E-Cig Vendors Weigh in on Proposed FDA Rules

[Comrade Grumpy]

From California:

http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20140426/A_BIZ/404260317/-1/A_NEWS05

Stockton electronic cigarette dealers Friday gave mixed reviews to proposed federal regulations clamping down on the devices, as well as the usually nicotine-laced liquids they contain.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration wants health warnings on the products and would prohibit their sale in vending machines and require manufacturers to register their products and ingredients with the agency. While California already bans the sale of e-cigarettes to minors, the proposed regulation would set a nationwide minimum age of 18. FDA officials also want to include tobacco products not currently under regulation, such as cigars and pipe tobacco. The agency now oversees only cigarettes, smokeless tobacco and roll-your-own tobacco.

Ashley Davies, co-owner of Just the Tip Vapors, expects the proposed rules to have little impact on her business. "These were expected things. These weren't totally from out of left field," she said.

Her stores, three in Stockton and one in Modesto, bar sales to minors as required by the state, and Davies said she's confident the Southern California producer of her house brand e-cigarette liquid - or e-juice - can satisfy the FDA registration and ingredients rules.

"We would like to make sure we're always fully compliant and always one step ahead of where the regulations are going," she said.
She doesn't oppose the idea of rules to control the production, marketing and sale of e-cigarettes. "Every kind of industry needs regulation," Davies said.

Her main concern is that regulators have a research or basis for imposing new rules. "There should at least be sound reasoning behind it. They shouldn't be just throwing it out there just to have it," she said.

Carlo Sharmoug, who operates Ziggy's Smoke Shop in Stockton and sells both tobacco and e-cigarette products and makes his own line of e-cigarette liquids, feared the FDA rules would raise the cost of e-cigarettes, making them less accessible.

"The only thing they're going ... to do is increase the prices; the federal government is going to get a piece of the pie," he said.

Today a $10 bottle of e-juice can serve about as well as a $60 carton of cigarettes, Sharmoug said. He doesn't want to see the price of e-cigarette use increase, because he says it benefits in helping smokers quit using tobacco. The liquid fillers are sold with various levels of nicotine, from as much as tobacco cigarettes, tapering down to none. That allows smokes to wean themselves off the addiction in about 90 days, Sharmoug said. "Its tastes like a cigarette, feels like a cigarette, but they're putting no nicotine in their body or very little nicotine," he said.

[Comrade Grumpy]

1. I'm for minimum age restrictions and quality control regulation.

Can't support vaping bans because "it looks like smoke," though.

I'm on my way to ending a 45-year cigarette habit thanks to these things. I think that's great. Saving my lungs and saving my money.