State-by-State E-Cigarette Bans?

Jacob Sullum | August 3, 2009

Last week Oregon Attorney General John Kroger bragged about successfully pressuring two travel store chains, Pilot Travel Centers and Travel Centers of America, to stop selling electronic cigarettes at their locations in the state. Action on Smoking and Health wants every attorney general to follow suit. "Until the FDA acts," says ASH Executive Director John Banzhaf, "it is appropriate for attorneys general to act to protect their health of their citizens." Under the Oregon agreements, the companies promise not to sell e-cigarettes, battery-powered devices that deliver nicotine vapor without combustion products, unless the products are approved by the FDA or "a court rules the FDA does not have the authority to regulate electronic cigarettes." In the latter case, "electronic cigarettes may not be sold in Oregon unless there is competent and reliable scientific evidence to support the product's safety claims." Deputy Attorney General Mary Williams explains the rationale for pulling e-cigarettes from stores: "When products threaten the health and safety of Oregonians, we will take action."

As Michael Siegel notes on his tobacco policy blog, however, Kroger's action does nothing about conventional cigarettes, products that "threaten the health and safety of Oregonians" much more than their smokeless competitors do. Tobacco cigarettes, after all, are now approved by the FDA, so they must be OK. It's a bit odd for an attorney general who claims to care about consumers' health (not to mention an anti-smoking group that is usually perceived as, you know, anti-smoking) to promote cigarette consumption by impeding access to an alternative that is far less hazardous. Like the FDA's threats to ban e-cigarettes, such policies reveal that "public health" often means pharmacological puritanism and regulation for its own sake, as opposed to health promotion.

More on e-cigarettes here.

Comments

|8.3.09 @ 1:51PM|#

Pilot and the TA are truck stop chains. I wonder if they will see a loss of business from drivers that stop in bordering states to stock up on stuff because they can't get their e-ciggy refills in Oregon. Truck drivers are a fickle consumer and are quick to boycott.

Jordan|8.3.09 @ 2:01PM|#

"Until the FDA acts," says ASH Executive Director John Banzhaf, "it is appropriate for attorneys general to act to protect their health of their citizens."

We aren't children you nannyist piece of shit. When will the FDA act to protect us from totalitarian assholes?

|8.3.09 @ 2:03PM|#

I am mystified by the absolutely unscientific pile-on onto e-cigs. It's like they've been deemed the product of Satan somehow already. What the fuck? People are acting like they're worse than real smokes, and it makes absolutely no sense.

|8.3.09 @ 2:03PM|#

But, but, but,

It's for your own good! We care about you, we really do. And being the government, we are competent as can be. In fact, we approach omniscience.

kilroy|8.3.09 @ 2:04PM|#

"If companies want to sell electronic cigarettes to consumers, they have to be able to prove they are safe."

Relative to what? Certainly not regular cancer sticks.

dumbfuck|8.3.09 @ 2:04PM|#

me no understand - how ecigarette threaten health and safety???

|8.3.09 @ 2:12PM|#

Don't worry; the Presidential Suit, who believes in free markets, entrepreneurial innovation and the profit motive, will send this buffoon a sternly worded letter instructing him to knock that shit off.

|8.3.09 @ 2:14PM|#

P brooks, don't bogart that stuff dude. Pass it this way.

|8.3.09 @ 2:26PM|#

Question: would these "Consumer Safety Advocates" fight tooth and nail to prevent a lawnmower with a less dangerous blade, or better blade guards, from being put on the market?

|8.3.09 @ 2:29PM|#

I suppose I could get off my fat ass and look into the people pushing for these bans to see if they are getting any "donations" from big tobacco.


nahhh. probly not

NeonCat|8.3.09 @ 2:32PM|#

@ Episiarch
"I am mystified by the absolutely unscientific pile-on onto e-cigs."

Because they combine cigarettes, which are evil, technology, which is even more evil, and e- anything, which makes it seem like part of the dot bomb era and therefore passé.

So, thrice doomed.

hmm|8.3.09 @ 2:35PM|#

From a stat where you can't pump your own gas. Not surprised.

kinnath|8.3.09 @ 2:36PM|#

how ecigarette threaten health and safety???

