The specifics have not been released yet, however it is on good authority that NJoy aka Sottera has officially intervened into the case of Smoking Everywhere vs the FDA over the rights of the FDA to block the importation of electronic cigarettes. This is an update to the “What is Going on with the Electronic Cigarette and the FDA” post. NJoy entering this case is of great benefit to the industry as a whole. NJoy doesn’t make health or cessation claims and making these claims appears to be the only legal basis for the FDA stopping the electronic cigarette from entering the United States. Time will tell if the thousands and thousands of individuals using the e-cigarette are told to stop by the FDA.

For full disclosure, Instead Electronic Cigarettes and NJoy are both part of the Electronic Cigarette Association.

Bill S.982 also known as the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act is now available online. This “Tobacco Bill” was under the name Waxman and now appears to be associated with Kennedy. The Bill is meant to give the FDA regulatory authority over tobacco products. It may or may not have the actual effect of limiting market access to potentially safer tobacco products and maintain the existing tobacco cigarette market. Philip Morris supports the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.

I encourage you to read this bill and let me know your thoughts. All the implications of this bill are unclear, especially with regard to the electronic cigarette. I do hope Congress has the good sense to create a fair marketplace where smaller companies can compete with established Tobacco companies by offering alternatives to a known killer.

Finally a large media outlet has printed a story calling a duck a duck.

The Electronic Cigarette Association (ECA) is a 501(c)(6), which is a not-for-profit trade association. This allows us to collect donations (not tax deductible as a charitable contribution) but still lobby the government to recognize our agenda.

We have elected the board members and officers (Matt Salmon - President, Jack Leadbeater - Chair, James Watt - Vice Chair, Chad Green - Treasurer, Antoinette Lanza, Nick Bird, and Rob Winslow) and are just completing the official member application. The application will be circulated once complete.

The ECA has minimum membership dues for suppliers and manufacturers of a one time application fee of $500 USD and a monthly fee of $300 USD. Many companies are paying much more than the minimums. These funds, along with any donations received, will be used for these purposes:

1) Engaging Policy Impact Communications (www.policyimpact.com) to lobby Congress. Our lobbying efforts include proposing amendments to the Tobacco Bill (which continues to change names, but was first introduced by Waxman and now a new one is being introduced by Kennedy). The amendment proposed is designed to help protect the electronic cigarette from being pulled off the market.

2) Engaging Policy Impact Communications to perform the administrative duties necessary to keep the ECA in good standing with the IRS and other government agencies.

3) Engaging a media relations firm to battle misinformation being presented by e-cigarette opponents and to expand the reach of electronic cigarettes so all smokers have the freedom to choose an alternative.

4) Implement standards to ensure e-cigarette suppliers and distributors meet certain requirements.

5) Implement standards to ensure our products meet certain requirements. This process is time and resource intensive, but is necessary to ensure the future of our industry. Third party agencies will need to be hired to physically visit electronic cigarette and eliquid manufacturing plants worldwide to verify the standards the ECA has set out.

No board members are taking a salary from the ECA, although Matt Salmon is employed by Policy Impact Communications. No one ECA member will directly benefit more than any other member. This is about saving our industry, not one company.

What do companies get for becoming an ECA member? They will hopefully get to keep their business. What do consumers get for donating their money and time? They will hopefully get to keep legally buying and using electronic cigarettes. This is all hopeful, but possible if we band together.

Our goals are lofty. We have a product that is an alternative to tobacco (Big Tobacco) and an alternative to smoking cessation products (Big Pharm). These industries have almost limitless reach within Congress and in some cases within the Public Health community. However the electronic cigarette is a good product that provides an alternative to a known killer and is worth fighting for.

If you believe the e-cigarette should be pulled off the market, subjected to 2+ years of clinical trials at a cost in the millions, then eventually be sold in pharmacies as a quit smoking product for something well above current retail prices, then just go about your business.

If you believe the e-cigarette should be an accessible product to legal age smokers at a reasonable price and be held to specific standards, then I highly recommend you donate to the ECA. We will need it. Please visit www.ecassoc.org/donate/

Thank you for your support.

James Watt
ECA Vice Chair

What if somebody invented an alcohol that greatly reduced the users chances of getting liver disease?  What if it contained less ingredients than regular alcohol, but nothing that was not already found in the original product. What if users were claiming they felt better after using this miracle booze compared with the old suff? Who would be against that?

