E-Cigarettes No Better Than Regular Cigarettes
You’ve probably seen those ads for the E-cigarette, which promise to allow you to get your nicotine fix while leaving you sans-ash try smell. In one commercial for Blu E-cigarettes, Stephen Dorff tells you how you can “stop feeling guilty” when you want to light up, stop “smelling like an ashtray”, and that you can even enjoy your E-cigarette at a basketball game. Dorff also casually mentions that he’s been a smoker for 20 years, which is what I find most problematic about this commercial, and apparently so does the Food and Drug Administration.
FDA Ponders the Regulation of E-cigarettes for Three Years
E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that heat nicotine solution and create an inhalable vapor. The FDA has discussed the possibility of regulating E-cigarettes since 2010, and rightly so. The cigarette companies are likely trying to attract a new slew of smokers by first hooking them to a slightly less harmful E-cigarette with the hopes of getting them to move into the full-blown addiction. In fact, some countries have even banned E-cigarettes because they view them as a device that delivers a drug with no use, even if E-cigarettes allow you to “take your freedom back” like Dorff claims (i.e. smoke when and where you want without the smell). Any benefit of E-cigarettes remains unproven, and some cities have even banned their use indoors. Indeed, studies have found at least three toxins in E-cigarettes (including the one of the same chemicals in anti-freeze) and suggest that quitting E-cigarettes may be as difficult as quitting the real thing.
New York City and California Pondering Ban
New York City’s Health Committee is turning its attention to E-cigarettes. The committee is considering classifying E-cigarettes as tobacco products. California has also discussed the possibility of banning E-cigarettes and would limit the use of the product at “residential dwelling units, school campuses, public buildings, as defined, places of employment, day care facilities, retail food facilities, and health facilities”. In the meantime, sales of E-cigarettes continue to rise, with an estimated $1 billion in profits to the E-cigarette industry. It won’t be long before we learn of the FDA’s next move on E-cigarettes, however–the agency said that it would release its proposed regulations in October.