If you eliminate the carcinogens from the combustion products, you dramatically decrease the "health penalty" for using nicotine thereby making nicotine use more "socially acceptable".

It also eliminates the second-hand smoke argument for banning cigarettes everywhere (including private spaces).

All-in-all, e-cigs pull the rug out from under the anti-cigarette establishment.

|8.3.09 @ 2:38PM|#

I am mystified by the absolutely unscientific pile-on onto e-cigs.

Magical thinking in action. It looks like a cigarette, therefor it must partake of the evil essence of cigarettes.

These people have an emotional reaction to cigarettes - even seeing someone smoking one sickens and angers them. Thus, seeing someone with what appears to be a cigarette also sickens and angers them.

Finally, they are all about control, and e-cigarettes are a way around the controls they have put on cigarettes.

|8.3.09 @ 2:42PM|#

Finally, they are all about control, and e-cigarettes are a way around the controls they have put on cigarettes.

This is the crux of it. E-cigs should be a health advocate's wet dream, and instead they desperately want to ban them. I think that tells us all we need to know about their real motives.

Rich|8.3.09 @ 2:47PM|#

Question: would these "Consumer Safety Advocates" fight tooth and nail to prevent a lawnmower with a less dangerous blade, or better blade guards, from being put on the market?

If it were marketed as an alternative to cigarettes, yes.

Drink your Nicotini while you still can.

Rhywun|8.3.09 @ 2:49PM|#

You'd think people would finally wise up to this and realize the government does NOT have their best interest in mind. Then again, I thought the pile of corpses the drug war keeps churning out would do the same thing. Oh well.

Robert|8.3.09 @ 2:50PM|#

You'll notice that ASH never calls for a ban on smoking products themselves. That's because they realize that were it not for smoking products, ASH would have no reason for existence. So they try to get e-cigs banned so ASH won't appear to be hypocrites.

|8.3.09 @ 2:52PM|#

Kinnath said it. Something similar supposedly happened many years ago, when a liquor company figured that since alcohol depleted certain vitamins, why not fortify their products with them and thus make it healthier? The FDA stopped that. Can't have any alcohol that's better for you than any other alcohol, apparently.

lunchstealer|8.3.09 @ 2:52PM|#

Hey, better even than a state-by-state banning, would be a person-by-person banning. Y'know, let individual people say "Nope, it's against my law for me to sell e-cigs."

|8.3.09 @ 3:10PM|#

" Can't have any alcohol that's better for you than any other alcohol, apparently."

I, for one, would be overdosing on vitamins daily.

|8.3.09 @ 3:46PM|#

I am mystified by the absolutely unscientific pile-on onto e-cigs.

It's losing sight of the plot. They worry that if e-cigs are safer, then people will use them more. That's not an illogical thought, except that if e-cigs are enough safer, who cares if people use them?

thoreau|8.3.09 @ 4:21PM|#

e-cigs sound great until you realize that in time of war they could be targeted for cyberwarfare, and next thing you know Al Qaeda is....um, something.

|8.3.09 @ 4:28PM|#

E-cigs are all well and good, but I want to know where the e-jay is.

|8.3.09 @ 5:04PM|#

E-cigs are all well and good, but I want to know where the e-jay is.

I believe they call that a vaporizer. Sadly, I don't know of a liquid THC on the market

|8.3.09 @ 5:19PM|#

It's losing sight of the plot. They worry that if e-cigs are safer, then people will use them more. That's not an illogical thought, except that if e-cigs are enough safer, who cares if people use them?

I think part of it stems from a belief that there is something inherently unhealthy about nicotine itself. I mean it is a drug, and people do get addicted to it, so providing a "safe" way to get a nicotine "fix" would be considered "bad" by the same people that think that anything addictive should be prohibited.

I also saw an article the other day about the e-cigs that talked about carcinogens that are in the liquid (heres a small link):

Electronic cigarettes, which are often made to look like real cigarettes, contain carcinogens such as diethylene glycol -- used in antifreeze -- and nitrosamines, FDA lab tests have revealed.

But I think there is a willful conflation about the issues of safety.

