Comments on: FDA thinks e-cigarettes may be an unapproved drug

By: josh wilkins

josh wilkins — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:06:17 +0000

”

Government can ban them but people will get them anyway. The Genie is out of the bottle and smokers have an alternative to smoking and paying the ever increasing taxes on cigarettes.

The best thing the government can do is leave them on the market and allow people to have them as an alternative to smoking tobacco cigarettes. ”

NAILED IT!!! its out of the bottle and people will now see they have some HOPE……

By: TAZ

TAZ — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 02:15:51 +0000

FDA Sued Over Electronic Cigarette Embargo

By Jordan Weissmann
Blog of the LegalTimes
April 29, 2009
http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2009/04/fda-sued-over-electronic-cigarett
e-embargo-.html

A Florida company that imports and distributes so-called electronic cigarettes has filed suit yesterday against the Food and Drug Administration, claiming the agency is illegally blocking imports of its product into the United States.

The suit, filed by Smoking Everywhere in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, argues that the FDA has overstepped its regulatory authority by banning shipments of the devices and insisting they need to go through the drug approval process.

Electronic cigarettes – often marketed as “e-cigarettes” – are a tobacco-free version of traditional smokes. Users inhale vaporized nicotine from a small, plastic tube that heats up with the help of a tiny battery.
The whole contraption is designed to look and feel like a normal cigarette, minus the flame and smoke, and their makers market them as a risk-free way to get a nicotine buzz.

Smoking Everywhere’s lawyers from Thompson Hine point out that in 2000, the Supreme Court ruled that the FDA did not have the power to regulate ordinary cigarettes. Therefore, it shouldn’t be allowed to clamp down on their high tech counterparts, the lawyers argue.

“There are a series of laws and regulations pertaining to the advertising and distribution of regular cigarettes that we believe are more appropriate for this particular product, and those laws and regulations are largely administered by the Federal Trade Commission,” says Walt Linscott, an Atlanta-based partner at Thompson Hine.

Congress is currently considering the Family Smoking Prevention and Control Act, which would give the FDA explicit power to regulate cigarettes.
Linscott notes that the law would probably give it the right to oversee e-cigarettes as well.

The case is being heard by Judge Richard Leon. The FDA did not return requests for comment.

By: FEDUP

FEDUP — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 00:42:39 +0000

Why not OTP Kid, they approve other products that make no sense!

By: OTP Kid

OTP Kid — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 18:04:36 +0000

What are the thoughts on the new E-SNUS? I understand it looks like a small watch battery that fits between your cheek and gum and emits an electronic simulated taste of tobacco but with actuall liquid nicotine. Does anyone actually believe the FDA will approve such a device, even insofar as it might become a choking hazard?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 19:15:11 +0000

United States: Analysis Says E-Cigarettes Represent Good Investing Opportunity
An analysis in Seeking Alpha says that electronic cigarettes can be considered the kind of “disruptive technology” that can revolutionize the US tobacco industry, given their cost advantage and purported health benefits over regular cigarettes, adding that they could create fortunes for early investors, provided major cigarette makers, pharmaceutical companies, whose smoking cessation drugs face a potential threat from e-cigarettes, and the government allow the product to remain on the market. The article noted while Big Tobacco views e-cigarettes as direct competition, Big Pharma also has a big stake in the fight against the product, given that the $3 billion nicotine replacement segment is a major cash cow for drug makers. US Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-New Jersey), who, the article noted, has received $128,250 in campaign contributions from pharmaceutical/health product companies, recently urged the Food and Drug Administration to remove e-cigarettes from the market until proven safe by the Federal agency, a call supported by the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. There is, however, some support among the public health community for e-cigarettes, the article said, quoting harm reduction expert David Sweanor, who in a recent interview said that “[i]f there is anyone who believes cigarettes are no more hazardous than e-cigarettes I’d recommend a remedial course in basic sciences.” The article also noted that Dr. Joel Nitzkin, chair of the Tobacco Control Task Force for the American Association of Public Health Physicians, recently sent a letter to Sen. Lautenberg, saying currently available research data show that electronic cigarettes “promise a risk of illness and death well under 1% of the risk posed by cigarettes” (Seeking Alpha 4/12).

