The Director of North Dakota’s Tobacco Control program is applauding the move by the U-S Food and Drug administration to tighten the rules surrounding the use and sale of electronic cigarettes…
“…We are charged with promoting tobacco cessation in North Dakota; to help people to quit. It’s been put out there that these are safe products to help you quit. But we don’t have FDA approval for these as cessation products. So now what the FDA can do is start working with the industry to see if this is something they want to pursue as something to help people quit. And if not, why aren’t they OK to use to quit. I mean, this is big for us for that.”
Neil Charvat says the move has been sought for several years. The rule change helps identify e-cigarettes as a tobacco product and Charvat says that means they can now be treated like a tobacco product. He says the change also means companies will have to disclose the ingredients of the liquid used in “vaping”…
“…The vaping and e-cigarette industry makes it sound like a very harmless ingredient… water vapor was one of the famous lines used. And we know that it’s not water vapor… there’s chemicals in there… and some chemicals that may seem benign… some chemicals that are approved by the FDA that are perfectly fine as an ingestive ingredient – you can swallow it and it won’t do any harm. Or you can use it as topical that won’t do any harm to your skin. But they don’t know they really don’t know the effects when you vaporize the ingredients at high heat.”
Charvat says the rule changes will also mean less availability of e-cigarettes to those under age 18. He says studies over the past several years have shown usage by youth roughly doubles each year while the number of teens using traditional cigarettes is in decline.