Are they safer than regular cigs. It would seem so.

Are they safer than not smoking anything at all? I dunno. If they contain carcinogens probably not.

But grilled food contains carcinogens. So what's the standard for "safe" (objective speaking, not relative to regular cigs) ?

And how should e-cigs be discussed? Relative to cigs or as a stand alone device?

I think that if you are talking about them relative to cigs they are absolutely a safer alternative to smoking. But as a stand along product do you call it a "safe" product? I dunno -- I'd like to see more science on the carcinogens the FDA talks about. But, It doesn't strike me as a product so potentially unsafe that it should be banned, and considering that much more dangerous cigs are on the market, then it makes even less sense to try and ban these.

|8.3.09 @ 5:54PM|#

But as a stand along product do you call it a "safe" product?

First, you need to ask yourself, would you call it a "legal" product.

The answer, of course, should be yes. People should be free to use it or not, as its use can harm no one but themselves.

Then, with that out of the way, you can discuss safety to your heart's content.

|8.3.09 @ 6:30PM|#

First, you need to ask yourself, would you call it a "legal" product.

Absolutely. And as it stands it is legal, mostly.

But the question apparently is : should it be banned because it's an unsafe product.

I don't think so, and the arguments for banning I have seen so far have been pretty silly.

Like I said, I don't see how you ban e-cigs when the more dangerous cigs are legal. It doesn't make sense.

|8.3.09 @ 6:57PM|#

Don't blame Big Tobacco on this one. Big Tobacco might be squalling at the migration of its customers to the e-cig, but who listens to Big Tobacco anymore?

The prime mover here is Big Pharma. The e-cigarette is a bigger threat to Big Pharma's profit from sales of nicotine gum, nicotine patches and nicotine inhalers than are tobacco cigrettes themselves.

Those clever Chinese have come up with a superior product and it's beating the s**t out of Nicorette Gum.

Medic001|8.3.09 @ 7:29PM|#

And why do we need the big government to tell us if something is good for us or not?

The E- Cig is a great idea. I'm not against tobacco products, I'm against the crap they put in them. And the E- Cig is good for more than just Tobacco.

|8.3.09 @ 7:34PM|#

And why do we need the big government to tell us if something is good for us or not?

Judging by our voting record, we could use some help?

|8.3.09 @ 7:57PM|#

"Electronic cigarettes, which are often made to look like real cigarettes, contain carcinogens such as diethylene glycol -- used in antifreeze -- and nitrosamines, FDA lab tests have revealed."

Oh, that's rich. Diethylene glycol was found in ONE cartridge from ONE company, a tobacco-flavored cartridge (and less than 1% -- how MUCH less than 1%, they didn't reveal). I'm surprised traces of it weren't in many more of the carts tested; diethylene glycol is used to dry tobacco.

And the nitrosamines they found (in maybe HALF the carts tested) are tobacco-specific. The same TSNs are found in FDA-approved smoking cessation aids like Nicotrol and Nicorette. Ever met a doc in a hurry to get you off either of those? I haven't.

The FDA's poor excuse for a study (which, for some reason, tested for nanoparticles instead of the customary ppm) has been spun exactly counter to what it reveals: the liquids vapers are using are probably a whole lot cleaner than we suspected.

The "fog" ingredient is propylene glycol. It is in nearly every product you can think of, including asthma inhalers and fog machines, food, toiletries, and air fresheners. And it is the main component of the LESS-toxic brands of antifreeze.

And since I can and do create my own nic-free liquid with PG, veggie glycerin, and food flavorings and inhale it from my personal vaporizer, I don't see how the equipment can be considered a drug-delivery device, how the FDA imagines any authority to confiscate shipments of batteries, atomizers, and empty carts, or why Banzhaf is a complete arse but that last is a question for another time.

|8.3.09 @ 8:01PM|#

These people have an emotional reaction to cigarettes - even seeing someone smoking one sickens and angers them.

