New York’s legislatures voted to ban the selling of electronic cigarettes to minors. Gov. Andrew Cuomo now has the option to sign the bill and join become the 5th state to ban e-cig that carry nicotine sales to minors; the others are Alaaka, Idaho, Kansas and Maryland.
Linda Rosenthal, Democrat for Manhattan, was the force behind house passage, though it did receive last-minute entanglements with the Republican-run Senate.
On Thursday the Senate did, however, pass the bill on its last day with a 60-0 vote.
I, personally, believe this is the right move for our legislative branch; focus on the areas that coincide with typical tobacco use and minors.
V2 Cigs sponsored an event on Saturday, Jun 9th 2012, Venice Beach, CA that set a worlds record: The most people vaping in one place at 518.
“It was exciting to spread the word about electronic cigarettes by engaging consumers in a fun and motivating way,” said Dan Recio, COO of V2 Cigs.
“Our hope is that individuals will find smoking V2 Cigs to be a similar experience to smoking real cigarettes, but without many of the dangerous chemicals found in traditional cigarettes.”
The article states that about 45 million people smoke cigarettes according to the CDC (This data is actually based off of a 2010 survey)
Switching from traditional cigarettes to nicotine or non-nicotine V2 Cigs e-cigs may result in a positive lifestyle change for many.
Events like this serves two purposes. One, it’s great marketing for V2 Cigs (let’s not ignore the obvious) but it does give great awareness to another option for some of those 45 million cigarette smokers out there that want more information on e-cigs. For that reason, brovo guys. Great job.
The new Kansas law takes effect on July 1 that bans minors under 18 from purchasing and possessing any electronic cigarette.
Todd Thompson, Leavenworth County Attorney, said several complaints from school officials stated that students were using them on school grounds. Thompson said that the schools themselves can create rules about their use on school grounds but it was not illegal for kids to posses them.
To address this fact Thompson worked on the bill with Reps. Pat Colloton, Melanie Meier and Tom Sloan. Sloan is a Lawrence Republican. Kansas Senate and House passed it in May and then Gov. Sam Brownback signed the bill just recently.
Doug Jorgensen, the ABC’s director, said:
Allowing kids under 18 that exposure to pure nicotine, which can be addictive, we just needed to take a look at controlling it
Trudy Cooley, an office manager for Safer Smoke Supply of Leavenworth, said the law won’t affect the company’s business because it already prohibits the sale of e-cigarettes to anyone younger than 18. She said that includes sales on the company’s website and through its vendors in Kansas and Missouri.
“It’s not because they are harmful,” Cooley said. “We just don’t need to promote this to kids. This is a safer way for people to smoke, and we don’t want kids just trying it for the heck of it.”
From a personal perspective, I am all for these type of local laws taking effect. Like so many other addictive products, minors should not be allowed open access to them. I am sure several local laws like this one will begin appearing in Senate and House floors across the country.
What are your thoughts on this subject?
A lot of interest, debate and hope for the future of electronic cigarettes has increase since Lorillard (makers of the number 2 selling cigarette in america; Newport) purchased Blu cigs.
Many prominent analysts in the cigarette field believe electronic cigarettes have moved from a Fad to Here to Stay. Bonnie Herzog, a Wells Fargo Securities analyst, believes soon R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co will begin selling electronic cigarettes.
“We expect Reynolds to be the next mover into this growing category, most likely organically but we wouldn’t rule out a potential acquisition,” Herzog said.
“However, with Altria, the race is on: who’s next in e-cigs.”
“We think e-cigs are to tobacco what energy drinks are to beverages,” Herzog said.
“E-cigs are profitable, growing quickly, gaining shelf space and consumer acceptance; therefore e-cigs are an important new niche category for retailers.”
David Howard, a Reynolds spokesman says it’s companies policy:
“is to not comment on any rumors or speculation regarding any possible acquisitions.”
According to Pat Shehan, owner of Tarheel Tobacco in Winston-Salem:
“It’s hard to say what it will take to pull Reynolds in, but e-cigs are getting bigger by the month,”
Annually, e-cigs sales about $300 million dollars among 2.5 million users according to data from Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association. Herzog projects this number will climb to $1 billion dollars in a few years.
Pat Shehan, owner of Tarheel Tobacco in Winston-Salem, says:
“It’s hard to say what it will take to pull Reynolds in, but e-cigs are getting bigger by the month,”
The article this information came from has lots of interesting information, you can find it here.