What if somebody invented a soda that had less ingredients and users were reporting they felt better after drinking it, compared with their regular soda? What if professionals agreed the new list of ingredients didn’t contain many of the compounds found in traditional soda that we not good for you? Who would be against that?

What if somebody invented a cigarette that had approximately 3980 less ingredients than a traditional cigarette? What if none of the ingredients in this new cigarette were known to be carcinogenic? What if users were reporting that they felt better after using this product as compared to smoking a traditional tobacco cigarette? Who would be against that?

We are proud to announce the nomination of the Electronic Cigarette Association’s new President, Matt Salmon. Matt Salmon is a former member of the US House of Representatives from Arizona (1995-2001). Today he is the president of the Electronic Cigarette Association (ECA), following on a path of life’s work in the public health arena that has included pushing through a law in the state of Arizona that was among the first public smoking bans, and later in 2000, being named Congressman of the Year by the American Cancer Society.

For more information about Matt, please visit Matt Salmon’s Bio Page.

Message From The Electronic Cigarette Association President

Here and there we have made mention of the Electronic Cigarette Association, an idea that erupted over some conversations with other suppliers.  One conversation led to a meeting in Chicago of some 15 suppliers which led to the formation of the Electronic Cigarette Association (ECA).

The Electronic Cigarette Association (ECA) is comprised of international manufacturers, suppliers, resellers and consumers who are dedicated to the advancement of electronic smoking technology. The ECA strives to educate the public on electronic smoking devices and tobacco harm reduction. The ECA strongly believes and enforces that any form of smoking is an adult action, and adults who engage in this behavior should have the freedom to choose smoking alternatives.

And don’t think for one second that we don’t have a line up of heavy hitters ready to fight for the cause.  For starters, we are thrilled to introduce the President of the ECA, Former Congressman Matt Salmon, AZ.  Matt is a non-smoker who has been touched by the heartbreak of smoking related illness and disease and feels that the electronic cigarette is a win-win situation for both smokers and those who love smokers, but choose not to smoke.

Also, we have Current Represenative Clifford Stearns Sr. of Florida, who as we reported in our earlier post The Electronic Cigarette Found on Capitol Hill, is an avid e-cig user.  He is one of the most consituent accessible Congressman and offers us his assistance.

David Sweanor, Adjunct Professor Law, University of Ottawa, wrote an amazing essay in 1994 entitled Alternative Nicotine Delivery as a Harm-Reduction Strategy when he was Senior Legal Counsel for the Non-Smokers Right Assocation.   If you haven’t read his essay, it is enlightening, practical and a must read for anyone who feels that abstinence only philosophies will not work.  This is definitely a road map for any logical argument towards self regulation.

Dr. Joel Nitzkin, Chair of the Tobacco Control Task Force of the American Association of Public Health Physicians, has been a prime speaker since Senator Lautenburg called for the FDA to ban the electronic cigarette.  Dr. Nitzkin has stated that “We have every reason to believe the hazard posed by electronic cigarettes would be much lower than 1% of that posed by (tobacco) cigarettes. The testing guidelines in the current tobacco act (circulating through Congress) would represent a ban on electronic cigarettes, (yet) if we get all tobacco smokers to switch from regular cigarettes (to electronic cigarettes), we would eventually reduce the US death toll from more than 400,000 a year to less than 4,000, maybe as low as 400.”

Bill Godshall, Executive Director of SmokeFree Pennsylvania, a division of TobaccoFree.org has also joined us.  With a Masters in Public Health, he has been focusing on public health and tobacco harm reduction techniques for over 25 years.  He has brought a level of awareness to the electronic cigarette that we could not have dreamed of and appreciate his attentiveness in our cause.

Dr. David Baron, President, Primary Caring of Malibu Medical Group and former Chief of Staff for UCLA Medical Center is also on board to help assist the ECA in moving the knowledge of the electronic cigarette forward.

Wow!  So we are pretty thrilled!  The ECA has a tough fight but there are some great minds who are not smokers and feel that the electronic cigarette IS the next step in tobacco harm reduction.

If you are interested in more information regarding the electronic cigarette or the Electronic Cigarette Association, please feel free to visit the ECA website www.ECAssoc.org.

