The article neglects to mention that the Congressional Act which forces (?) the FDA's hand, was one that Phillip Morris sponsored and lobbied for. I think this is key to understanding why the FDA is acting like this, seemingly against public health, while benefiting incumbent cigarette makers.
Passage, if it comes, may be politically impossible without
the negotiated support of Philip Morris, whose Marlboro
brand helps make it the American tobacco industry’s biggest
player.
The company’s central role, in fact, is a reason that some
antismoking activists worry that the bill is a deal with the
devil. Philip Morris’s support is also why other major
tobacco companies — none of which back the legislation — see
a cunning ploy by Marlboro’s maker to seal the company’s
dominant position.
This is a great example of what lobbying is and isn't. There are objectively good reasons to regulate e-cigarettes. And it's undeniable that tobacco companies are much more heavily regulated than e-cigarette companies. But it's also true that what hurts e-cigarette companies helps tobacco companies.
The bill, and today's new FDA regulation, are not against public health. As that same article says:
> Philip Morris’s motives notwithstanding, the legislation has broad support from nearly 1,000 advocacy groups, including the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, which led the negotiations with the company, as well as the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association and the American Cancer Society.
And today public health organizations like the American Lung Association and American Heart Association are welcoming the FDA rule:
Phillip Morris' involvement is not a form of corruption, or social proof the rule is secretly bad for everyone. It's the natural consequence of our system of government, which says that persons and companies subject to new laws are allowed to have a say in the process. Google fought SOPA, for example.
The benefit to Phillip Morris is to deny new entrants to the tobacco market. This is also a benefit to public health, plus health advocates hope that the regulations will help shrink the overall market for tobacco products in the U.S.
Edit: throwaway_yy2Di says the bill is bad for public health based on nothing, and is the top comment. 1,000 public health orgs say the bill is good for public health (in the same story!), and this comment is sitting at 0. I guess that's HN for ya...
Also: pretty much every single tobacco manufacturer in the US sued over the constitutionality of the Act on various grounds (often free speech w/r/t restrictions on advertising).
Altria (Philip Morris parent company) was the only tobacco player not to say a word once the Act passed.
While their influence is obvious the outcome is still fine by me. Many insurance policies do not distinguish between smoking and vaping. Let alone the fact that anything you ingest or inhale that is sold should be proven safe. Where is the proof that they are safe than supports your statement its against the public health to do this?
Considering the amount of money cigarette manufacturers pay out to the government and states it makes sense that anything that takes their place needs to be proven safe or not safe and then handled accordingly.
E-liquid can be made at home using pharmaceutical grade glycerine. In fact, you can vape glycerine on its' own (possibly adding some distilled water to aid in wicking). It has a vaguely sweet flavour. Commercial e-liquid is made using vegetable glycerin, propylene glycol, or some mixture of the two.
The devices themselves can be bought from overseas - AliExpress has many variants, some for <$10.
At that stage, the 'safety of e-cigarettes' is equivalent to the safety of inhaling atomized glycerine. Stage smoke.
Flavourings - you can look for things which are used in aromatherapy (e.g. menthol crystals), but you'll probably want to study whether any chemical changes can occur under heating.
Pre-mixed nicotine is a difficult one. I don't use it so I'm not sure if you can acquire it from trustworthy sources.
I would not want to fall into the habit of using e-cigarettes produced by tobacco companies such as the 'vype' disposable (British American Tobacco). They have a history of producing methods to increase the addictive potential of cigarettes, ramping up nicotine levels, to cheating on tests, using ammonia to produce 'freebase' nicotine, etcetera. I wouldn't be surprised if the same bag of tricks comes out in the e-cigarette market.
"atomized glycerine" drawn over a hot metal element. It's that heated element that biochemists find worrisome. We regularly use hot metal elements ("catalysts") in the lab to "activate" (typically to generate free radicals) small molecules along a synthetic pathway. If you draw glycerine, or any glycol, over a heated element you will generate products like formaldehyde. Inhaled formaldehyde is a health hazard; often associated with cancer. The flavorings are often aldehydes and ketones and are even more likely to generate free radicals, which are implicated to an even greater degree with triggering cancers. The real social health concern with vaping vs smoking is while we have a hundred years worth of statistical data on smoking - we only are just now guessing at the "well, it's better than smoking" conclusion with vaping.
