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The Child Nicotine Poisoning Prevention Act: How Senator Bill Nelson aims to poison 2.5 million e-cigarette users.

What do senators do when they are concerned about the health and safety of American children? What do they do when they are especially concerned about substances that might be poisoning American children? Well, they look at the latest numbers from the American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPCC), they find the product category that results in the most calls to poison control centers, and they craft legislation aimed at making those products safer! Or not. The reality is that they do nothing of the sort. In fact, they completely ignore the products that result in the most calls.

Maybe this is because the products that cause the most issues are cosmetics, and most of our senators (and/or their spouses) are in desperate need of cosmetics in order to appear presentable. So instead, they go after electronic cigarettes.

At least that’s what Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) is doing. And he’s convinced the Senate Commerce Committee to vote in favor of requiring e-liquid manufacturers to put child-proof caps on e-liquids. It’s called the Child Nicotine Poisoning Prevention Act of 2014 and its stated goal is to require liquid nicotine containers be designed with special packaging that is difficult for children under five years of age to open or obtain contents from. At first glance this sounds like a great idea. An easy change that harms no one and makes the world a little safer… But those optimistic feelings don’t survived critical analysis. If we look at the most recent annual report available, the 2012 annual report from the American Association of Poison Control Centers, we find a whopping 12 calls to poison control centers regarding e-liquid. And only 4 of those involved children 5 or under. For perspective, that’s 4 calls regarding e-liquid out of a total of 7,480 calls for children 5 and under in 2012 for products containing nicotine, and compared to 158,970 calls for children 5 and under for cosmetics.

So why is this a problem? Aside from being nanny state fear mongering?

A small, but growing, number of e-liquid manufacturers are using glass bottles as a safer alternative to plastics, and rightly so. Plastics are, simply put, reactive. Polycarbonate(PC), polystyrene(PS), high-density polyethylene(HDPE), low-density polyethylene(LDPE), and polyethylene terephthalate(PET) all leach toxins. Notably antimony and bromine. At least one study has shown that the use of common flavorings, such as those found in e-liquids, actually causes an increased reaction with these plastics and increases the level of toxins that leach from them. But if that isn’t enough, low-density polyethylene, which is the most widely used material for e-liquid bottles, comes with an additional risk… it’s gas permeable. FDA studies have shown that LDPE allows for the ingress of gasses such as components from labeling adhesives, and off-gassing from packaging materials. Think about that for a moment. Toxic chemicals from the label, label printing, label adhesive, foam packaging, shrink-wrap, can all pass through LDPE and contaminate whatever is inside… and now all those toxins are contaminating our e-liquid.

So plastic e-liquid bottles present some not-insignificant health risks, unfortunately it doesn't work very well to just put e-liquid in glass bottles with childproof caps. Plastic bottles are squeezable, with a needle/dripper tip, and support child proof caps. They work. Glass, on the other hand doesn't lend itself to squeezing. In order to make a glass bottle functional for e-liquid it needs an eye dropper, usually in the form of an eye-dropper cap. The problem, is that eye dropper caps, quite simply, are not “child proof”. Even those eye dropper caps that function as child proof don’t actually meet the requirements because the rubber bulb at the top can be removed or pierced

What Senator Nelson is really saying with the Child Nicotine Poisoning Prevention Act, is that he’s willing to poison 2.5 million adult e-cigarettes users in order to protect 4 young children from an exposure to nicotine that, according to the AAPCC, resulted in no effect to only moderate effect.

Last week the Consumer Product Safety Commission sent S. 2581: "Child Nicotine Poisoning Prevention Act of 2014" up the chain to the House and Senate... making now the time to write your Senators and Congressional representatives. Write them, and encourage them not to support this, or any, bill that trades the health of millions of Americans for a bit of political posturing.

