E-cigarettes to be regulated under new US plan

Agence France-Presse

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Sellers would be required to enforce a minimum age restriction on those who wish to buy the products, including requiring identification.

WASHINGTON DC, USA – US regulators proposed new restrictions Thursday, April 24, on the soaring $2 billion market in e-cigarettes, which until now have been free from federal oversight.

The changes would also apply to other, previously unregulated tobacco products, including cigars, hookahs, nicotine gels, and pipe tobacco, and are aimed in large part at keeping these substances away from young people.

“This proposed rule is the latest step in our efforts to make the next generation tobacco-free,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in a press release announcing the reform.

The proposal by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would bring these products under many of the same rules that already apply to traditional cigarettes.

Sellers would be required to enforce a minimum age restriction on those who wish to buy the products, including requiring identification.

Companies would be barred from handing out free samples, and would be required to include health warning labels and to seek FDA approval before marketing a new product.

They would have to register with the FDA and provide details about their ingredients.

And they would be prevented from advertising a lower health risk, compared to traditional cigarettes, unless the FDA confirms scientific evidence backing up the claim. (READ: E-cigarettes: To ban or not to ban?)

Not far enough?

“Tobacco-related disease and death is one of the most critical public health challenges before the FDA,” said Mitch Zeller, director of that agency’s Center for Tobacco Products.

“The proposed rule would give the FDA additional tools to protect the public health in today’s rapidly evolving tobacco marketplace,” he added in the statement.

But the rules do not restrict advertising of e-cigarettes, nor do they ban the special flavors, such as Cherry Crush or Chocolate Treat, that some say are designed to appeal to children.

E-cigarettes are battery-operated devices that deliver vaporized nicotine into an aerosol inhaled by the user.

Their use by young people has been booming: a December study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that 10% of high school students had used e-cigarettes.

Many manufacturers offer special flavors and most have provided free samples at hundreds of events, including youth-oriented concerts, and broadcast TV or radio advertising.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has also reported a spike in calls to poison control centers about accidents involved the nicotine-filled bottles used to refill the e-cigarettes. More than half the calls involved children under age five who had swallowed, inhaled or spilled the liquid on their skin or in their eyes.

The move to regulate was welcomed as a “critical step for public health” by the president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, Matthew Myers, but he said it was “long overdue” and not enough.

The new rule comes under the framework of a 2009 law that gave the FDA authority to regulate the manufacture, distribution, and marketing of tobacco products. Myers said the agency should have used its powers much sooner to cover e-cigarettes.

“It is inexcusable that it has taken the FDA and the administration (of President Barack Obama) so long to act,” he said, urging US regulators to finalize the rule and put it into effect within the year.

Myers also noted it “does not ban flavorings in cigars or e-cigarettes that may appeal to youth, nor does it curtail any of the egregious marketing for e-cigarettes.

“The FDA must now move quickly to develop additional regulations addressing these important issues,” he said. – Rappler.com

Woman inhaling from electronic cigarette image from Shutterstock

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