Eversmoke sends a starter kit to Speaker of the United States House of Representatives John Boehner. Eversmoke gives several reasons:
EverSmoke commented on their offer to Boehner by stating, “We appreciate all that Boehner does for our country and the economy and we would like for him to enjoy the satisfying feeling of smoking without the harmful side effects of tobacco. We understand how much pressure is involved in politics, especially being the House Speaker, and it’s important to remain healthy in every way possible.”
I’m actually curious how John does and I hope he response publicly with his opinion on electronic cigarettes. Recently we know how some local state officials feel on the subject as well as FDA’s current stand point, but not the two big Federal Institutions, and I, for one, would like to know at least one member feels about them.
A courthouse in Greensburg Pa. recently banned electronic cigarettes as well as other imitation cigarette devices from the courthouse. The Westmoreland County Commissioners voted to ban e-cigs and other imitation cigarette devices after court offices complained about people using them inside the courtrooms.
I rather enjoyed this, rather long-winded, article from Jason Walsh about the ‘war’ going on against smokers. It goes through a long history of how law makers have begun this process, but most importantly, it does so on a global scale.
When it gets down to ecigs, the information is interesting, touching on the history of ecigs as well as giving an ‘outsiders’ view, as in someone from outside the ecig community, on how this is all playing out.
Here is the part on ecigs:
That’s why e-cigarettes have found a market. As is often the case with subcultures, however, e-cigarette users – who call themselves ‘vapers’ – have a tendency to be slightly messianic and have developed a fairly impenetrable jargon around the act. Given that using an e-cigarette, with its weird LED, already has the unfortunate effect of making the user look like a Bond villain or an extra from Doctor Who, the last thing e-cigarettes need is a geeky subculture to deter normal people from trying them.
Off-putting as all this is, though, the case against e-cigarettes is fairly threadbare. While there are no conclusive studies that say e-cigarettes are harmless, there is every reason to believer they are considerably less harmful than smoking actual cigarettes. By doing away with ‘secondhand smoke’ (and firsthand smoke, for that matter), as well as replacing tobacco, tar and additives with pure nicotine, e-cigarettes pose no discernible danger to those around users.
This has done little to satisfy anti-smoking crusaders. Most laughably, e-cigarettes have been the subject of worries on the basis that they are a Chinese invention; as every good illiberal knows, the Chinese can’t be trusted. Clearly this is the precautionary principle at work, but it is also obvious that no matter how much smokers are isolated from others and the harm of smoking is reduced, nothing will ever be enough to satisfy the cravings of tobacco haters, who are constantly in need of their next, freedom-stubbing fix.
To say the situation is confused is a major understatement. Denmark has effectively outlawed e-cigarettes by declaring them medical devices and refusing to issue licences for their sale (thereby creating a rent-seeking situation where pharmaceutical companies’ NRT products are protected from competition), while Finland has banned the marketing of e-cigarettes. The Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland has forbidden chemists from selling the devices, though shops outside their control, such as newsagents, continue to stock them for now. The German city of Hanover has banned the use of electronic cigarettes in civic buildings while the US state of New Jersey has banned their use in indoor public places, as is already the case with tobacco.
A US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) attempt to ban e-cigarettes was quashed by the court of appeal on the basis that they were marketed to smokers as an alternative to tobacco rather than as a medicinal product. In Britain, a 2010 attempt by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency to ban e-cigarettes was rebuffed by the government’s own Regulatory Policy Committee, but the battle is far from over and, at EU level, e-cigarettes are being considered for control under revisions to the 2001 tobacco-products directive.
In 2011, Ireland’s TobaccoFree Research Institute told Irish Medical News it was ‘not in favour of any device that promotes the notion of cigarette smoking’. So there you have it: it is not just smoking that must be stubbed out, but the ‘notion’ of smoking. Not content with imposing ever more restrictions on how smokers behave, it is increasingly obvious that what really causes anti-smokers to light-up (with rage) is that electronic cigarettes allow people to continue smoking with impunity, ignoring smoking bans, not having to say that they are ‘planning to quit’ and generally apologise for existing. And where the lobbies screech, politicians are sure to follow.
Indeed, rather than being celebrated, the fact that e-cigarettes are a new potential way to quit smoking altogether provides a useful fig leaf for prohibitionists because any ‘smoking cessation’ product must be regulated as a medicine and can therefore be banned by the back door. When it comes to smoking, it seems that eliminating the risk to others and reducing the risk to oneself just isn’t good enough.
As HL Mencken put it: the definition of a Puritan is someone who has the haunting fear that someone, somewhere is having fun. He could easily have had the modern anti-smoking lobby in mind.
I recommend checking him out here, where the original post is at spiked-online.com.
