NEW YORK—(ENEWSPF)—October 9, 2014. Elected officials and anti-smoking advocates need to re-think their knee-jerk reaction and hostility to e-cigarettes and vaping. It seems like every day we hear a new attack — yet these products are actually helping some people quit or cut back on the much more dangerous alternative of smoking tobacco.
On Tuesday, New York Councilman Costa Constantinides (D-Queens) introduced legislation to ban flavors used in e-cigs and vaping products saying they entice kids to start using the devices. “These flavors are direct marketing to children,” Constantinides said. “They appeal to children, and we’re taking them out of that market.”
While Councilman Constantinides’ instinct may be that flavors lead to young people using e-cigs and that they then move on to smoking, that is not what leading experts are finding. The Wall Street Journal ran an important op-ed by Dr. Michael Siegel, a professor at Boston University’s School of Public Health, who discredited the e-cigartte is a gateway to smoking argument. Dr. Siegel has 25 years of experience in tobacco control and points out that there is no evidence that people who use e-cigs then go on to smoking.
While I understand the concern of marketing e-cigarettes to young people and nonsmokers, we cannot lose sight of the fact that these products are helping millions of people stop or cut back on smoking. Vaping is a safer delivery system for nicotine, and many people enjoy the flavor and find it pleasant — that’s why more and more people are turning to it. Do we really want to limit flavors if they are helping people move away from smoking? It is ironic that anti-smoking advocates, whose goal is to get people not to smoke, are attacking a practice that is succeeding in getting people not to smoke. Shouldn’t we be applauding the fact that so many people are embracing this harm reduction practice?
In May, a large study out of England that was published in the journal Addiction made worldwide news when they announced that smokers trying to quit were 60 percent more likely to succeed if they used electronic cigarettes than over-the-counter therapies such as nicotine patches or gum.
“We share the same goals as anti-smoking activists and people who want to reduce smoking,” said Talia Eisenberg, a vape user, advocate and co-founder of Henley Premium Vapor and The Henley Vaporium. “We have 100’s of customers every day, all over 21, who say the flavors are enjoyable and are helping them stay off cigarettes.”
I have worked to end our nation’s disastrous war on drugs for the last fourteen years at the Drug Policy Alliance. Whenever we propose programs that reduce the harms of drug use, our opponents respond with the false claim that we are sending the “wrong message” to young people. We should never let politically expedient sound bites trump interventions proven to minimize the health consequences of drugs.
Young people are not stupid. They can handle the truth. In fact, it was honest anti-smoking campaigns that have led to big drops in smoking rates. We need to continue with honest education about vaping and e-cigs. We rightly tell young people that smoking tobacco is a leading cause of premature death, and we tell them how incredibly addictive nicotine can be and that it is one of the hardest things in the world to quit.
We should also tell them that while we need more research, dozens of health experts sent a letter to the World Health Organization urging them to embrace e-cigarettes as a life-saving intervention, saying that e-cigarettes “could be among the most significant health innovations of the 21st century, perhaps saving hundreds of millions of lives.” We should explain to them that millions of people are deciding to improve their health with the much safer practice of vaping instead of smoking tobacco. This type of honesty and context is the right “message” for young people.
And the message we need to send to politicians like Councilmember Contantinides? Take a balanced approach rooted in public health. Whatever your intentions are, your attempt to ban flavors and demonize vaping and e-cigs will lead more people to the much more harmful practice of smoking tobacco. More smoking means more pain and more death. Let’s ground our drug policies in compassion and science, not hysteria and ideology. The price for a slow learning curve is too great.
Tony Newman is the director of media relations at the Drug Policy Alliance(www.drugpolicy.org)
Follow Tony Newman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TonyNewmanDPA
This commentary was original published in the Huffington Post at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-newman/new-york-flavored-e-cigs-ban_b_5958406.html?1412862579
Related Material:
Tobacco Analysis
New York City Council Considering Ban on Flavored Electronic Cigarettes, Dr. Michael Siegel, October 8, 2014 http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2014/10/new-york-city-council-considering-ban.html
According to an article in the New York Daily News, New York City councilman Costa Constantinides (D-Queens) yesterday introduced legislation that would ban the sale of all flavored electronic cigarettes.
