US moves on e-cigarettes - but they still escape the advertising axe
The US Food and Drug Administration is for the first time to regulate the booming market in electronic cigarettes under a proposal released today - but television ads will NOT be curbed.
E-cigarettes: No ad ban - yet
If adopted, the plan would force manufacturers to restrict sales to minors, stop handing out free samples, place health warning labels on their products, and disclose the ingredients. E-cigarette makers also would be banned from making health-related claims without scientific evidence.
But many tobacco-control advocates are upset at the failure not to halt online sales of e-cigarettes, curb television advertising, or ban the use of flavourings such as watermelon, grape soda, and pina colada — all tactics that critics say are aimed at attracting young smokers and which have been banned for traditional cigarettes.
These things are possible, FDA officials said, but "not before more rigorous research can establish a scientific basis for tougher rules," the Boston Globe reported.
‘‘Right now, for something like e-cigarettes, there are far more questions than answers,’’ said Mitch Zeller, director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products.
Thursday’s action is about expanding the FDA’s authority to products that have been ‘‘rapidly evolving with no regulation whatsoever,’’ in order to create a foundation for broader regulation in the future, said Zeller.
‘‘It creates the framework. We’re calling this the first step. . . . For the first time, there will be a science-based, independent regulatory agency playing a vital gate-keeping function.’’
E-cigarettes are now a $2 billion a year market in the US. They look like traditional cigarettes but Instead of burning tobacco, the battery-powered devices heat up flavored, nicotine-laced liquid, turning it into a vapor that the user inhales.
Supporters argue that makes e-cigarettes an attractive alternative to their cancer-causing tobacco counterparts.
Congress passed a law in 2009 giving the FDA broad power to regulate cigarettes, including requirements for new warning labels, restrictions on ads, and explicit approval of new products. The law also gave the FDA authority to broaden its jurisdiction over other tobacco-related products. While the agency has long indicated that it planned to do just that, action as been slow in coming.
‘‘In the absence of any meaningful regulation, the e-cigarette manufacturers have acted as if it’s the wild, wild West, with no rules and no restraints,’’ said Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, who had not seen the details of the FDA proposal.
The public has 75 days to comment on the proposal. Companies will have to begin complying almost immediately with the proposed age and identification restrictions. But they will have two years to submit applications to the FDA to approve their products, which can remain on the market in the meantime.
E-cigarette sales have doubled year after year, with no signs of slowing, according to some industry analysts. Tobacco giants such as Lorillard, Reynolds, and Altria have entered the e-cigarette market in recent years, joining hundreds of smaller manufacturers.
The move toward federal regulation also comes amid an impassioned debate over simple questions that so far have no simple answer: Will e-cigarettes eventually cause more people or fewer to smoke?
Kenneth Warner, a tobacco researcher and professor of public health at the University of Michigan described it as " a kind of factual vacuum. There are not that many [reliable] studies. . . . We really don’t know the right answer.’’
‘‘There’s such a huge debate over whether e-cigarettes are a good thing or a bad thing for public health,’’ said
About 40 cities and towns in Massachusetts, including Boston said the Globe, have banned e-cigarettes in public places, as have Los Angeles, Chicago, and other cities, according to Americans for NonSmokers’ Rights.
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley is among dozens of state attorneys general who have urged federal regulators to speed up restrictions on marketing the devices to the young.
IN BRITAIN The Committee of Advertising Practice is in the middle of an eight-week consultation which will look at introducing new rules to clear up "concern" and "confusion" in the area of e-cigs.
The consultation, which could lead to new rules protecting under-18s, follows criticism over an e-cigarette ad broadcast during ITV's I'm a Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here! which attracted more than 1,100 complaints to the advertising watchdog.