Nicotine premix is available from many online vaping sites, so is going to be at least as trustworthy as their e-liquids.
I stopped thinking about mixing my own when I discovered Poundland carries branded eliquids. £1 for what seems to have a widely standard price of £3.33 or £4 in the vape shops and sites.
This is a prime example of Regulatory Capture [1].
"That means nearly all every e-cigarette on the market — and every different flavor and nicotine level — would require a separate application for federal approval. Each application could cost $1 million or more."
I am confused. Most things in this article talk about tobacco products, but many e-juice and e-cig products actually do not contain tobacco, though they do contain nicotine. Is this just failure on the author's part, or is this bill not really going to affect e-cigs afterall?
It's representative of the equivocation being used by the anti-tobacco lobby to expand to a device that doesn't involve tobacco. The ultimate inversion of the tobacco industry helping them would be surprising to me if I weren't familiar with their efforts to keep Swedish snus out of the EU (where it is illegal.)
edit: "The widespread use of snus by Swedish men (estimated at 30% of Swedish male ex-smokers), displacing tobacco smoking and other varieties of snuff, is thought to be responsible for the incidence of tobacco-related mortality in men being significantly lower in Sweden than any other European country. In contrast, since women traditionally are less likely to use snus, their rate of tobacco-related deaths in Sweden can be compared to that of other European countries."
They haven't just done this for e-cigarettes, they've done it for cigars as well. My understanding is that any new cigar released in the US will need approval from the FDA at a fairly exhorbitant cost.
This will of course massively favour the big producers who can afford to deal with it and destroy the boutique brands.
shows that a good part of the middle- and high-school student population replaced their cigarette consumption by electronic cigarettes. But this is another nicotine-delivery system, and, as the report says, "Nicotine exposure during adolescence, a critical period for brain development, can cause addiction, might harm brain development, and could lead to sustained tobacco product use".
That's hilarious. The one thing nobody is concerned about with smoking (e- or otherwise) is the nicotine, because it has been established countless times that it is no more harmful or indeed addictive than e.g. caffeine.
From what I can tell it would regulate all nicotine containing juice and all hardware that is intended to be used with that. So a lot of small business that build these mod-boxes and things will not be in compliance.
i suspect some will rebrand as marijuana focused vape companies, that will also happen to work as ecigs, especially as marijuana becomes more legalised across the nation.
Though i further suspect someone will try to get the FDA to pass similar rules for marijuana products, something i dont believe it can do until marijuana is legalized at the federal level (it would be hard to get federal approval for a device thats designed to break federal law)
Can anyone fill me in as to whether or not this will apply to any 'e-juice' products that do not contain nicotine?
I think the 'competitive vape' scene use nicotine-free substances, so I'm aware they exist. But that whole 'different formulations' thing sounds very troublesome, even on the basic level?
Many thanks in advance to any who might have closer tabs on this subject.
The general presumption is no it wouldn't effect ejuice containing no nicotine. The general formula for ejuice is vegetable glycerin, propylene glycol, flavor extracts, and liquid nicotine based in PG. Sine all these ingredients are generally available without regulation ( minus nicotine ) I feel that I would be hard to claim that these constitute a tobacco product.
My only opinion on this: Nicotine vapour can be absorbed through skin. That, and the lack of any possible filtration, means it is a totally different beast in terms of bystanders. I don't want to be around nicotine vapour. Any and all legislation/regulation that keeps me from having to share a bus/plane/bar/ship/hallway with that cloud is a good thing.
Whether it's better or worse for current smokers is beside the point. That's their problem and they can solve it themselves. I care about my health and me remaining not influenced or even addicted to nicotine.