By: john rolfe

john rolfe — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 21:56:22 +0000

Following Bill’s thoughts, the eBan provides a perfect opportunity for everyone seeking more liberal tobacco harm reduction provisions to show the Senate why Waxman-Kennedy is misguided. Lautenberg’s anti-liberal ban request may be just the spark that could get this thing going as the petition on the web site petitionwebsite.com shows. Go sign up and tell the Senate they are misguided. Why doesn’t someone draft a petition on THR in general and load it to the site and then load it here and have all the twitter people run it up their social network flag poles?

By: Bill Godshall

Bill Godshall — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 21:47:47 +0000

What FDA ban is FDAGuru citing? During the past three years (as many folks have told me the FDA would ban e-cigarettes), sales of the products have skyrocketed.

Had the FDA truly desired to ban the products, it would/should have done so before 100,000 of the products were sold, and before tens of thousands of smokers quit smoking by switching to the products.

But if FDA does decide to ban the products, it should make it easier to convince the US Senate to amend the Waxman/Kennedy FDA tobacco legislation with harm reduction provisions (including allowing the e-cigarette to be reasonably regulated as a tobacco product.

By: FDAGuru

FDAGuru — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:12:59 +0000

I am waiting for Bill G. to give me props for calling out the FDA ban in advance —

By: Jason

Jason — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 20:39:56 +0000

I would like the opportunity to make my own decisions in life about what I believe to be beneficial / harmful to me without the government’s approval.
It seems more and more that the gov’t is taking our individual freedoms to decide for ourselves what is healthy and unhealthy. These product being developed offer an alternative nicotine delivery system that so closely resembles the actual smoking of a cigarette the migration for analogue smokers will be seamless. This product needs to be manufactured and marketed in USA because, quite honeslty, we need a market for something in USA. Times are changing and technology will continue to evolve. The potential for job creation is enourmous if the USA would just step out of the past and lean into the future. We as Americans can not allow this opportunity to pass us by. Just imagine this -
Walking into Walmart – E – ciggs behind the counter with analogue ciggs…but analogue ciggs are 10 bucks a pack and an E-cigg nicotine cartridge, equivalent to 1 pack, is 1 buck. A safer, non toxic, delivery system for nicotine that offers you your oral ciggarette fixation for 10% cost of a cancer giving, smelly, teeth staining, skin ruining, ashes everywhere, fires starting, etc analogue nicotine delivery system. What is the chatter all about people. It’s not our saftey they have at interest, it’s the bottom dollar. If the FCC says we have to switch to digital TV by June, then why can’t we swith to digital ciggs ?

By: Bill Godshall

Bill Godshall — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 21:50:16 +0000

Per Rick Smith’s comment, some of us anti smoking advocates support the use of smokefree tobacco/nicotine products (as alternatives to cigarettes) and have been urging Congress to amend Waxman’s FDA tobacco bill to:
- allow all smokefree tobacco/nicotine products (including e-cigarettes and smokeless products) to remain on the market,
- truthfully inform smokers (and the public) that smokefree tobacco/nicotine products are less hazardous alternatives to cigarettes, and
- allow/encourage manufacters to develop and market smokefree tobacco/nicotine alternatives to smokers.

Our biggest challenge has been that increasingly more organizations (in the tobacco industry and the health arena) have publicly endorsed the Waxman legislation.

Altria, UST, Swedish Match, NACS and small manufacturers endorsed Waxman’s legisaltion after aach negotiated changes in the legislation that protected their self interests.

Several hundred health organizations have endorsed the Waxman bill (with most never reading the bill) simply because CTFK (which first negotiated and agreed to the legislation with Altria in 2004) convinced the directors of ACS, AHA, ALA to endorse the bill (which they did without reading or understanding it), and those four organizations then solicited hundreds of otehr health organizations to also endorse the bill. Most endorsing groups did so simply because lots of other groups did (the blind leading the blind).

We have an opportunity to convince the Senate HELP Cmte and/or the full Senate to amend the legislation with tobacco harm reduction amendments.