Call to Action: Michigan SB 1018 - Ecig Tax

Michigan Vapers!
A hearing has been scheduled for SB 1018 (a tax on e-cigarettes).
Here are the details:
NOTICE OF SCHEDULED MEETING
COMMITTEE: Finance Cmte
DATE: Wednesday, September 24, 2014
TIME: 12:30 pm
PLACE: Room 210, Farnum Building, 125 W. Allegan Street, Lansing, MI 48933
CONTACT: Scott Jones, Committee Clerk (373-5307)

Michigan vapers and harm reduction advocates are strongly encouraged to attend the committee hearing to offer testimony in opposition to SB 1018.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris wants more strict regulation of electronic cigarettes.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris is one of 29 that signed on to a comment to the FDA regarding the proposed Tobacco Deeming Regulations. In their comment AGs urge the FDA to be more strict in regulating e-cigarettes. It is clear that the AGs have glossed over the devastating effect these regulations (as written) would have on vapor products and the consumers that have benefited from them.

The Attorneys General are urging the FDA to limit “characterizing flavors” that they allege are intended for the sole purpose of “hooking” children and “new users” on nicotine. This is, of course, linked to the tenuous assertion that e-cigarette companies are marketing to children and attempting to attract non-smokers. Their recommendations also include a moratorium on advertising similar to the blackout on tobacco ads.

In short, this group of Attorneys General would like to see the most effective aspects of vaping removed from the products. If it were up to them, your e-cigarette would more closely resemble medicine, cost an outrageous amount of money, and come in only two flavors.

Please contact your Attorney General to ask him to reconsider his position.

It's Time To Get Angry And Active

“Requiring people to standup in public for their political acts fosters civic courage.”
  -Justice Antonin Scallia

Our community could really use some civic courage right about now… but even more so, we could use some give-a-shit. Courage will have to wait until we find a solution to the rampant apathy in the vaping community.

Sure, a lot of people are saying that all the restrictions and regulations can’t stop them from vaping. They’ll make their own e-liquid, they’ll vape at home. Sure, you can do that, but is that really the world you want to live in? a world where vaping is shamed rather than seen as a pathway away from combustible tobacco, away from nicotine addiction, and out from under the thumb of big tobacco? But before you answer, consider the real issue, because it isn’t whether or not you and I can vape, it’s whether or not the option is even available for the millions of other smokers.

It’s time to get angry! It’s time to get up and DO something. Something more than posting anonymous comments on Facebook and Reddit. It’s time to get together, to be seen, to yell and scream and get our voices heard. It’s time to attend city council meetings and state senate meetings and get involved everywhere that the issue is brought up.

And we need everyone involved. We can’t afford for any of us to think that we can sit back on the sidelines and watch other fight the fight for us. Why? Because all of us have lives, we have rents and mortgages, and car payments. We have children to care for and appointments to keep and jobs to go to. In other words, none of us can attend every hearing. So in order to have a presence we need everyone to get mad and get active, because right now we, as a community, are acting like a bunch of angry sullen teenagers… well, its time we grow up, and act like angry adults!

SB 648 Died in Committee Last Week. Cause for Celebration? or Cause for Concern?

SB 648 died in committee this past week. I wanted to write about it sooner, but owing to a flu outbreak at my house I didn't make it to the hearing. I decided that I should, at the very least, watch the video of the hearing before putting my opinions about it into words.

I have now done so. Several times. And I’m sticking to my initial reaction that the death of SB 648 is not a good thing, in fact, while many are enjoying a celebratory drink, or a congratulatory self pat on the back, I firmly believe that the death of SB 648 is a bad thing

I also believe that the ANTZ have gotten to the committee members

First, lets consider what happened the last time SB 648 was in committee that didn't happen this time… Last time the committee criticized those opposing the bill, they were chastised for focusing on the omission of text that would have defined an e-cigarette as a cigarette rather than focusing on the intent of the bill. They were even accused of wanting to put electronic cigarettes into the hands of children. The committee didn't do that this time. The same committee looking at the same bill and hearing the same arguments… and yet they acted very differently.

