E-Cigarettes Should Be Banned...

[snusgetter]

~
E-Cigarettes Should Be Banned Until Made Safe: Study

Researchers find the devices make false claims, leak nicotine

TUESDAY, Dec. 7 (HealthDay News) -- Electronic cigarettes should be banned until safety concerns have been addressed, University of California researchers say.

Their study adds more fuel to the controversy over the battery-operated devices that contain nicotine, flavorings and other chemicals.

The issue heated up this fall when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration cited five e-cigarette distributors for poor manufacturing practices and falsely claiming that the products help people stop smoking.

The study found serious flaws in e-cigarette products and health claims. The researchers evaluated six different brands of electronic cigarettes that were bought online and found that:

• Fluid containing nicotine leaked out of most cartridges.
• The devices were difficult to take apart or put together without getting nicotine all over the user's hands.
• Nicotine cartridge labeling was poor, with most replacement packs lacking any indication of cartridge content, expiration date, or health warnings.
• Cartridges that claimed to have no nicotine content looked identical to those that claimed to have high nicotine content, making them indistinguishable once removed from their packs and wrappers.
• All brands had "ambiguous amounts of nicotine," with stated levels ranging from 6 milligrams to 24 mg.
• None of the instruction leaflets or product Web sites offered adequate instructions for proper disposal of used cartridges.
• Safety features did not always work correctly.
• Print and Internet material often contained information or claims that could not be backed up by scientific evidence. Examples included: "Be careful to avoid inhaling any significant quantity of fluid. Although it gives you a slight tingling sensation, it is not harmful," and "Within two weeks your lung capacity will increase by 30 percent ... Wrinkles in your skin will become less noticeable."

Because electronic cigarettes are smokeless, they are marketed to smokers for use in non-smoking areas.

But the researchers concluded that they should not be marketed at all -- at least until they were safe to use. "Our observations," they wrote, "provide evidence that regulators should consider removing [electronic cigarettes] from the market until design features, quality control, disposal and safety issues have been adequately addressed."

The study was released online Tuesday in the journal Tobacco Control.



Evidently the problems noted in the story are rampant throughout the e-cig industry.
Quality control issues? Or just another scam??

[precious007]

for poor manufacturing practices and falsely claiming that the products help people stop smoking.

This is quite a contradiction ....

I mean why quit smoking in the first place and replace smoking with another addictive habit .... there's no point...

It's like saying smoke heroine don't inject it ...

The e-cig is definitely safer than smoking but something that at some point should be kicked as well.....

[snusgetter]

FDA cannot block e-cigarette imports: court

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Food and Drug Administration can only regulate "e-cigarettes" as tobacco products and not as drugs, and thus cannot block their import, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Tuesday.

The ruling by three judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit infuriated tobacco activist groups and will allow e-cigarette maker Sottera Inc. to start importing its NJOY products.

"Electronic cigarettes are battery-powered products that allow users to inhale nicotine vapor without fire, smoke, ash, or carbon monoxide," the court said in its ruling.

"The liquid nicotine in each e-cigarette is derived from natural tobacco plants."

Congress gave the FDA authority to regulate tobacco products -- but not to ban them -- in 2009.


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[snusgetter]

for poor manufacturing practices and falsely claiming that the products help people stop smoking.

This is quite a contradiction ....
I mean why quit smoking in the first place and replace smoking with another addictive habit .... there's no point...
It's like saying smoke heroine don't inject it ...
The e-cig is definitely safer than smoking but something that at some point should be kicked as well.....

"why quit smoking in the first place and replace smoking with another addictive habit"

Hmmm ... good thing that snus is not addictive!!

You've actually avoided the issues raised concerning the safety of e-cigs in general.

Why muddy the e-cig waters even more by proclaiming their unworthiness as a smoking cessation aid!

Without the safety issues that have been noted, e-cigs could very well be another very useful weapon in the ordeal to quit smoking (but not one that interests me).

[muddyfunkstar]

I wish I lived in the olden days when smoking was good for you.

[TommyGunBC]

Idiotic studies that show nothing but some quality issues , and have found no adverse health affects due to e-cig use should just be hushed . If it wasn't for me finding e-cigs I would have probably never stopped smoking cigarettes which I did for 20+ years and less than 2 weeks of using the ecigs my need or want for a combustable cigarette was gone , I found snus thru the ecig forums and enjoy it and can easily go without both for much longer periods of time than I was able to do with cigarettes.

The US is becoming the most pussified nanny state in the world , just prescribe more drugs that big pharma is pushing , and enjoy the damaging effects they cause to lead the user to more and more drugs to counteract the others until your dead .

I'm sick and tired of this BS , ban the F'n cigarettes already we all know they are deadly but no they won't do that it is more tax dollars they can piss away fighting bogus wars , searching for the bogey man, and or just trying to gain minerals and oil that the real people in power want to increase their profit .


