If you looked closely, you could probably see the smoke coming out of the ears of cigar lovers and electronic-cigarette users across the metro area Thursday afternoon as word spread about new federal regulations for e-cigarettes and cigars.
“There are 400,000 people dying from tobacco illnesses, and this is the one product that is helping them quit,” said Dimitris Agrafiotis, executive director of the Tennessee Smoke Free Association, a non-profit group representing many of the state’s e-cig retailers. “Five million people have switched from traditional tobacco to e-cigs, and the industry should be applauded instead of using regulations to eliminate them from the market.”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is proposing regulations to extend its health rules for cigarettes to cigars, electronic cigarettes (frequently referred to as e-cigs), water pipes and pipe tobacco. Retailers would be banned from selling to anyone under the age of 18, from selling the products in a vending machine, or giving away free samples. New blends of tobacco in cigars or pipe tobacco, and most e-cigarette components, including the heating elements and the liquid flavors, would need FDA approval before being offered for sale.
“We have more to do to help protect Americans from the dangers of tobacco and nicotine, especially our youth,” Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell said in a statement released Thursday. “As cigarette smoking among those under 18 has fallen, the use of other nicotine products, including e-cigarettes, has taken a drastic leap. All of this is creating a new generation of Americans who are at risk of addiction,” she said.
E-cigs work by combining a heating element with a liquid that generally includes nicotine as well as other products, such as a flavoring. Since the liquid is heated and nothing is burned, smokers avoid the tar and other byproducts of traditional cigarette smoking, and advocates say they can help smokers kick the habit. Users are typically referred to as “vapers.”