The only reasonable interpretation is that, away from the committee room, in the hallways and offices of the capitol, or maybe over pricey dinners and drinks nearby, the Anti Tobacco and Nicotine Zealots influenced the committee members. Likely with money, or the treat of withholding money.

Before going further, you may want to view the video if you haven’t already… it can be viewed here

Pay special attention to what was said by Kally Hampt(?) on behalf of the American Heart and American Stroke Association. She complains that the bill “Takes us two steps back in our efforts to regulate e-cigarettes as tobacco products”

…And Alicia Sanchez – California medical association This bill “…would undermine our intent to see e-cigarettes regulated as other tobacco products

There it is. Stated right out in the open for all to hear. It was never about “the children” it’s about efforts to classify electronic cigarettes as tobacco.

And they've gained enough support to kill a bill that would have created a common sense restriction on electronic cigarette sales in vending machines based only on the fact that the bill did not also define electronic cigarettes as tobacco.

In other words, this insanity is getting worse.

Of course California law already defines e-cigarettes. Section 119405 of the Health and Safety Code paragraph b reads: ‘“Electronic cigarette” means a device that can provide an inhalable dose of nicotine by delivering a vaporized solution’

Think about that for a moment. California law states that an electronic cigarette is a device… your box mod, your mechanical, your Ego battery, combined with an atomizer is, according to California law, an electronic cigarette. With or without nicotine. In fact, with or without e-liquid at all, it only needs to be a device that “can” provide inhalable nicotine. If we then allow electronic cigarettes to be legally classifies as tobacco products, then that copper, stainless steal, or brass tube with the battery in it will be regulated, and taxed, as if it was made from the leaves of a tobacco plant. Never mind that under current law tobacco products are defined in Revenue and Taxation Cod Sections 30121 and 30131,1 to include “all forms of cigars, smoking tobacco, chewing tobacco, snuff, and any other articles or products made of, or containing at least 50 percent, tobacco, but does not include cigarettes.” Now I don’t know about you, but looking at my mods… none of them are either made of, or contain 50 percent, tobacco. Not a one. Not even when I add e-liquid. In fact, since nicotine is the only tobacco derived ingredient in my e-liquid, it would have to be 500mg/ml nicotine before it was “50 percent” tobacco.

Please not that I am not suggesting that anyone should ever make, or use 500mg/ml e-liquid. At best it probably wouldn't taste very good.

So the push is on to legally classify electronic cigarettes as a tobacco product in California despite the contradictions that it would cause between existing state laws covering tobacco products, and electronic cigarettes, and the defeat of SB 648 for the sole reason that it listed electronic cigarettes explicitly, and distinctly from tobacco products is evidence that our opponents are winning support…

…After all, it’s a public health issue. Right? Well, yes, but not in the direction that the public health officials are trying to present it… quite the opposite in fact, because when more people quit smoking that is a public health benefit.

Once more into the fire...

Okay, so it's likely that there will be many more trips... but...

So it looks like another trip to Sacramento is in order,,, SB648. As you probably know, it was amended to be a common sense restriction on vending machine sales to prevent minors from purchasing electronic cigarettes… something that both vapers and industry can support. It also removed language that would have defined electronic cigarettes as “cigarettes”. This did not sit well with groups that want limit electronic cigarette use by applying all of the pre-existing anti tobacco laws and regulations. Well, those groups have been pressuring the bills author (Corbett) and the bill is due to be read in committee on Wednesday August 6th. We can only assume that there will be some changes. At this point we don’t know what changes were made, but we need to be prepared to oppose or support any changes, depending on what they may turn out to be. At the very least, we will be displaying support for the vaping community and industry as part of the voting public.

If you can make it… The bill will be heard at 9:00 AM in Sacramento at the State Capitol, Room 4202.