The Most Expensive Electronic Cigarette in the World

The Most Expensive Electronic Cigarette in the World

What's the most expensive bling electronic cigarette in the world?

As my friend and fellow blogger Steve Vape has just discovered, it's a custom made electronic cigarette made for a Russian businessman which cost not much short of a million dollars, and was featured in the Daily Mail here.

How much did it cost?

Our own bling batteries are a much more reasonable price!

The Russian businessman, an anonymous UK based oil magnate, spent a cool £550,00o on the e-cigarettes, worth an impressive $891385 at the current exchange rate.

(No doubt the businessman will be gutted when he realises that he could have ordered one of our own bling batteries this week and got 30% off!)

The e-cigarette took four months to create, and features:

authentic hand blown Italian glass from the Venetian island of Murano

46 yellow Swarovski crystals

a $46,000 six carat oval diamond on the tip

a 24 gold carat button and clearomiser base (let's hope the clearomiser lasts longer than the standard month or so!)

The e-cigarette even has its own name – Shisha Sticks Sofia.

The Russian oligarch who commissioned the design wishes to remain anonymous, but if it's going to be used in public, it shouldn't be too long before the media work out who purchased the super-bling e-cigarette.

Prince George’s County Council proposes ‘e-cig’ ban

Prince George's County Council proposes 'e-cig' ban 

Sophie Petit

Electronic cigarettes are hailed as a safe alternative to smoking, but Prince George's County officials are skeptical retailers aren't just blowing smoke on the potential long-term effects and are proposing a ban on the devices.

"Many of the [electronic cigarette] side effects have not been proven, just like when we first had tobacco, it was unknown because it was a new fad," said County Councilwoman Ingrid M. Turner (Dist. 4) of Bowie. "The parts that are unknown are what are the exact side effects."

Electronic cigarettes, or "e-cigs," are battery-powered devices that deliver doses of nicotine when a user inhales or "smokes" them.

Turner is the driving force behind a bill, CB-91-2013, proposed Oct. 15 that would ban people from "smoking" the devices inside of restaurants and bars as well as public and senior housing units. The county prohibits smoking traditional cigarettes in those areas.

Turner said she noticed people using the devices inside restaurants about six months ago and has received many complaints from residents concerned about potential health risks to non-users in the same vicinity.

Makers of the devices claim their products are harmless to the user and produce no harmful secondhand smoke.

"All the ingredients we use are all FDA approved and approved for manufacturing," said Robert Burton, director of corporate and regulatory affairs at White Cloud Electronic Cigarettes, a Florida-based electronic cigarette maker.

The devices use only three ingredients: pure nicotine, propylene glycol or vegetable glycerin and some kind of flavoring, such as tobacco flavor or menthol, Burton said.

"It's very short sighted for people to be banning these products...Generally the science generates there's nothing that's harmful in the vapor to people in the vicinity [of a user]," Burton said.

Over the past several years, the electronic cigarette industry has boomed, according to reports by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is urging more research on the health effects of the devices.

Some restaurants in Prince George's have already banned electronic cigarette use.

Raj Vig, manager of the Warehouse Bar and Grill in Fort Washington, said he doesn't let customers use them inside or outside. Electronic cigarette users, like traditional smokers, must be 25 yards from the building.

"We don't allow any kind of cigarette in our bar," Vig said.

But not all residents think electronic cigarettes should be treated the same as conventional ones.

"They don't have an odor, from what I understand. I wouldn't be upset if someone was smoking an electronic cigarette inside of a restaurant," said Cindy Manley, 53, of Bowie, who doesn't smoke.

The FDA can regulate nicotine devices that claim to have "therapeutic effects," but not electronic cigarette makers that market their devices as an alternative way to continue smoking, said FDA spokesperson Jennifer Haliski.

"We need a lot more information about the potential risks and also the potential benefits of all these new types of products on the market," Haliski said. "Having authority over them is the first step in being able to do that."

Royal Mail Ban Lifted

Latest regarding Royal Mail Ban Lifted

If the nicotine concentrates of 5% or less this CAN be sent with Royal Mail. This is because the e-liquid at this percentage is not classified as a dangerous product. Where the nicotine concentrate is over 2.5% but 5% or less an Irritant GHS Hazard Warning Label (as illustrated in the attachments) must be applied to the outer parcel packaging and must be clearly visible and unfortunately we at Royal Mail do not supply the labels. No such label is required where the nicotine concentrated is 2.5% or less.

