Should there be FDA regulation of e-cigarettes?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rate cigarette smoking as "...the leading preventable cause of death in the United States". Smoking affects just about every organ in your body and causes many diseases and reduces a persons general health. In the United States alone there are over 480,000 deaths every year. That's one out every five deaths in the United States. 90% of all lung cancer deaths and 80% of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease deaths are caused by smoking. There are direct medical costs ranging between $50 billion - $73 billion per year directly associated with diseases from cigarettes. Cigarettes main ingredient is tobacco but the real addictive qualities and harmful effects comes from the thousands different chemicals added to the product. Chemicals like tar, carbon monoxide, ammonia, arsenic, and nicotine are but a few. Tar blackens your lungs when inhaled. Carbon monoxide is found in a car's exhaust fumes, and we all know from watching movies that you can die from inhaling to much carbon monoxide. Ammonia is a chemical used to clean floors. Arsenic is a poison to kill rats. Finally, Nicotine is a poison used in bug sprays, which in it's pure form can kill a person with a single drop. Cigarettes are every where in American culture even though the cigarette companies lost major law suits in the 1990s. However, cigarette smoking is on a down trend and only 18% of adults smoked cigarettes in 2011 around 40 million people. Nowadays people are much more aware of the dangers of smoking. 28 states through out the country have banned smoking in enclosed places such as restaurants, stores, workplaces and have increased taxes collected from cigarette sales. Smokers are generally not happy with this approach and the increased cost of cigarettes.

A new alternative to inhaling nicotine was introduced in the new electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes). The e-cigarette was invented in it's current modern form by Hon Lik in 2003. Hon, a Chinese pharmacist, invented the e-cigarette after his father died of lung cancer. Hon was also a very heavy smoker and quit smoking after his father passed away. Hon believes that e-cigarettes are "a much cleaner, safer way to inhale nicotine". E-cigarettes look, work and feel similarly to a cigarette but they vaporize the nicotine when the person inhales on the device. Every time person inhales the tip of the cigarette turns a cool color thanks to a built in led. There is no fire, no smoke, no tar, no arsenic or the other chemicals found in traditional cigarettes. It is assumed to be a safer form of getting a nicotine fix without all the side effects of traditional smoking. People use e-cigarettes as an alternative to traditional cigarettes; as a way to quit smoking or avoid relapsing; to deal with cravings for cigarettes or withdrawal symptoms; and because it's cheaper than smoking. E-cigarette usage has increased to a $2 billion industry and are popping up all over the country. Smokers are now turning to e-cigarettes and are vaping (that's what they call smoking e-cigarettes) in enclosed areas and public places. Something that they can't legally do in many states with traditional cigarettes. E-cigarettes also come in various flavors that enhance the vaping experience. However, e-cigarettes are not regulated and there's no standard set for the levels of nicotine in these devices or additives used in flavoring. The FDA needs to regulate electronic cigarettes just like any other type of drug to prevent unnecessary harm and exposure to children and young adults.

Proponents of e-cigarettes claim that they are the "best hope of improving the unacceptably low rate of successful quitting among addicted smokers." says Gilbert Ross. They are safer because they don't have cancer causing agents and other chemicals found in cigarettes. "It's safe smoking -- like smoking with a condom on," said William Taskas who is a distributor of Smoke-Stik in Canada.  "It's about as harmless as you can get." "I wouldn't worry at all if someone was smoking one of these by my kids," says Igor Burstyn a professor at Drexel University. In a study in the British Journal Lancet it was found that e-cigarettes "with or without nicotine, were modestly effective at helping smokers to quit, with similar achievement of abstinence as with nicotine patches, and few adverse events." The Royal College of Physicians says "Electronic cigarettes and other nicotine-containing devices offer massive potential to improve public health, by providing smokers with a much safer alternative to tobacco,"  "They need to be widely available and affordable to smokers." So it would seem that smokers, industry and some doctors believe that e-cigarettes are better than the alternative.

In 2009 the FDA conducted a test and found that a small number of e-cigarettes had "detectable levels of known carcinogens and toxic chemicals to which users could potentially be exposed" and "that quality control processes used to manufacture these products are inconsistent or non-existent." As you can see from this study e-cigarettes are not entirely harmless as the makers would like you to believe. Because the product isn't marketed as a medicine like the nicotine patch or as tobacco there are no regulations that cover the use of the product. So the companies that make e-cigarettes (over 200 products so far) are not mandated to disclose the ingredients of their products. Unlike the big tobacco companies e-cigarettes companies can advertise freely and there's a growing fear that it will re-glamorize cigarette smoking by using celebrities and making it seem like vaping is cool similar to the old style tobacco ads. Advertising of e-cigarettes has tripled from $6.4 million in 2011 to $18.3 million in 2012 according to a study by RTI International. The $18.3 million dollar number may not show the entire picture because once again unlike tobacco companies e-cigarette companies don't have to report their expenditures for advertising. This brings us to the next problem, age. Because it's not a tobacco product their isn't an age verification process and children can buy the e-cigarette. E-cigarettes come in lots of different flavors that children find attractive such as bubble gum, chocolate mint and cherry. A recent Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report issued by the CDC found that 1.78 million middle school and high school students have tried e-cigarettes and this can lead to using traditional cigarettes and other drugs. This is of great concern according to the American Cancer Society "the younger a person is when they start using tobacco, the more likely they are to use it as an adult." Nicotine is found in both types of cigarettes and it's the main ingredient in e-cigarettes. Nicotine is a poison and is very addictive and harmful to all ages. In recent years there number of calls to poison control centers across the country involving e-cigarettes has jumped to 215 per month and more then half of those calls involved children under the age of 6.

The common sense rule here should be if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it should be treated like a duck. E-Cigarettes where made to look like a cigarette and act like a cigarette in providing nicotine to the person vaping. Therefore the FDA should regulate the e-cigarette products just like a traditional cigarette.