You're being entirely dogmatic; nicotine is hardly bad for you at all on its own. The consensus is that it probably doesn't have any role in causing cancer, although it might accelerate an existing metastasized cancer. There are some adverse effects on developing fetuses, but those are relatively minor even when the mother is smoking a pack a day.
Consuming nicotine yourself is somewhat bad for your health, and its irresponsible for a pregnant woman to smoke it because it will hurt their child. But in the doses that can be achieved through secondhand consumption are so terribly low as to be totally negligible. It's absolutely ridiculous to worry about being around someone who's vaping.
Second hand smoke is a problem not because of nicotine, its a problem because of other chemicals in smoke, and its only actually harmful if you live or work with a smoker. You have to be exposed to it constantly and live in an environment where the smoke has penetrated every porous object and seeps into your clothes and your food and your water.
And your comment about nicotine vapor being absorbed through skin is misleading, because you suggest that cigarette smoke isn't absorbed through the skin and that there's a significant amount absorbed through the skin relative to the amount inhaled. Perhaps the root of your confusion is that the nicotine/glycol liquid solution can be absorbed through the skin and spilling it on yourself is enough to get quite a high dose of nicotine if you don't quickly wash it off. Before ecigarette fluids standardized on glycol, they used other solvents which allowed faster absorption through skin, which made it realistic to give yourself lethal nicotine poisoning by spilling it on yourself.
If you want to avoid the ecig cloud for the sake of avoiding the smell, I can't disagree with you, and I'd support legislation prohibiting vaping in public indoor spaces.
Just please stop making up stupid shit. It is inconceivable that your health would be influenced by spending time in a public space with someone vaping. It would be even more absurd to conceive of developing an addiction that way.
Lots of people are opposed to WiFi and cell phone signals, so those should also be banned. Whether that is inconvenient or not or has any basis in science is beside the point, that's the problem of Wifi users to figure out. I care about my health and do not want carcinogenic waves passing through my skin. Using similar logic from this thread, I in no way have to show there is any genuine risk involved, the burden is on you to prove that there is not risk.
Wow, throwing one's legislative weight around with no concern for facts or reality is fun.
There are a lot of posts on this threat that assume nicotine is bad. "Bad" badly needs to be defined. Worse than other stimulants? If not, why not accept a choice people make to vape?
Being a bluenose is bad. It's bad for everyone's freedom of choice. It's bad because it introduces social costs for no supportable reason. Don't be a bluenose.
Lastly, this is transparently a rearguard action by cigarette makers, who have been shown to be selling a deadly product. That's really bad.
That may have been the intent. The million dollar a flavor fee isn't too large a hurdle for the likes of Phillip Morris, but will be ruinous for most of their competition.
This regulation is disingenuous and misinformed, if only because vaping solutions don't contain nicotine as a necessary component any more than bubble gum or throat lozenges do. The regulation seems to try to cover for this by including new rules for only other optional ingredients: its flavorings.
Conflating it with tobacco smoking is their basis for passing as a protection measure for children, but it bears little in common, chemically or medically, with it. When ultrasonic models appear, they'll piggyback off of existing regulation to include them, but it'll be a bankrupt argument.
They are regulating the hardware as well? What is to differentiate between an ecig battery and a flashlight battery? Are Tesla vehicles now going to be considered nicotine devices? That's absolutely ridiculous.
So as usually kill the little guy and make big corporations even richer. The same big corporations who then complain that there is "too much regulation" on CNBC.
[+] [-] throwaway_yy2Di|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rayiner|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MBCook|10 years ago|reply
Yeah the date chosen serves PM's needs, but I don't think it hurts public health.
[+] [-] Symmetry|10 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleggers_and_Baptists
[+] [-] snowwrestler|10 years ago|reply
> Philip Morris’s motives notwithstanding, the legislation has broad support from nearly 1,000 advocacy groups, including the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, which led the negotiations with the company, as well as the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association and the American Cancer Society.