Royal Mail E Liquid Restrictions Lifted

Royal Mail lifting restrictions on e liquid.

More as we have it.

http://www.royalmail.com/business/help-and-support/tell-me-about-restricted-goods

Anti-Smoking Researcher Misrepresenting Multiple Studies to Argue that Electronic Cigarettes Don't Aid Smoking Cessation

Anti-Smoking Researcher Misrepresenting Multiple Studies to Argue that Electronic Cigarettes Don't Aid Smoking Cessation

On his blog yesterday, Dr. Stan Glantz announced that there is "more evidence that e-cigarettes inhibit quitting conventional cigarettes." 

I was intrigued by this claim because if true, it would discount much of what I have been doing for the past few years (i.e., supporting electronic cigarettes as a bona fide strategy for quitting smoking). Not only is Dr. Glantz arguing that electronic cigarettes are ineffective; he is arguing that they actually inhibitquitting.

So naturally, I was very curious to read the actual study that Dr. Glantz was citing to provide this evidence that electronic cigarettes inhibit quitting.

The study he cited is entitled "Alternative Tobacco Product Use and Smoking Cessation: A National Study."

Here is what Dr. Glantz tells us about the study, which he says provides evidence that electronic cigarettes inhibit smoking cessation: "Ever use of e-cigarettes was not associated with being a successful quitter (OR 1.09; 95% CI 0.72-1.65) but was associated with being an unsuccessful quitter (OR=1.78, 95% CI 1.25-2.53) compared to people who had never tried to quit."

Dr. Glantz concludes that the evidence from this study "adds to the case that the loudly made claims that e-cigs help smokers quit are wrong." 

The Rest of the Story

The truth is that this study adds absolutely no evidence about the effectiveness of electronic cigarettes. The study was not designed to examine the effectiveness of electronic cigarettes. In fact, it was simply a cross-sectional study that investigated the prevalence of ever use of e-cigarettes among a sample of current and former smokers.

To determine whether electronic cigarettes are effective for smoking cessation, one would have to study smokers in alongitudinal fashion. You would want to compare a sample of smokers who used electronic cigarettes to try to quit with smokers who did not use electronic cigarettes to try to quit. Ideally, one would randomize smokers into these two groups, and compare the effectiveness of electronic cigarettes with a different approach such as the nicotine patch or gum.

But that's not what this study did at all. It simply measured ever use of electronic cigarettes among smokers and former smokers at a single point in time. The survey provided no information about whether the smokers used electronic cigarettes in an attempt to quit smoking. It provided no information about the timing of their electronic cigarette use. It provided no information about whether they actually used electronic cigarettes regularly or whether they merely tried the product on a single occasion to see what it was like.

Most importantly, because the study is cross-sectional, it cannot tell us which came first. Did electronic cigarettes cause people to be unsuccessful quitters, or is it the case that people use electronic cigarettes because they are having trouble quitting?

In fact, we know from other research that the latter is true. The majority of smokers who try electronic cigarettes are trying these products specifically because they have failed to quit using other means, such as nicotine replacement therapy. So it is in fact no surprising to find that the use of electronic cigarettes is high among people who have not succeeded in quitting smoking.

To be blunt, if one of my students argued in a paper that this study provides evidence that electronic cigarettes inhibit smoking cessation, I couldn't give the paper a passing grade.

In fact, the very authors of the article make it clear that the results of this study cannot be used to infer that electronic cigarettes inhibit smoking cessation. They write:

"Because this was a cross-sectional study, we could not determine whether use of alternative tobacco products resulted in cessation attempts or whether those who were trying to quit--for whatever reason--were using alternative tobacco products. We also could not determine whether use of these products is intended to facilitate quitting and whether use leads to successful quitting. Prospective longitudinal studies should examine whether smokers who use smokeless tobacco are actually more successful at quitting."

More to the Rest of the Story

The story doesn't end here.

In the same blog post, Dr. Glantz cites another study which he argues provides evidence that electronic cigarettes inhibit quitting. According to Dr. Glantz, this study showed "lower quit rates for e-cig users."  

