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.