Vape on , Snus on and Snuff it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[precious007]

"why quit smoking in the first place and replace smoking with another addictive habit"

Hmmm ... good thing that snus is not addictive!!

You've actually avoided the issues raised concerning the safety of e-cigs in general.

Why muddy the e-cig waters even more by proclaiming their unworthiness as a smoking cessation aid!

Without the safety issues that have been noted, e-cigs could very well be another very useful weapon in the ordeal to quit smoking (but not one that interests me).

At least snus hasn't killed so many people and has been proved harmless to a certain extent...

When e-cigs have been around for a very short period of time... let's wait and see how many victims the vapors will make...

Snus and dip (at least for me) is just a path to becoming absolutely clean (at least for now) .... I don't see myself snusing for another 60 years lol

[tom502]

It's ALL about CONTROL(of money).
I think things were better before this insane anti-tobacco fanaticism.
Switching addictions is true(well, both nicotine), but the idea is harm reduction.

[truthwolf1]

I am sure there could of been some legalities but these products should of been developed or bought out by big tobacco from the begining.

[precious007]

Switching addictions is true(well, both nicotine), but the idea is harm reduction.

+1

In my opinion snus is a lot safer than coca-cola for example ;-)

E-cigs haven't been tested long enough .... no one can prove their side-effects...

[Ephemeris]

The problem with "banning" anything (I use that term loosely, since every product under the sun that has ever been ‘banned’ is still available to anyone who wants it) is that while banning something that you personally don't care for sounds all well and good, it's only going to be a short time before they ban something that you like.

In my personal opinion, E-Cigs are for the most part your typically cheap Chinese sweatshop-manufactured junk that lies there unusable two days after you buy it. But if I was to start waving the "ban" banner and the FDA pulls the E-Cigs from the market, there's going to be twenty thousand pissed off E-Cig users that are going to start waving the "ban snus" banner. Then the government will move on to banning cigarettes, dip, and anything they think they can get away with.

You need to stop and check yourself when you say things like "E-cigs haven't been around long enough to gauge the effects of long-term usage" because that's exactly the same thing that critics are saying about snus.

Just personally, it seems kind of like a no-brainer when you think about it: all of the nicotine of a deadly cigarette delivered in a harmless water vapor? I don't see what the big deal is, so long as the Chinese aren't adding poisonous chemicals to the mix. According to the FDA's own research, they're not.

I'm no fan of E-cigs, but I'm a fan of freedom. The proverbial "slippy slope" gets ever steeper when you divide the factions.

Right now, we're starting to see some more cross-pollination between alternative tobacco users. When I first got into the snus scene, the snuffers were in one corner, the snusers in the other, pipe tobacco guys were duking it out with cigar guys, etc. Then the government swooped in and picked cigarette smokers as a target, and we all kind of let them have at it. "Well, cigarettes are bad. They should be regulated."

Then when the Feds did about all they could with cigarette smokers, they came after the rest of us. We said things like "I don't care what they do to American oral snuff. That stuff's bad. I get my stash from Sweden." But then everyone acted shocked when the Feds lumped all smoke-free tobacco together and we were all equally screwed.

The cigar guys and pipe tobacco guys are next. Cigars have always been, and probably always will be exempt from any tight regulation that the other tobacco classes submit to. But the pipe smokers are in a minority, so they're wondering why they're being targeted. Well let's see, you sat back and let the government come after cigarette smokers and smokeless users. Did you think that you would be spared?

Folks, we as tobacco users have got to stop dividing ourselves up into these little groups and watch while the world powers take us out one by one. Leave your personal reservations at the door. I personally hate cigarettes, shisha, E-cigs and cheap cigars, but I'll be damned if I sit idly by and watch as they fall under the tyrannical hand of a nanny government.

This is why our magazine, which of course focuses on snus and snuff, tries to include a little of everything in the mix. We need to form a union of like-minded tobacco users that value personal freedom and minimum government interference. We should all be celebrating the recent E-Cig victory in Washington, because it's a victory for every one of us.

[devilock76]

Pipe tobacco tax is supposed to be facing a huge hike soon. As an aside to your comment, it is already in the works.

Ken

[tom502]

Yep, it starts with one thing, and then it's everything.

[lxskllr]

Well said Ephemeris :^)

[precious007]

Then the government will move on to banning cigarettes, dip, and anything they think they can get away with.

It's the small things that usually get banned...

Cigarettes won't be banned ever ... even though I'd ban them....
It's a multi-billion dollar industry ;-)

What bothers me most is that the huge industries such as smoking isn't banned probably because it's making huge money for the states .... but how about the amount of money they spend on hospitalization ?! Wouldn't it be better to ban cigarettes altogether and save that way.... 2 billion people will be healthier thus there will be less spent on medication/hospitalization and so on .... ?!