The rest of the story is that this study didn't actually measure quit rates among smokers using electronic cigarettes in an attempt to quit smoking. What Dr. Glantz does not reveal is that instead of estimating cessation rates among a cohort of smokers who made quit attempts using these products, the study analyzed cessation rates of a large number of smokers who had previously tried to quit using e-cigarettes but failed, and then called a quitline because they had failed and wanted to try again. Then, they compared the quit rate among these smokers to that among smokers without such a history of a failed quit attempt using electronic cigarettes.

In other words, this study did not estimate quit rates among smokers trying to quit using e-cigarettes. Instead, it estimated quit rates among many smokers who were not using e-cigarettes in their quit attempt at all!

The truth is that many of the electronic cigarette users in the studydid not use electronic cigarettes in their quit attempts!According to data provided in the paper, a full 28% of the sample of electronic cigarettes did not use these products in their quit attempts.

It should be clear to readers that this study was poorly designed to investigate the efficacy of electronic cigarettes. The study systematically sampled a group of quitline callers who were unsuccessful using electronic cigarettes. These people tried and failed using electronic cigarettes. How do we know they failed? Because they wouldn't have had to call the quitline if they weren't still smoking. This is clearly a harder core group of smokers and it is no surprise that their cessation rates were lower after 6-months than the comparison group. The study tells us nothing about the effectiveness of electronic cigarettes, other than that they do not work for everyone. Any researcher sincerely interested in testing the efficacy of electronic cigarettes would not test the research question in this way. If the tobacco industry conducted precisely this same study in order to conclude that electronic cigarettes are ineffective as a smoking cessation tool, we would call it scientific fraud.

Moreover, the authors of this study, like those of the one discussed above, explicitly stated that the results cannot be used to evaluate the effectiveness of electronic cigarettes for smoking cessation and that the study was not designed for that purpose. Concerned that Dr. Glantz was misrepresenting the results of their study, the authors of the study - who are at Alere Wellbeing - publicly admitted that the study was never intended to assess the effectiveness of electronic cigarettes and that the data should not be used for this purpose.

The Alere Wellbeing blog states very clearly: "The recently published article by Dr. Katrina Vickerman and colleagues has been misinterpreted by many who have written about it. It wasnever intended to assess the effectiveness of the e-cig as a mechanism to quit." 

Dr. Vickerman herself explained that her results do not in any way indicate that electronic cigarettes are less effective than NRT, stating: "It may be that callers who had struggled to quit in the past were more likely to try e-cigarettes as a new method to help them quit. These callers may have had a more difficult time quitting, regardless of their e-cigarette use."

This is a study that Dr. Glantz called a "good study" on "the use of e-cigs for cessation."

If this is a "good study" on the use of e-cigs for cessation, I'd like to see a bad one.

Conclusion

As my readers know, Dr. Glantz was and is a hero to me. He was a mentor for my career in tobacco control. He set an example to me for the use of science for advocacy purposes. He still is way ahead of the rest of the tobacco control movement in seeing the field and the direction it needs to go. He has always been the person who I considered to be the leader of the movement. However, it appears to me that Dr. Glantz - for some reason - is determined to oppose electronic cigarettes, regardless of the actual scientific evidence. He is grasping at straws, trying to find any shred of evidence - whether valid or not - to support his contention, apparently a pre-determined one, that electronic cigarettes are making it more difficult for smokers to quit.

There are literally tens of thousands of former smokers out there who will find this a joke, as they successfully quit thanks to electronic cigarettes. Moreover, an actual clinical trial which did measure quitting among smokers in a longitudinal fashion and did randomize smokers to NRT vs. e-cigarettes, found that electronic cigarettes are every bit as effective as the nicotine patch for smoking cessation. In the light of that evidence, how can Dr. Glantz continue to argue that electronic cigarettes inhibitsmoking cessation? 

My opinion is that much like the rest of the anti-smoking movement, Dr. Glantz is so blinded by ideology that he cannot bring himself to condone a behavior that looks like smoking, regardless of what the evidence shows or the experience of vapers tells us.

Ideology is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, the strong ideology in the anti-smoking movement is probably what helped it to become such a strong and successful movement. But at some point, you need to be able to critically evaluate scientific evidence without the cloud of ideology. One can still be a passionate advocate without losing scientific integrity. Sadly, we have reached the point where the anti-smoking movement has lost its ability to do that. The ideology has become so dominant that it is drowning out the rigorous scientific analysis that I believe used to guide the movement.