During the recent Tobacco Merchants Association 97th Annual Meeting, Ecig Advanced was able to interview the CEO of Lorillard (makers of the number 2 selling cigarette in america Newport) Murray Kessler to discuss the acquisition of Blu cigs, the number one selling ecig manufacturer in america. Ecig advanced posted the video of their interview as well as their viewpoints on the Annual Meeting itself.
What I found interesting about the video is Kessler was very optimistic. His statements were very telling of the worries of the ecig community and his outlook on ecigs in general was very open and seemed genuine. His statements did not seem purposely obscure or misleading. Some of the points he addressed was reaffirming the public view on ecigs and to Lorillards commitment to ecigs growth. I was impressed not only wth the amount of research they did before the purchase (That seems to be a given with big companies) but how involved he was personally. His knowledge of the industrys growth and marketing power helped my conspiracy radar pull back to “hopefully optimistic”.
Kessler also mentioned a point I was hopeful about. The fact that the tobacco industry has worked with the FDA in so many cases, they can help ecigs bypass the legislature re-tape a new product can get lost in like ecigs. He also mentioned what the ecig community has watched closely; the “knee jerk reactions” from state legislators. Kessler would like to help educate the law making bodies on ecigs using the vast knowledge that has been accumulated by Lorillard and Kessler to guide ecigs in this murky water.
Plus, Kessler actually sounded excited about the future of ecigs, about making them available everywhere and about how they have already committed to promoting Blu heavily so it is accessible to those that want them where they want them.
Brian Clark Howard of National Geographic News asks a new question. Are E-cigs less harmful on the environment than regular cigarettes?
This is new question, but once heard, makes perfect sense. Environmentally, which between cigarettes and electronic cigarettes leaves a smaller foot print? Brian brings up cigarette buts, how long they take to decay, and the toxins they leak back into the environment.
Although people are smoking less in America thanks to decades of public health campaigns, cigarette butts are still a significant trash problem. The core of the butt can take anywhere from 18 months to 10 years to decompose. During that time, the cigarette filters are full of tar, nicotine, and other toxins that can leach into the ground, potentially affecting any organism that comes into contact with them.
Butts pushed by rain into storm drains can make it into the ocean, where they can release their toxic chemicals, or get eaten by fish or birds.
The impact cigarette smoking has, besides the normal ones health wise, really is staggering. It is great at times to get to see a topic you follow so closely get explained through new eyes so you can notice things you may never have even considered.
Most electronic cigarettes are reusable, meaning only a tiny amount of vapor needs to be refilled for each use. This means they are potentially more eco-friendly than going through mountains of single-use products, which take resources to produce. e-Cigarettes are typically powered by reusable batteries, and are often charged via USB ports.
Because electronic cigarettes don’t produce smoke, they are much less risky to non-users and to air quality in general. The health impacts on users are not well known, since the products have only been on the market for a few years.
He does mention the cautionary side as well. But here is what sums up his article for me.
While some health professionals suggest consumers steer clear of e-cigarettes, it’s also possible that they could function as a useful smoking cessation intermediary. It’s obvious that quitting smoking is difficult, so maybe there is value to a product that may or may not cause some harm, but that helps one stop using a product that we know causes harm.
It’s clear e-cigarettes are safer for non-users, so does that qualify them as a worthy lesser of two evils?
* Reference: http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2012/04/11/cigarettes-vs-e-cigarettes-which-is-less-environmentally-harmful/
Springfield Missouri: The city council has had delays but on April 23, hearings finally begun in the multi-part hearings to amend the smoking ban, with electronic cigarettes on one of these bills.
The exemptions, each its own separate bill, would allow the use of electronic cigarettes, allow smoking in tobacco shops, cigar bars, private clubs and on-stage in theatrical productions.
Each of these exemptions will have to be approved unanimously by the Council to pass, because each changes a law decided by voters. There will be no vote, but the public will be allowed to speak on each.
The bill on electronic cigarettes is:
COUNCIL BILL 2012-091
A general ordinance amending Chapter 58, Health and Sanitation, Article X, of the Springfield City Code for the City of Springfield, Missouri, Springfield Smokefree Air Act of 2011: Amending Section 58-1002, Definitions; deleting e-cigarettes from the definition of smoking exempting such devices from this Act. “it is necessary to amend the Springfield Smokefree Air Act of 2011 to allow these devices to be used in the City of Springfield, Missouri.”
Update:
On June 5th, 2012, the council will send leave to vote to amend this bill to the voters.
So, Springfield Missouri, your right to vape in public will be in your hands.
* Reference: Ozarksfirst.com, and Ozarksfirst.com.
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 | South Beach Smoke |
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