According to the article: “Councilman Costa Constantinides (D-Queens) will introduce legislation Tuesday to ban the fruity flavors, saying they entice kids to start puffing on the devices. “These flavors are direct marketing to children,” Constantinides said. “They appeal to children, and we’re taking them out of that market.” … “These guys are not in the quitting business. They’re in the addiction business,” Constantinides said.”
The Rest of the Story
Actually, these “guys” are in the quitting business, not the addiction business. The overwhelming majority of electronic cigarette users are people who are already addicted to cigarette smoking. And the reason they are using these products is because they want to overcome their addiction to smoking. They want a safer product that can help them get off cigarettes, or at least to greatly reduce their cigarette consumption in order to protect their health. Very few never smokers are regular electronic cigarette users, and there is at present no evidence that the use of electronic cigarettes leads to nicotine or smoking addiction in anyone who was not already a tobacco user.
Banning the sale of flavored electronic cigarettes would be tantamount to a ban on virtually all electronic cigarettes. In reality, virtually every electronic cigarette product is flavored. Even the “tobacco” type of electronic cigarette is actually a flavored product, since flavorings are generally used to create that “tobacco” taste. Otherwise, the only ingredients in electronic cigarettes are nicotine, propylene glycol, and glycerin.
Councilman Constantinides’ desire to take flavored electronic cigarettes off the market may be motivated by a legitimate desire to protect kids from addiction, but the reality is that his proposal would greatly increase smoking addiction in New York City by removing from the market a product that is helping thousands of New Yorkers to eliminate their smoking addiction or at least to greatly reduce the level of that addiction.
Jacob Sullum provides an excellent review of the literature on this topic, pointing out that there is very strong data to demonstrate that the flavors are what attract many smokers to try to quit using electronic cigarettes. You have to read his whole column, but to summarize:
“Whether or not they appeal to minors, the flavors that offend him appeal to adults who switch from smoking to vaping. In a survey conducted by E-Cigarette Forum last summer, three-quarters of adult vapers favored flavor categories other than tobacco, including fruit (31 percent), bakery/dessert (19 percent), and savory/spice (5 percent). Sales data from Palm Beach Vapors, a chain of 14 stores that sell vaping equipment and liquids to adults only, confirm that supposedly juvenile flavors are popular with adults. Last fiscal year, only two of the chain’s top 19 sellers were tobacco flavors. They finished 18th and 19th, far below flavors such as strawberry, watermelon, and cinnamon.”
Sullum concludes: “Critics like Constantinides and Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-Va.), guided by little more than their own idiosyncratic tastes, want to decree which flavors adult vapers may consume, even at the cost of deterring smokers from quitting. “Studies show that e-cigarettes, particularly flavored kinds, are effective at helping smokers move away from combustible cigarettes,” says Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association. “The AVA supports common-sense regulation of its products, such as New York City’s existing ban on [sales] to minors. But adults are free to make their own choices.” For now.”
Hopefully, the New York City Council will vote down this proposal. If policy makers are interested in protecting kids from electronic cigarettes, they should focus on regulating the sale and marketing of these products – just as we do with the real cigarettes. It makes no sense to ban the entire product category, especially when we know these products are helping many smokers quit or cut down and when there is no evidence that the use of these products is causing youth to become addicted to smoking, or even to e-cigarette use itself.
The saddest part of the story is that while Councilman Constantinides is so concerned about youth “addiction” that he is willing to ban electronic cigarettes, he expressed no similar desire to ban the real ones. That’s not public health leadership. It’s political cowardice, and hypocrisy.
Disclosure: I have not received any funding or compensation from the tobacco, electronic cigarette, or pharmaceutical industries. However, I am seeking funding from several electronic cigarette companies to conduct a behavioral study on the effects of electronic cigarettes on smoking behavior.
Dr. Siegel is a professor at Boston University’s School of Public Health. He has 25 years of experience in tobacco control, including two years at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Source: www.drugpolicy.org