Tobacco Control Practitioners Continue to Deceive the Public About Electronic Cigarettes

Tobacco Control Practitioners Continue to Deceive the Public About Electronic Cigarettes

In a campaign of deception, tobacco control practitioners throughout the country continue to spread both misleading and outright false information about the health issues regarding electronic cigarettes.

Here are just a few examples from recent days:

1. A tobacco control practitioner in Indiana claimed that we don't know what is in electronic cigarette vapor. Another tobacco control practitioner, from Illinois, claimed that there's no evidence that electronic cigarettes can help people stop smoking.

According to an article in the Princeton Daily Clarion: "E-cigarette supporters claim it can help smokers on the road to becoming smoke free, but Gwen Siekman, the Coordinator for a Tobacco Free Gibson County, says that e-cigarette smokers are just trading one addiction for another." ...

""They are totally unregulated and they are very scary," Siekman said. Supporters of the e-cig say there's no secondhand smoke that will affect non-smokers around them, but Siekman said, "They don't know what that vapor has in it.""

"Ronda Hockgeiger, Wabash County Health Department's prevention coordinator, said that there's no new evidence that e-cigarettes help people stop smoking." ...

"Siekman is adamant that people should not use e-cigarette to quit smoking."

2. A tobacco control practitioner in Florida was quoted as statingthat "we don't know the long-term effects of inhaling that nicotine solution, all day, every day, for years. So we don't know if they're safer than tobacco. The research hasn't been done."

3. A Utah tobacco control practitioner claimed that smokers who use cigarettes and electronic cigarettes increase their nicotine consumption: "smoking cigarettes and e-cigarettes leads to increased nicotine consumption."

4. A Florida physician and tobacco control advocate published anop-ed piece, in which he argued that the idea of using electronic cigarettes for harm reduction is not a public health approach, but simply a marketing strategy: "My first concern is over the concept of Tobacco Harm Reduction, or THR as those promoting e-cigarettes like to call it. They frequently question why physicians would be against a product that might reduce the risks posed by traditional tobacco products. I am against THR because it is a marketing strategy, not a public health policy."

The Rest of the Story

All of these tobacco control practitioners are spreading misleading and/or false information about electronic cigarettes. And this is just from the past several days. The amount of inaccurate information being disseminated by tobacco control groups throughout the country is alarming. It is also very damaging because it misleads the public and hides the truth. The net effect is to undermine the public's appreciation of the hazards of cigarette smoking.

Let's take the lies one by one.

First, it is not true that we have no idea what is in electronic cigarette vapor. These products have been extensively studied and we have a fairly good idea what is in there. The difficulty is not that we are unaware of the vapor constituents; the problem is that it is difficult to project the long-term risks of inhalation of small levels of a chemical like formaldehyde or acrolein. But we actually have a much better idea what is in electronic cigarette vapor than what is in tobacco smoke.

Second, it is not true that we don't know whether vaping is safer than smoking. Even tobacco companies would not argue that smoking is no more dangerous than vaping. It doesn't take rocket toxicology to figure out that inhaling nicotine plus tens of thousands of chemicals including more than 60 known carcinogens is going to be more dangerous than inhaling nicotine plus low levels of a few chemicals. It doesn't take rocket epidemiology to figure out that burning tobacco is going to result in a more dangerous product than heating nicotine dissolved in propylene glycol and glycerin. tobacco companies don't argue that smoking may be no more dangerous than vaping. Why would a public health advocate advance such an argument?

Third, it is not true that dual users of electronic cigarettes and regular cigarettes increase their nicotine consumption. Actually, smokers who substitute electronic cigarettes for regular ones decrease their nicotine consumption because the electronic cigarette is nowhere close to a tobacco cigarette in its ability to deliver nicotine. The overwhelming majority of electronic cigarette users are lowering their nicotine consumption, even if they maintain dual use of both products.

Fourth, it is not true that the idea of using electronic cigarettes for harm reduction is simply a marketing strategy. Vaping is much safer than smoking, and smokers who have been able to quit using electronic cigarettes have likely saved their lives. This is a bona fide public health strategy that could literally transform the tobacco epidemic. Other examples of harm reduction strategies in public health are needle exchange programs, methadone programs, and comprehensive sex education. Are those also merely marketing strategies?

