Just In the Nic-O ' -Tine: E-Cigarettes Get a Reprieve

Here ’s some genuine good news for both individual liberty and harm reduction: the Food and Drug Administration has granted a four-year reprieve to e-cigarettes (“vaping”). In particular, it is extending from November 2018 to August 2022 the requirement to obtain regulatory clearance for, or else w ithdraw, vaping products now on the market. As Inoted last year, under the “deeming” regulations proposed under the Obama administration even products currently sold on the market will have to be withdrawn unless their makers, mostly small companies, care to venture on an FDA approval process that can cost $1 million and up per item. Any resulting applications will result in permission to sell only if the agency decides the product is a net safety improvement on current offerings. And that permission will be at best chancy because the FDA, following [then-CDC head Thomas] Frieden ’s lead but in contrast with the views of many others in the public health field, refuses to acknowledge vaping as a safer alternative to tobacco smoking, even though large numbers of smokers turn to vaping with exactly that goal in mind. While it is likely that many smokers save their life or health by switching from a cigarette habit to the less injurious electronic alternative, every such switch cuts into revenues from conventional cigarette sales —and thus the coffers of state governments and other beneficiaries of the 1998 tobacco settlement. Some of these groups, as well as some com...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs