-cigarette.
It doesnt burn tobacco, but it does allow smokers to inhale and to exhale into the air around them the addictive substance nicotine which constricts blood vessels, increases the heart rate, and produces other changes in a body (especially in people not accustomed to it).
Most astonishingly, the product is now not subject to any regulation, so we have no way of knowing what other chemicals might also be given off when the user exhales into the air.
To help protect nonsmokers, and also smokers who might use the product instead of quitting, ASH has filed a formal legal petition demanding that it be regulated by the FDA.
If you dont want people sitting next to you in a waiting room, restaurant, bar, or any other area where smoking is now prohibited using one of these devices to get around smoking bans, and forcing you and your loved ones to inhale deadly nicotine please help now!
You can help by writing or making a FREE telephone call to the FDA to tell them you want e-cigarettes regulated now to protect both smokers and nonsmokers:
Food and Drug Administration
10903 New Hampshire Ave
Silver Spring, MD 20993-0002
1-888-INFO-FDA (1-888-463-6332)
You can also make the same request online by going to:
Contact FDA
and clicking on:
E-CIGARETTES -- ASH Legal Complaint Hits E-Cigarettes: New Product Poses Dangers For Both Smokers and Nonsmokers
COMING SOON TO A NO-SMOKING SECTION WHERE YOU ARE SITTING:
A new device for addicted smokers who want to be able to get their nicotine fix by smoking in places where smoking is prohibited, and do so by exhaling a cloud of smoke made up of a chemical which is both toxic and addictive.
This new product, already being sold and used in many U.S. cities, is called an e-cigarette.
It doesnt burn tobacco, but it does allow smokers to inhale and to exhale into the air around them the addictive substance nicotine which constricts blood vessels, increases the heart rate, and produces other changes in a body (especially in people not accustomed to it).
Most astonishingly, the product is now not subject to any regulation, so we have no way of knowing what other chemicals might also be given off when the user exhales into the air.
ASH to the Rescue
To help protect nonsmokers, and also smokers who might use the product instead of quitting, ASH has filed a formal legal petition demanding that it be regulated by the FDA.
If you dont want people sitting next to you in a waiting room, restaurant, bar, or any other area where smoking is now prohibited using one of these devices to get around smoking bans, and forcing you and your loved ones to inhale deadly nicotine please help now!
You can help by writing or making a FREE telephone call to the FDA to tell them you want e-cigarettes regulated now to protect both smokers and nonsmokers:
Food and Drug Administration
10903 New Hampshire Ave
Silver Spring, MD 20993-0002
1-888-INFO-FDA (1-888-463-6332)
You can also make the same request online by going to:
Contact FDA
and clicking on:
TOPIC => Medical Devices, Radiation-Emitting Products.
BELOW IS THE COVER PAGE FROM ASH'S FDA PETITION
BELOW IS THE COVER PAGE FROM ASH'S FDA PETITION
SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT
I. The FDA has long asserted jurisdiction over nicotine as a drug, and over devices which deliver nicotine as nicotine delivery devices e.g., gum, patches, and so-called smokeless cigarettes.
II. Indeed, it successfully asserted jurisdiction over a remarkably similar device known as Flavor, which was also a white tube containing nicotine which looked very much like a cigarette.
III. The only challenge to the FDAs jurisdiction over nicotine was the Brown case, but that holding was very clearly limited to tobacco products, and especially to normal cigarettes defined by federal law as containing tobacco, which Congress has often regulated, and the decision does not apply in any way to tubes containing nicotine.
IV. Because claims related to health have been made both directly and by implication about the new product, it is clear that it is intended to "affect the structure or any function of the body of man and is therefore a drug under the statutory definition.
V. Having been put on notice by the wide-spread publicity about the product, a failure to even formally assert jurisdiction could stymy the FDAs power in the future by legal arguments in the nature of estoppel, latches, lack of clean hands, and unfairness especially if the agencys failure to act were challenged in court.
VI. Any failure by the FDA to react decisively would also seriously undermine its credibility, and do so at a time when it has been widely criticized for failing to take decisive action regarding many other different products also clearly within its jurisdiction.
VII. Since nicotine is both a deadly and addictive drug, there is at least a reasonable probability that it could be causing harm both to the users and to others in the vicinity who inhale the vapor, and therefore the product should be appropriately regulated without further delay.
VIII. Even if the FDA holds that e-cigarettes harmful effects are outweighed by its benefits as it has with nicotine gum and patches the FDA may nevertheless find it appropriate to require health-related warnings, and/or limit its sales (e.g., to adults upon presentation of proof of age), etc.
