E-cigarette regulation could set back small businesses

From: RepublicanAmerican

By Rick Romell MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

The surging popularity of electronic cigarettes is spurring growth at two Milwaukee-area companies that have emerged as important producers of the key ingredient, and is creating opportunity here and elsewhere for storefront entrepreneurs.

The local participants have jumped into a market that some believe will eclipse that of traditional smokes within a decade.

“This is one of those few times where you see a brand new industry, and it’s amazing,” said Christian Berkey, founder and majority owner of Hartland’s Johnson Creek Enterprises LLC, which describes itself as the country’s largest manufacturer of the flavored, nicotine-laced liquids that are at the heart of electronic cigarettes.

Nine-Step Rulemaking Process and FDA Tobacco Deeming Regs

 

Published in Tobacco E-News
Where they are in the process and what’s to come
Thomas A. Briant, Executive Director

 WASHINGTON — The FDA is currently on Step Four of a nine-step process to propose and adopt new rules and regulations on other tobacco products, which may include cigars, pipe tobacco, electronic cigarettes and/or hookah tobacco. Specifically, Step Four is a review of the proposed FDA tobacco rule and regulations by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Generally, under Step Four, the OMB only reviews those proposed rules or regulations that are determined to be significant.

 
Although the process is at Step Four, the FDA has already taken three other steps regarding the proposed tobacco regulations. Step One involved the “Initiating Events” by which the FDA decided if a new rule was required due to a mandate under federal law, a recommendation from another government agency, a lawsuit which requires a rule, or a citizen petition requesting a rule. In this case, Congress granted the FDA the authority under the Tobacco Control Act to extend federal regulations to other kinds of tobacco products, potentially cigars, pipe tobacco, electronic cigarettes and/or hookah tobacco. Step Two was a determination by the FDA of the necessity to adopt new regulations on other tobacco products. Step Three involved the actual drafting of the new rule and regulations on other tobacco products.
 
The publication of the proposed regulations in the Federal Register is Step Five in the rulemaking process. According to a recent notice published by the FDA, the agency intends to issue the proposed tobacco regulations on cigars, pipe tobacco, electronic cigarettes, and/or hookah sometime this December, provided that the OMB has completed its review of the proposed tobacco regulations.
 
Step Six requires that a federal agency provide the public with an opportunity to submit written comments for consideration by the agency. The public must be allowed to submit comments either via mail or electronically on-line. Under an Executive Order, the public comment period is 60 days.
 
In Step Seven, the FDA will prepare what is known as the Final Rule, which may add or delete proposed regulations based on comments received from the public. Then, in Step Eight, the OMB once again reviews the Final Rule provided that the new rule is deemed to be significant. The last step, Step Nine, involves the publication of the Final Rule in the Federal Register, which will include an effective date for the new regulations. In addition, the FDA will need to submit the Final Rule to Congress and the General Accounting Office before the regulations can take effect.  
 
Click here a chart that details each of the nine steps in the federal rulemaking process.
 

“If e-cigarettes can reduce, even slightly, the blight of six million tobacco-related deaths a year, trying to force them out of sight is counterproductive.”

Editor’s Note:  The following New York Times Op-Ed written by professors of sociomedical sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health provides regulators with a science-based approach to health policy decisions.

From: New York Times

By AMY L. FAIRCHILD and JAMES COLGROVE

DEBATE over e-cigarettes — battery-powered cigarette look-alikes that heat liquid nicotine but emit a harmless vapor — is raging. New York City and Chicago are considering adding e-cigarettes to their bans on smoking in bars, restaurants and parks, and Los Angeles is moving to restrict e-cigarette sales, even though e-cigarettes don’t generate smoke and, while not proved to be entirely safe for users, are  undoubtedly less hazardous than tobacco cigarettes.

E-Cigarettes and Tobacco Cigarettes: Co-Variant Use

Editor’s Note: It’s not clear that the study has appropriately modeled causality.  Or that the results can be replicated.

From: SFGate

E-cigarettes may lead to nicotine addiction

Stephanie M. Lee, Erin Allday

E-cigarettes are promoted as safe alternates to cigarettes, but may only serve as a new route to nicotine addiction among adolescents, a new UCSF study has found.

E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that look like cigarettes and deliver nicotine and other chemicals. Researchers assessed their use among youth in South Korea, where the devices are marketed similarly to how they are marketed in the United States.