I think they need a good, cathartic (and deep) boot in the arse. That should relieve them of that unfortunate emotional reaction.

|8.3.09 @ 8:59PM|#

I'm with the free market on this one. Shouldn't the government have to prove why it's dangerous before it is banned? I don't get it, but I'm certain the tobacco industry hasn't just sat by whistling to itself either.

|8.3.09 @ 9:51PM|#

The Oregon AG is a meglomaniac - navy seal, fed prosecuter, wrote a book,regular on talk radio, etc... who obviously has his sights on a higher office.

|8.3.09 @ 11:31PM|#

The point of the intense lobbying against e-cigarettes by anti smoking zealots is their denormalisation strategy.

They have no interest in health. They just hate smoking/ers and want them to disappear.

With e-cigarettes smokers would be able to "smoke" anywhere which puts the antis into a rage.

Seigel at The Rest of the Story chronicles this.

E-Cig User|8.3.09 @ 11:59PM|#

What this comes down to for government authorities is Taxes.

E-Cig is the one cigarette replacement product that doesn't completely suck ass. The health qualities wouldn't justify the $2/3/4/5 tax per pack of cigarettes, while the pharma companies want to fight it tooth and nail so people continue to use their awful products.

There is an issue with quality control (some of the e-cigs just seem to fall apart, being from China and all). But a real American corporation probably doesn't want to spend the resources, just to have it banned for the hell of it a few months down the road.

|8.4.09 @ 11:05AM|#

This is a load of hooey. The FDA used a nicotrol inhaler as the test control. If they compared an e-cig w/ a normal cig, the results would've been totally different.

I smoked for more than 10 years & now I've completely stopped smoking normal cigarettes. I can breathe easier & no longer cough. I've tried patches, nicotine gum, you name it! I started w/ disposable units that were cheap but they provided no throat hit, I thought, is that it? So I did my research.

After researching online for various companies & prices, I found Freshsmoking . com They've got the best prices, their starter kits start at only $45 dollars & the rest of their accessories are much cheaper than anywhere else I've seen. The best part about it is that their units provide a strong throat hit & a great battery & cartridge life. I've had my unit now for more than a month & it's still going strong! Also, their customer service was great & I received my package in just 2 days! I highly recommend them!

Reality4u|8.4.09 @ 1:42PM|#

E-cigarettes threaten health and safety because they help keep smokers addicted to nicotine. By providing an alternative that mimics smoking in appearance and dose delivery in times when you can't smoke a real one, their availability makes you more likely to keep smoking rather than quit. That's why tobacco companies love e-cigs even if they don't have a direct stake in their production or sale, and it's why tobacco industry shills are lobbying hard for the FDA to allow them. It's why those shills post articles on blogs every day criticizing any restrictions on the sale of e-cigarettes. It's the same old story. The ultimate goal just as before is to keep you smoking.

youneedahit|10.27.09 @ 4:16PM|#

Uh huh. You can bank on this: tobacco companies don't love e-cigs any more than the Pony Express loved Alexander Graham Bell because his invention prompted people to keep communicating. Don't be a doofus.

|8.5.09 @ 9:54AM|#

The denormalization of e-cigs should be an enlightening indication of the type of fanaticism employed by the entirety of Public health agencies the politicians and the charities.

They are now pursuing "smokers" with their admonishments and belittlement, beyond the point that they no longer smoke.

Hatred alone drives these people and they will never reform themselves until they are made an example of, for their crimes against humanity.

It is easy to entitle a following embracing hatred.

Promoting understanding and accommodation takes a lot of effort. Which explains why smoking bans were promoted in place of signs and personal choices. Or why; propaganda and focused exaggerations, which are largely in protection of industrial interests, over ride legitimate science, in observation of the truth, which would suit our protection as people.

|8.5.09 @ 10:17AM|#

The "Public Health" groups are promoting their own ridicule, as hypocrites and ideological simpletons, when demanding a ban of e-cigs, while consistently denouncing and defending against, a ban of real cigarettes.

What was the party line?

Ah yes; "Prohibition doesn't work"

It was always about the money and the Public [traded] Health of corporate investments.

|8.5.09 @ 4:35PM|#

The rebuttal to the FDA report;

http://www.njoythefreedom.com/contactcommerce/images/press_releases/Response%20to%20the%20FDA%20Summary.pdf
Pay special attention to page six...