In addition to spreading lies and misinformation, these tobacco control practitioners (and hundreds like them throughout the country - these are just a few recent examples of what I am reading literally every day in newspapers nationwide) are providing damaging and inappropriate advice: telling smokers not to quit smoking using electronic cigarettes. This is terrible advice. If a smoker is able to quit, we should be congratulating that person, not attacking them or telling them that they did something wrong and are endangering their health. It's quite the opposite.

To my mind, publicly advising smokers who are or may be able to quit using electronic cigarettes not to quit using these products is tantamount to committing public health malpractice on a grand scale. 

University of California System to Ban Smokeless Tobacco Use and E-Cigarette Use on Campus Beginning January 1, 2014

University of California System to Ban Smokeless Tobacco Use and E-Cigarette Use on Campus Beginning January 1, 2014

Starting next year, the use of smokeless tobacco and the use of electronic cigarettes will not be allowed anywhere on University of California property. These bans will accompany a ban on the use of cigarettes and all other tobacco products on the 10 campuses in the UC system.

According to an article in the Daily Nexus: "UCSB is currently making the shift to going totally smoke-and-tobacco-free, as all universities in the 10-campus UC system will be officially designated as non-smoking beginning Jan. 1, 2014. On the first day of the new year, any tobacco and tobacco-free products smoked through cigarettes, pipes, water pipes and hookahs used on campus — in addition to smokeless tobacco and unregulated nicotine products such as "e-cigarettes" — will be in violation of the policy. Adoption of the policy will join the UC with 1,100 other colleges and universities throughout the U.S. that have already implemented such regulations to limit second and third-hand smoke exposure on campus. The UC system's transition to becoming completely smoke and tobacco-free was first announced by former UC President Mark G. Yudof back in January 2012."

The Rest of the Story

This policy makes little sense. First of all, while I recognize the need to protect nonsmokers from secondhand smoke exposure, it hardly seems necessary to ban smoking everywhere on the entire campus to accomplish this goal. Banning smoking in all indoor areas, in outdoor areas where people congregate or cannot easily avoid exposure, and within a reasonable distance of doors and entrance ways seems reasonable. But it is not necessary to completely ban smoking, even in private cars and remote areas of parking lots and open fields, in order to adequately protect nonsmokers from secondhand smoke.

Second, even if we acknowledge a rationale for banning smoking, why would we want to also ban electronic cigarette use? The overwhelming majority of smokers who use electronic cigarettes are trying to quit smoking. Why would we want to deter this? Why punish these smokers for making a wonderful health decision? Why provide a disincentive for smokers to quit, while providing an incentive for them to return to cigarette use? How does this make any kind of health statement?

Third, while banning smoking protects the health of others, banning smokeless tobacco use is purely paternalistic. But if the university is going to set paternalistic policies to protect students' health, then how can it ban smokeless tobacco use but not alcohol use? To be sure, alcohol will cause more death and destruction on these university campuses than smokeless tobacco. Even worse, by banning smokeless tobacco but leaving alcohol untouched, these policies represent the worst form of hypocrisy.

You either decide to promote a healthy campus or you don't. And if you believe that promoting a healthy campus means being paternalistic and regulating the behaviors that people can or cannot do (even if they don't affect others), then you can't be selective and just cut out the behaviors that you personally don't approve of.

The rest of the story is that the UC smoke-free policy reeks of hypocrisy, intolerance, and moral judgment of others. It is by no means a public health policy. Instead, it is a statement of a warped ideology, by which getting drunk is fine, but using a little dip is not, and by which trying to quit smoking via hypnosis is A-OK, but trying to quit using electronic cigarettes is a no-no.

Martin Callanan MEP: E-Cig action and support for shale. All this and more in my monthly report.

Martin Callanan MEP is Chairman of the European Conservatives. This is his monthly letter to ConHome readers. Follow the ECR Group on Twitter.

Thanks to everyone who came to the ECR Group stand at the Party Conference in Manchester, and particularly to everyone who came to the fringe meeting that we organised. It was extremely interesting to hear the perspective on European reform from fellow ECR Members Jan Zahradil from the Czech Republic and Lajos Bokros from Hungary, and also from Timo Soini of the anti-bailout Finns Party.

The UK Conservative MEPs also held a fringe meeting with William Hague who, despite a cold, gave an excellent speech on the importance of voting Conservative next year in order to get both a referendum and MEPs who are willing to work hard to defend British interests.

