Sonoma County recently became the latest government entity to ban electronic cigarettes, joining several others in California, including Culver City.
And seven United States senators? including Sen. Barbara Boxer (D- California) ? sent a letter to Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx on June 9 asking him to prohibit their use on domestic flights within the country.
“While many major carriers have decided to prohibit the use of electronic cigarettes, federal regulations still allow these products to be used during flight,” the senators wrote. “Numerous electronic cigarette companies have marketed their products as offering the freedom to break the rules or smoke in places where traditional cigarettes are banned, such as airplanes.”
Earlier this year, Culver City added electronic- or e-cigarettes- to its existing municipal banning on smoking in or around government facilities and in public spaces.
The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors passed a similar amendment to their municipal code on June 10 that will apply to the unincorporated areas of the county. The board will hear a second reading of the amended ordinance and vote on it at its June 24 meeting.
California and 27 other states have outlawed the sale of e-cigarettes to minors. Two Culver City stores sell e-cigarettes, Quit By Smoking on Washington Boulevard and CC Smoke Shop on Jefferson Boulevard. On its website, Quit By Smoking touts the benefits of this new brad of smoking. “Save your health and get rid of those nasty toxins! Our e-juice comes in chocolate, tobacco, or vanilla favor in high, medium, low, or no nicotine,” it states.
E-cigarettes simulate tobacco smoking that produces an aerosol through a batterypowered vaporizer. The aerosol produces a liquid that typically contains a variety of chemicals and some nicotine.
Dr. Clark Fuller, the Director of Thoracic Surgery at Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, says the novelty of the cigarettes? which first came into the mainstream in 2005? effects of electronic smoking are still in its nascent stages.
“They are just coming onto the scene, so therefore we don’t know a lot about them,” said Fuller, who added that companies that sell e-cigarettes have done a “masterful job” marketing them.
“They’ve taken the approach that says, ‘We know that [traditional] cigarettes are bad, but we’re not as bad as they are.””
The Consumer Advocates for Smoke Free Alternatives Assn, an organization that backs e-cigarettes, cites a study by Drexel University Professor Igor Burstyn on its website stating that he found that chemicals in e-cigarettes pose no health risks for users. “This is the first definitive study of e-cigarette chemistry and finds that there are no health concerns based on generally accepted exposure limits,” the website states.
Fuller does not buy the arguments made by proponents of electronic cigarettes.
“Anecdotal studies are not a substitute for scientific data,” the doctor asserted.
Currently, the World Health Organization is examining available data on e-cigarettes. The organization recommended last year that “consumers should be strongly advised not to use” electronic cigarettes unless a “reputable national regulatory body” has found them safe and effective.
The Centers and Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta indicated that 10 percent of high school students have tried e-cigarettes. Reaching people before they start smoking or if they begin shortly after high school is the key to weaning them away from traditional as well as e-cigarettes, Fuller said. “Statistics show that there is greater success in getting people to quit if they start after 21,” he added.
The Food and Drug Administration, which regulates the use of tobacco products, issued a proposed rule that would extend the agency’s tobacco authority to cover additional products that meet the legal definition of a tobacco product to include e-cigarettes.