In the 1950s, people didn’t see anything wrong with cigarettes. Ads were plastered on billboards and were seen all over TV; even physicians smoked on a regular basis. Now they are known to be an extreme health hazard, responsible for millions of deaths and diseases each year. E-cigarettes – tobacco-free, battery powered cigarettes that heat liquid nicotine into a vapor to be inhaled – could very well follow the same path. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently proposed a series of regulations that would limit the sale of e-cigarettes. These include the prevention of sales to minors and would require e-cigarette companies to include health-warning labels on the packaging, release lists of ingredients to the FDA, and get FDA approval for new products. These regulations have not been passed yet, and do not include marketing regulations and prevention of candy flavorings that aim to attract teenagers. If the FDA doesn’t act now to put in strong regulations similar to ones for regular cigarettes, a new generation of Americans could become affected before we know what has happened.
One of the main issues with e-cigarettes is that, because they are so new to the market, no one has been able to do a rigorous study to determine the long-term effects of e-cigarettes. The companies claim that e-cigarettes are safe because of their lack of tobacco and because they are not real cigarettes, but they have not been required as of now to release lists of the other ingredients in their products. So while people know e-cigarettes don’t contain tobacco, no one knows what other chemicals are hidden inside the shiny silver tubes. For example, a study reported in the New York Times found that e-cigarettes can produce formaldehyde, a cancer-causing chemical, when they reach certain temperatures. Formaldehyde is also found in regular cigarettes and other tobacco products.
Moreover, while e-cigarettes do not contain tobacco, they do contain nicotine, a highly addictive chemical. E-cigarettes could thus act as a stepping-stone for kids who become addicted to nicotine and progress to real cigarettes, or even for ex-smokers who become re-addicted and regress to using cigarettes again. Even though e-cigarette companies claim that their product actually help smokers quit, their claims are based largely on anecdotes, and have no research to support them. One study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine actually showed the opposite, finding that “quitting did not differ between users and non-users.”
Users can buy refill packs of liquid nicotine for their e-cigarettes, which, if swallowed, can be fatal. Reports of nicotine poisoning have increased dramatically in the past few years, from one to 215 calls in three years, as reported by the CDC. Another related concern is that users could fill the refill cartridges with other substances such as marijuana or hallucinogens and use the e-cigarettes to smoke them.
New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles have already banned e-cigarettes in restaurants, bars, parks, and other public places, essentially treating them the same as regular cigarettes in these circumstances. Five states and the District of Columbia have passed similar ordinances, and half the states in America prohibit sales to minors. Chicago requires retailers to sell e-cigarettes behind the counter. The rest of America should follow in their stead, and soon. For those who deeply believe that e-cigarettes pose no harm, Councilwoman Nury Martinez of California put it perfectly: “If this device turns out to be safe, then we can always undo the ordinance. But if this device proves not to be safe, we cannot undo the harm this will create on the public health.”
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?id=9520214
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1470496/http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-ecigs-fda-20140424-story.html
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/04/29/users-upset-over-e-cigarette-bans-in-new-york-city-chicago/
http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20140509/business/140508341/
http://articles.latimes.com/2014/mar/04/local/la-me-0305-e-cigarettes-20140305