And the Alliance of the ECR (which brings together both the parties linked to the ECR Group and other centre-right parties across Europe) also held a successful fringe meeting with Dan Hannan and Alejo Vidal Quadras, a Vice-President of the European Parliament from Spain, which was chaired by Geoffrey Clifton Brown.

In the main hall I spoke in the foreign affairs debate and said that increasingly governments and parties across the Continent are coming round to the Conservative agenda of reform. Only we can deliver the radical change the EU needs, and only we can out that change to the people. If you didn't see it you can watch the speech here:

E-Cigs

We arrived back in Strasbourg to hundreds of people wearing white coats. After 14 years in the place I've often wondered when the men in white coats might come to take a few people away, but it turns out that this time they were protesting against a de facto ban on electronic cigarettes.

The parliament was voting on an update to the Tobacco Products Directive which governs how tobacco is sold and marketed. The main aim of the directive was to find ways of discouraging younger people from wanting to take up smoking in the first place.

I took on the role as lead member on the Directive for the ECR Group. Overall, the Directive was always going to be a balancing act between protecting jobs in the industry and discouraging smoking. Some of the proposals were towards the zealous end of the scale, such as a ban on packs of ten and a ban on menthol cigarettes, although this will not take effect for several years. However, there was one issue that we were not prepared to compromise on, and that was E-cigs.

Electronic Cigarettes provide a nicotine hit without the tar, smoke or carbon monoxide of normal tobacco. I don't pretend they are good for people, but they are far better than smoking, and countless people have told me that they have acted as a quitting aid – a stepping stone off smoking altogether.

Unfortunately, the Labour MEP who was leading this directive through the parliament wanted these products to be put through a medicinal authorisation procedure. The costs and processes associated with such an authorisation are far more onerous even than traditional tobacco, so the many small businesses that have emerged would be put at risk.

Normally when we pass legislation, MEPs are inundated with correspondence organised by companies or (usually EU funded) NGOs. We receive thousands of identical emails that have taken the sender two clicks to send, and it normally takes us two clicks to send the same reply. But on this issue I received hundreds of personal emails detailing people's experiences with E-cigarettes and how they have quit smoking because of them. It was a powerful argument.

We proposed an amendment (with the LibDems) that would require e-cigs to be treated in the same way as tobacco. Thankfully, it passed by a majority of around a hundred votes. The whole process now goes into 'conciliation' with the council and we will continue to advocate the rights of e-cig users.

Language checks

We also voted on proposals that would make it easier for a professional to have their qualifications recognised right across the EU. Of course, one matter of real concern in the UK related to healthcare workers, and particularly their ability to speak English. This follows the case of David Gray who died after a German Doctor accidentally gave him an overdose of diamorphine on his first shift. Under the new law the recruitment of doctors and nurses will require much stronger language checks, and if a professional has been struck off in one country they will also be struck off across the EU.

My colleague Emma McClarkin took the initiative to bring forward these proposals. She wrote a 'pre-legislative' report, which was adopted by MEPs two years ago and most of the proposals that she made were taken up by the commission. She's delivered a law that will stop protectionist countries from blocking some professions, and make sure that those medical staff who treat us are fully qualified and able to speak the language.

Shale gas

There were also votes on shale gas, where the parliament foolishly wants every tiny exploration to be governed by onerous environmental impact assessments. And MEPs also adopted a report by my colleague James Elles which argues the EU needs to do more to look into long term trends and make policy accordingly, not in the knee-jerk way it often acts today.

Malala Yousafzai

The parliament awards an annual human rights prize, called the Sakharov Prize. Generally my group doesn't support prizes and awards from the European Parliament, which are often wasteful and used for rewarding the vested interests of the EU. However, this is one prize that has made a major impact in highlighting the work of some incredibly brave people such as Aung San Suu Kyi or the Cuban Ladies in White.

Each group nominates someone and then the group leaders vote on who should win the award. This year, the ECR decided to nominate Malala Yousafzai – the Pakistani education rights activist who was shot in the hear a year and a day before the award was decided. Other groups had also nominated her and I was pleased that she was given the award by a unanimous decision of parliament's group leaders.

Another nominee for the award was Edward Snowden, the NSA fugitive, who was nominated by the Greens and Communists. When you consider the previous nominees for this prize and the struggles they went through to gain freedom from oppression, to even nominate Snowden was, in my view, a disgrace. Although, as I remarked to one reporter, part of me hoped that he did win the prize so that when he came to Strasbourg to collect it he could be arrested and extradited as a fugitive, not a defender of human rights. It is a real shame that such an award was hijacked for petty political purposes, but I expect nothing less from the Greens.