And today public health organizations like the American Lung Association and American Heart Association are welcoming the FDA rule:
http://www.lung.org/about-us/media/press-releases/fda-assert...
http://newsroom.heart.org/news/new-rule-gives-fda-tighter-gr...
Phillip Morris' involvement is not a form of corruption, or social proof the rule is secretly bad for everyone. It's the natural consequence of our system of government, which says that persons and companies subject to new laws are allowed to have a say in the process. Google fought SOPA, for example.
The benefit to Phillip Morris is to deny new entrants to the tobacco market. This is also a benefit to public health, plus health advocates hope that the regulations will help shrink the overall market for tobacco products in the U.S.
Edit: throwaway_yy2Di says the bill is bad for public health based on nothing, and is the top comment. 1,000 public health orgs say the bill is good for public health (in the same story!), and this comment is sitting at 0. I guess that's HN for ya...
[+] [-] jonnathanson|10 years ago|reply
Altria (Philip Morris parent company) was the only tobacco player not to say a word once the Act passed.
[+] [-] Shivetya|10 years ago|reply
Considering the amount of money cigarette manufacturers pay out to the government and states it makes sense that anything that takes their place needs to be proven safe or not safe and then handled accordingly.
[+] [-] esoteric_nonces|10 years ago|reply
In the UK glycerine is available in pharmacists for ~$2 per 200ml. https://www.boots.com/en/Value-Health-Glycerin-B-P-200ml_852...
The devices themselves can be bought from overseas - AliExpress has many variants, some for <$10.
At that stage, the 'safety of e-cigarettes' is equivalent to the safety of inhaling atomized glycerine. Stage smoke.
Flavourings - you can look for things which are used in aromatherapy (e.g. menthol crystals), but you'll probably want to study whether any chemical changes can occur under heating.
Pre-mixed nicotine is a difficult one. I don't use it so I'm not sure if you can acquire it from trustworthy sources.
I would not want to fall into the habit of using e-cigarettes produced by tobacco companies such as the 'vype' disposable (British American Tobacco). They have a history of producing methods to increase the addictive potential of cigarettes, ramping up nicotine levels, to cheating on tests, using ammonia to produce 'freebase' nicotine, etcetera. I wouldn't be surprised if the same bag of tricks comes out in the e-cigarette market.
[+] [-] theophrastus|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anexprogrammer|10 years ago|reply
I stopped thinking about mixing my own when I discovered Poundland carries branded eliquids. £1 for what seems to have a widely standard price of £3.33 or £4 in the vape shops and sites.
[+] [-] pdq|10 years ago|reply
"That means nearly all every e-cigarette on the market — and every different flavor and nicotine level — would require a separate application for federal approval. Each application could cost $1 million or more."
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
[+] [-] passivepinetree|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mtgx|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] halosghost|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pessimizer|10 years ago|reply
edit: "The widespread use of snus by Swedish men (estimated at 30% of Swedish male ex-smokers), displacing tobacco smoking and other varieties of snuff, is thought to be responsible for the incidence of tobacco-related mortality in men being significantly lower in Sweden than any other European country. In contrast, since women traditionally are less likely to use snus, their rate of tobacco-related deaths in Sweden can be compared to that of other European countries."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snus#Health_consequences
[+] [-] snowwrestler|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prodmerc|10 years ago|reply
But hey, ban everything for the average schmucks, let only the rich and famous be able to use anything they way without repercussions.
[+] [-] nutmeg|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dageshi|10 years ago|reply
This will of course massively favour the big producers who can afford to deal with it and destroy the boutique brands.
[+] [-] leephillips|10 years ago|reply
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/65/wr/mm6514a1.htm
shows that a good part of the middle- and high-school student population replaced their cigarette consumption by electronic cigarettes. But this is another nicotine-delivery system, and, as the report says, "Nicotine exposure during adolescence, a critical period for brain development, can cause addiction, might harm brain development, and could lead to sustained tobacco product use".
[+] [-] AlexandrB|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] revelation|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] awqrre|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blakes|10 years ago|reply
From what I can tell it would regulate all nicotine containing juice and all hardware that is intended to be used with that. So a lot of small business that build these mod-boxes and things will not be in compliance.
