It’s a critical time for the e-cigarette industry. In April, the FDA announced proposed rules to regulate e-cigarettes as tobacco products. The announcement kicked off a period of public comment so that e-cig makers and public health experts can raise concerns and give the FDA the necessary facts to write an appropriate set of final rules. Regulation is just like writing the rules of a new game—on one side there are businesses vying for industry-friendly regs, and on the other are public health advocates.
So far, it looks like the businesses are winning. When the FDA first announced the start of the rule-making process, Time wrote about the positive reaction to them by e-cigarette executives, who saw them as a reasonable first step that would not greatly interfere with their businesses. Now, a few weeks into the rule-making process, business continues to be optimistic while public health advocates are getting worried.
“The deeming rule that the FDA has proposed is very, very, very limited in its scope,” says Stanton Glantz, a cardiology professor at the University of San Fransisco and one of the most vociferous proponents of strict rules for e-cigs. “It requires a useless warning label and says they can’t be sold to kids under 18, but it doesn’t put any restrictions on internet sales, which means kids under 18 can easily get them. It has no restrictions on marketing at all.” This puzzles Glantz. “You would think that the Obama administration would be supporting tobacco control because it would reduce health care costs.” As far as Glantz is concerned, the administration has erred on the side of the tobacco interests.