There you will find some wonderful information including:

A video from the ECA President, Matt Salmon
Electronic Cigarettes:  Myths and Facts
Quotes regarding the Electronic Cigarette
Smoking Fact Sheet
Electronic Cigarette and Tobacco Harm Reduction Resources
Electronic Cigarette Interview Sources and Bios

So get ready folks… the electronic cigarette industry is raring to go!

Below is a letter that was sent to the FDA from Bill Godshall who is the Executive Director for Smokefree Pennsylvania.  We would like to thank Bill for taking an active role in the fight to allow smokers the freedom to choose an alternative to a known killer.

Please note that the letter below represents Mr. Godshall’s views and opinions.  In no way should this letter be taken as evidence that the electronic cigarette is safe or healthy or that the e-cigarette is a quit smoking product. Here is the letter:

Smokefree Pennsylvania
1926 Monongahela Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15218

May 1, 2009

Ms. Heather Zawalick
US Food and Drug Administration

Per your recent e-mail (below), Smokefree Pennsylvania strongly urges the FDA to cancel its planned activities next Tuesday, and to consider the enormous public health disaster the agency would create by banning smokefree nicotine inhalers called e-cigarettes.

Denying 45 million cigarette smokers access to exponentially less hazardous smokefree nicotine alternatives would result in millions of preventable deaths among smokers, millions of nonsmokers continuing to be exposed to tobacco smoke pollution, and tens of thousands of e-cigarettes users
reverting back to smoking cigarettes.  It is absurd for the FDA to even contemplate protecting the deadliest nicotine products (cigarettes) from market competition by the least hazardous nicotine products.

Cigarette smoking is 100 times deadlier than smokeless tobacco use, while smokefree nicotine products pose even fewer risks.  Switching from cigarettes to smokefree tobacco/nicotine alternatives reduces smoker’s health risks nearly as much as quitting all tobacco/nicotine use.  And millions of smokers have already sharply reduced their health risks by switching to smokefree tobacco/nicotine alternatives. Please review a report I coauthored: “Tobacco harm reduction: an alternative cessation strategy for inveterate smokers” at http://www.harmreductionjournal.com/content/3/1/37

In contrast to recent claims by e-cigarette prohibitionists, hundreds of thousands of smokers have quit smoking and/or reduced cigarette consumption by switching to e-cigarette products, and thousands have written testimonials at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/keep-life-saving-electronic-cigarettes- available and http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/ describing their experiences with these less hazardous nicotine alternatives.  Meanwhile, test results on the Ruyan e-cigarette http://www.healthnz.co.nz/RuyanCartridgeReport30-Oct-08.pdf found no product hazards.

Also in contrast to claims by prohibitionists, there is no evidence that e-cigarette products have been marketed to youth, nor is there evidence of youth use of e-cigarette products (most of which cost more than $100). And most e-cigarette companies do not make claims that their products are smoking cessation aids.  As such, the FDA should not be classifying these products as drugs (in an thinly disguised effort to ban them).

The sensible policy solution is for US Congress to enact reasonable and responsible tobacco/nicotine regulatory policies to allow e-cigarettes and other smokefree nicotine products (that are marketed as alternatives to cigarettes) to remain on the market, and be regulated as a separate category of tobacco products.  Smokefree tobacco harm reduction provisions in legislation recently introduced by Rep. Buyer (H.R. 1261) and Senators Burr/Hagan (S. 579) would achieve this policy goal.  The US Senate also
can amend pending FDA tobacco legislation by Rep. Waxman (H.R. 1256) or soon-to-be-introduced legislation by Senator Kennedy with these or similar harm reduction provisions.

Most e-cigarette companies support reasonable and responsible regulations for their products.  If the FDA is truly interested in reducing the leading cause of preventable disease, death and disability, it would join us in urging the US Senate to enact these sound public health policies.

Since 1990, Smokefree Pennsylvania has advocated policies to reduce tobacco smoke pollution indoors, increase cigarette taxes, reduce tobacco marketing to youth, preserve civil justice remedies for victims, expand smoking cessation services, and inform smokers that smokefree tobacco/nicotine products are far less hazardous alternatives to cigarettes.

For disclosure, neither Smokefree Pennsylvania nor I have received any funding from tobacco, drug or e-cigarette companies.

Thank you for your consideration, and feel free to contact me anytime.

Sincerely,

William T. Godshall, MPH
Executive Director