It's too bad, this really hurts small business.
[+] [-] unprepare|10 years ago|reply
Though i further suspect someone will try to get the FDA to pass similar rules for marijuana products, something i dont believe it can do until marijuana is legalized at the federal level (it would be hard to get federal approval for a device thats designed to break federal law)
[+] [-] 6stringmerc|10 years ago|reply
I think the 'competitive vape' scene use nicotine-free substances, so I'm aware they exist. But that whole 'different formulations' thing sounds very troublesome, even on the basic level?
Many thanks in advance to any who might have closer tabs on this subject.
[+] [-] tmacro|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] roel_v|10 years ago|reply
This is probably a ridiculous question, but you don't mean that there are vaping competitions, do you?
[+] [-] loeg|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sandworm101|10 years ago|reply
Whether it's better or worse for current smokers is beside the point. That's their problem and they can solve it themselves. I care about my health and me remaining not influenced or even addicted to nicotine.
[+] [-] adrusi|10 years ago|reply
Consuming nicotine yourself is somewhat bad for your health, and its irresponsible for a pregnant woman to smoke it because it will hurt their child. But in the doses that can be achieved through secondhand consumption are so terribly low as to be totally negligible. It's absolutely ridiculous to worry about being around someone who's vaping.
Second hand smoke is a problem not because of nicotine, its a problem because of other chemicals in smoke, and its only actually harmful if you live or work with a smoker. You have to be exposed to it constantly and live in an environment where the smoke has penetrated every porous object and seeps into your clothes and your food and your water.
And your comment about nicotine vapor being absorbed through skin is misleading, because you suggest that cigarette smoke isn't absorbed through the skin and that there's a significant amount absorbed through the skin relative to the amount inhaled. Perhaps the root of your confusion is that the nicotine/glycol liquid solution can be absorbed through the skin and spilling it on yourself is enough to get quite a high dose of nicotine if you don't quickly wash it off. Before ecigarette fluids standardized on glycol, they used other solvents which allowed faster absorption through skin, which made it realistic to give yourself lethal nicotine poisoning by spilling it on yourself.
If you want to avoid the ecig cloud for the sake of avoiding the smell, I can't disagree with you, and I'd support legislation prohibiting vaping in public indoor spaces.
Just please stop making up stupid shit. It is inconceivable that your health would be influenced by spending time in a public space with someone vaping. It would be even more absurd to conceive of developing an addiction that way.
[+] [-] mistermann|10 years ago|reply
Wow, throwing one's legislative weight around with no concern for facts or reality is fun.
[+] [-] lottin|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saticmotion|10 years ago|reply
- A fee of 4.000 Euro to bring a product to market.
- Juice bottles of maximum 10ml
- No remote selling of e-cigarettes (but liquids are for some reason allowed)
- No advertising (with some exceptions)
[+] [-] mratzloff|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zodPod|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zigurd|10 years ago|reply
Being a bluenose is bad. It's bad for everyone's freedom of choice. It's bad because it introduces social costs for no supportable reason. Don't be a bluenose.
Lastly, this is transparently a rearguard action by cigarette makers, who have been shown to be selling a deadly product. That's really bad.
[+] [-] tmacro|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] choko|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] excalibur|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ikeboy|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] washadjeffmad|10 years ago|reply
https://www.gwern.net/Nicotine
This regulation is disingenuous and misinformed, if only because vaping solutions don't contain nicotine as a necessary component any more than bubble gum or throat lozenges do. The regulation seems to try to cover for this by including new rules for only other optional ingredients: its flavorings.
Conflating it with tobacco smoking is their basis for passing as a protection measure for children, but it bears little in common, chemically or medically, with it. When ultrasonic models appear, they'll piggyback off of existing regulation to include them, but it'll be a bankrupt argument.
[+] [-] GrinningFool|10 years ago|reply
http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/uc...
[+] [-] mccoolman|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spriggan3|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] northisup|10 years ago|reply