Strasbourg circus

We've only just returned from Strasbourg, but would you believe we're going back AGAIN next week. The Treaties say we must hold 12 sessions a year there, and because we miss a session in August we have to hold two in the autumn to make it up. Last year, you'll remember that my colleague Ashley Fox was able to bring the two sessions into one week - cutting the number of journeys we must make down to 11. MEPs were due to operate the same arrangement this month, but we had to add in another session after France took the reviled 'L'Amendment Fox' (they spit it rather than say it in the French Parliament) to the European Court, and won.

Not to be deterred, Ashley continues with his campaign. As I write, MEPs in the Constitutional Affairs committee have passed a vote on a report he authored saying that the parliament wants a change in the Treaties so that it has only one seat. This campaign is probably not going to be won by a big bang event, but by a long and incremental process that chips away support for the Travelling Circus. In that process, Ashley continues to work with a number of other MEPs in the ECR Group and across the parliament to force EU leaders to finally confront this symbol of EU waste and nonsense.

But until then, we'll be heading back to Strasbourg next week where the agenda includes the final vote on the seven-year EU budget, a vote on the 2014 annual budget (which is being cut in line with the new framework), money for cross-border research projects called the Horizon 2020 programme, and a vote on whether to suspend a major EU-US counter-terror agreement in light of the NSA allegations (which we think would be a foolish and presumptive move). We'll also hear from Aung San Suu Kyi who will finally collect the Sakharov award she was given – in 1990.

At the end of the week I'll be back in Brussels for the EU summit where the economy will be discussed. Already we've seen the UK Government taking the lead by providing a checklist of EU red tape that needs to be eliminated. I've always said that the best way to encourage a bit more employment in Europe is to create a bit more unemployment in the European Commission – starting with the Socialist Commissioner for (un)employment Laszlo Andor. Oddly enough, he's not my biggest fan!

Europe European Parliament (general) Martin Callanan MEP Smoking Snowden

Prince George's County Council proposes 'e-cig' ban

Electronic cigarettes should be treated like conventional cigarettes, officials say

Electronic cigarettes are hailed as a safe alternative to smoking, but Prince George's County officials are skeptical retailers aren't just blowing smoke on the potential long-term effects and are proposing a ban on the devices.

"Many of the [electronic cigarette] side effects have not been proven, just like when we first had tobacco, it was unknown because it was a new fad," said County Councilwoman Ingrid M. Turner (Dist. 4) of Bowie. "The parts that are unknown are what are the exact side effects."

Electronic cigarettes, or "e-cigs," are battery-powered devices that deliver doses of nicotine when a user inhales or "smokes" them.

Turner is the driving force behind a bill, CB-91-2013, proposed Oct. 15 that would ban people from "smoking" the devices inside of restaurants and bars as well as public and senior housing units. The county prohibits smoking traditional cigarettes in those areas.

Turner said she noticed people using the devices inside restaurants about six months ago and has received many complaints from residents concerned about potential health risks to non-users in the same vicinity.

Makers of the devices claim their products are harmless to the user and produce no harmful secondhand smoke.

"All the ingredients we use are all FDA approved and approved for manufacturing," said Robert Burton, director of corporate and regulatory affairs at White Cloud Electronic Cigarettes, a Florida-based electronic cigarette maker.

The devices use only three ingredients: pure nicotine, propylene glycol or vegetable glycerin and some kind of flavoring, such as tobacco flavor or menthol, Burton said.

"It's very short sighted for people to be banning these products...Generally the science generates there's nothing that's harmful in the vapor to people in the vicinity [of a user]," Burton said.

Over the past several years, the electronic cigarette industry has boomed, according to reports by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is urging more research on the health effects of the devices.

Some restaurants in Prince George's have already banned electronic cigarette use.

Raj Vig, manager of the Warehouse Bar and Grill in Fort Washington, said he doesn't let customers use them inside or outside. Electronic cigarette users, like traditional smokers, must be 25 yards from the building.

"We don't allow any kind of cigarette in our bar," Vig said.

But not all residents think electronic cigarettes should be treated the same as conventional ones.

"They don't have an odor, from what I understand. I wouldn't be upset if someone was smoking an electronic cigarette inside of a restaurant," said Cindy Manley, 53, of Bowie, who doesn't smoke.