And mine;

People tend to forget there are two stages to smoking. First you draw the smoke into your mouth as we see with quantities defined by smoking machines, then in the second stage they draw it in, along with a full inhalation of air. The actual exposure levels experienced have to include the air which dilutes the smoke.

The dilution levels are extreme.

In a smoke filled room the mixture is already available and no dilution occurs on inhalation. The highest levels ever predicted would be 163 nano-grams per cubic meter of air and in cigarettes it would be 700PPB less 75% lost during burning.


TSNA AKA "tobacco specific carcinogens" are only formed in the nicotine and should more legitimately be described as nicotine specific. Any product which contains nicotine will have equal measures of nicotine specific carcinogens, cigarettes included. These toxins are formed during the exposures to primarily diesel exhaust fumes during curing. It is entirely avoidable.

Unfortunately the countries who produced the 95% reduced toxin cigarettes, quickly shut down the farms producing it. In Canada 90% of tobacco farms were forced out of business. In the States growers are being forced into buyouts under pressures from cheaper unregulated imports, under the "free trade deals" already in place, which can not allow the domestic crops any protection.

IOW mass murder by lobby group purchased politics.

This would pass a large disparity between predicted risks and what the lobbies have been selling for far too long.

Poison is in the dose, so do the math.

If second hand smoke only kills 50,000 with such a large number expossed, what is killing so many smokers?

The exposures experienced by the approved drug pusher's "treatments" seem to have no dilutions in actual use. Thousands of times higher dosages are placed directly in your mouth or leech through your skin directly into the blood stream. Are they trying to kill someone, with such large and obviously lethal dosages, far beyond those experienced by smoking or second hand smoke?

It's a shell game, for the greedy and self important and we are all being conned by spit and polished reports.

In the form of ad agency spin.

The exhaustive list of 4000 tobacco "toxins" remains a mute point for use in gratuitous political grandstanding alone, because much larger exposures, that we can not avoid, are available from numerous sources in respect to virtually every item on the list.

The exception? Tobacco specific carcinogens and histamines. When you boil it all down the "sin" derived of smoking is only shown to be harmful in a scientific perspective, by these items alone. All of them are preventable and any product that utilizes nicotine [including e-cigs] will have comparable levels of the identical "sinful" exposures.



http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2335004?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_Discovery_RA&linkpos=3&log$=relatedarticles&logdbfrom=pubmed

"For nonfilter cigarettes the transfer rates of NNN and NNK which had been corrected for ventilation and cigarette length amounted to 23 or 34% respectively. For filter cigarettes a transfer rate of 13% for NNN and 23% for NNK was calculated. Furthermore it is shown that the mainstream smoke/tobacco ratios for NNN and NNK are constant over the whole length of the cigarettes except for NNK in dark tobacco type cigarettes. The results of this investigation indicate that pyrosynthesis[formation by burning] of NNN does not occur and that it is very unlikely for NNK at least for lower nitrate levels. Thus with few exceptions the TSNA burden of smokers is predominantly influenced by the amount of preformed NNN and NNK in tobacco."


Now all that needs to be straightened out is; who are the real sinners and who are the injured victims, who should be compensated for what was inflicted on them, by the contrived ignorance of public health agencies which promoted that extensive damage and continuing risk.

The medical mafia need to be dismantled, in order to make our streets safe again.

electronic cigarette|8.15.09 @ 3:32AM|#

If any State cares about it's citizens health, Than it would ban tobacco smoking which is responsible for over 4000,000 deahs annualy in America! Before closing it's doors on a much safer alternative which is called an electronic cigarette, that has not harmed a single human since it was introduced in 2004!!!

J|10.26.09 @ 3:25PM|#

Ecigs sales are booming and it's helping thousands of people quit smoking. That said the tobacco company's are hurting and there loosing money. They won't stand for that so there going to do what ever it takes to ban them and talk s$%t about it even if it's the truth or not. The tobacco lobbyist are playing a big part in this. If the Government really cared about us then they wouldn't ban it and say all of this crap.
Even if there is carcinogens in them there's way less of them then in ecigs then cigaretts.
If this doesn't tell us that the government doesn't care about us just big business and big money then I don't know what will.
Take care all