While applauding the goal of keeping e-cigs from kids, health-care advocates warned that the tobacco industry is pushing bills similar to the one passed Wednesday in nearly every state legislature across the country in an attempt to avoid higher taxes on the products.
“It is a Trojan horse bill. It comes in looking like a gift to the people of Ohio, but it’s potentially going to have terrible consequences,” said Shelly Kiser of the American Lung Association.
Research shows that high taxes and indoor smoking bans are the two most effective ways to steer kids away from using tobacco, she said.
E-cigarettes are battery-operated devices that heat liquid nicotine into a vapor that the user inhales. Ohio’s voter-approved indoor smoking ban does not apply to e-cigarettes.
The bill, which passed the House by a 67-25 vote in November, puts e-cigarettes in a new alternative nicotine product category. It also makes selling e-cigarettes to children under 18 a fourth-degree misdemeanor offense. The Senate made changes to the bill, which require House approval before the bill moves to Gov. John Kasich for consideration.
Flavored nicotine vapor
A sign on the door of JoJo Vapes vapor lounge in Vandalia already says anyone under age 18 is prohibited from entering. Inside, customers sampling more than 60 flavors of nicotine-infused vapor mostly supported a law against selling the product to minors. The most popular flavor is watermelon strawberry.
“I wouldn’t want someone selling nicotine to my 16-year-old, so we decided right off the bat that you have to be 18 just to come in,” said Dave Looper, owner of JoJo Vapes. “We do ID people every day.”
JoJo Vapes opened a second store in Brookville this week and soon will open stores in Huber Heights and Troy. It is finalizing a distribution center in Troy where Looper mixes his own “liquid” with only self-imposed rules.
The bill passed in the Ohio Senate is backed by the Lorillard Tobacco Company, which owns the blu e-cigarette brand, the Ohio Grocers Association, the Ohio Council of Retail Merchants, and Attorney General Mike DeWine. It is opposed by the American Heart Association, American Cancer Society and American Lung Association.
State Sen. Charletta Tavares, D-Columbus, said she supports the goal of keeping dangerous, addictive e-cigarettes out of the hands of children, but says the bill falls short in two areas: equalizing the taxes on alternative nicotine products and tobacco, and banning the use of the new products indoors.
“While I am voting for the bill, I think there is more work to be done,” she said.
The National Youth Tobacco Survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show e-cigarette use among high school students doubled in 2012 over 2011. In all, 1.8 million high school and middle school students report having used an e-cigarette in the past year, the survey found.
‘Could be anything in there’
E-cigarettes are not currently regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and there is little scientific data about their health impacts or quality controls during the manufacturing process, said Liz Klein, an assistant professor of public health at Ohio State University who studies tobacco regulation.
“Manufacturers can make all sorts of claims,” Klein said. “I think there is a lot of consumer misperception and that is, again, because manufacturers can make, and are likely making, claims that don’t have scientific data to back them up.”
Many consumers believe e-cigarettes will help them quit smoking, but one study indicates they are no more helpful than nicotine patches, she said.
JoJo Vapes customers who said they smoked for decades say they breathed easier after only a week or so of vaping.
“I feel better,” said Matt Rogers, a Dayton firefighter who traded in a three-pack-a-day habit for cinnamon swirl vapor about five months ago.
Because they believe the products to be safer than tobacco and therefore lacking the social costs, customers didn’t think they should be taxed like tobacco users. But a lack of regulation makes it unclear what’s even inside many of them.
“There could be anything in there. I don’t know,” said Joey Claus of Dayton, who switched from menthol cigarettes to vapor about four weeks ago and would support regulation of how they’re made.
Looper said his liquids contain four ingredients: liquid nicotine from a lab in North Carolina, food-grade flavoring, and preservatives that pull moisture from the air to create the cloud of vapor.
“People in their moldy basement are making some e-liquid and selling it online and it’s kind of scary,” Looper said. “I do believe there should be some checks and balances as far as where you manufacture and how you manufacture.”
Big Tobacco is investing in e-cigarettes. The second- and third-largest U.S. tobacco companies are grabbing an increasing share of the market from e-cig brands not already owned by traditional cigarette companies, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Companies in the e-cig business may soon face regulations. DeWine and 39 other attorneys general have urged the FDA to regulate e-cigarettes under the Tobacco Control Act — something that Klein and Kiser said is expected to happen in the coming months. If so, restrictions on packaging, flavors and marketing are likely, along with a nationwide ban on sales to minors.
Meanwhile, more and more smokers like Mike Gowins of Sidney are turning to e-cigs for much the same reason there is so little regulation and research on them: “They’re not cigarettes,” he said.
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