The FDA can regulate nicotine devices that claim to have "therapeutic effects," but not electronic cigarette makers that market their devices as an alternative way to continue smoking, said FDA spokesperson Jennifer Haliski.

"We need a lot more information about the potential risks and also the potential benefits of all these new types of products on the market," Haliski said. "Having authority over them is the first step in being able to do that."

spetit@gazette.net

E-Cigarette Marketing Seen Threatened by FDA Scrutiny

The $1.5 billion U.S. electronic-cigarette industry has tripled sales this year with the help of TV ads, Nascar sponsorships and product giveaways. Government regulation may now threaten those marketing tactics.

The Food and Drug Administration is set to decide this month whether to lump e-cigarettes in with conventional smokes as part of its oversight of the $90 billion U.S. tobacco market. Such a step would set the stage for greater restrictions on production, advertising, flavorings and online sales.

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With at least 40 U.S. states seeking stricter rules and federal health officials raising the alarm about e-cigarette use by children, manufacturers of the smokeless devices are preparing for a FDA crackdown. Photographer: Mike Kane/Bloomberg

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June 26 (Bloomberg) -- Thilo Wrede, an analyst at Jefferies & Co., talks about the development of smokeless alternatives to cigarettes by Altria Group Inc.'s Philip Morris International unit. He talks with Adam Johnson and Trish Regan on Bloomberg Television's "Street Smart." Christopher Verrone, head of technical analysis at Strategas Research Partners, also speaks. (Source: Bloomberg)

With at least 40 U.S. states seeking stricter rules and federal health officials raising the alarm about e-cigarette use by children, manufacturers of the smokeless devices are preparing for a FDA crackdown.

"We do anticipate becoming a regulated industry, so it is very possible the way in which we advertise will change," said Andries Verleur, co-founder of e-cigarette maker VMR Products.

E-cigarettes heat liquid nicotine into an inhaled vapor without the tar of normal cigarettes. For the moment, marketers operate with few, if any, of the regulatory limits that apply to tobacco companies such as Philip Morris USA and Reynolds American Inc. (RAI) TV advertisements by tobacco companies were banned in 1971, and in 2010 the FDA eliminated cigarette sampling. Sporting leagues such as Nascar also have severed ties.

With the FDA seeking to expand its regulatory authority beyond conventional cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, some e-cigarette companies are opening up the marketing spigot while they still have a chance.

Nightclub Push

Victory Electronic Cigarettes Corp. (ECIG), run by the same marketing executive who helped build InBev NV into a dominant brewer, is handing out 1 million e-cigarettes starting this month at events in 50 U.S. cities. There will be a traveling van and tents at Nascar races, said Chief Executive Officer Brent Willis, who was once the president of InBev's Asia-Pacific operations and helped introduce the Kraft brand to China.

Logic Technology Inc., which makes up 17 percent of industry sales, plans a push in Manhattan bars and nightclubs this year or early 2014.

"You go where adult smokers are," said Miguel Martin, president of Livingston, New Jersey-based Logic, in an interview.

The industry says e-cigarettes are a healthier, cleaner alternative to traditional smoking. Many disagree. At least 40 U.S. state attorneys general on Sept. 24 urged the FDA to immediately regulate the sale and advertising of electronic cigarettes in a letter that said the products are appealing to youth and no one is "ensuring the safety of the ingredients."

Child Addicts

That followed a Sept. 5 report in which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention raised an alarm about children getting hooked on nicotine. The CDC found the share of U.S. students in middle school and high school who used e-cigarettes doubled to 10 percent in 2012 from 4.7 percent a year earlier.

By comparison, adolescents who reported smoking regular cigarettes daily or more casually, declined to 8.3 percent in 2010, from 11.9 percent in 2004, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration said earlier this year.

Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois and 11 other Democrats, seized on the report to call for immediate FDA regulation and to demand that e-cigarette companies provide documents related to sales, labeling and marketing of their products to children.

"Despite claims from some e-cigarette makers that they do not market their products to youth and that kids should not have access to their products, e-cigarette manufacturers appear to be applying marketing tactics similar to those used by the tobacco industry to hook a new generation of children," the senators wrote in a Sept. 26 letter to e-cigarette companies.

FDA Agenda

The FDA has oversight over the cigarette market under a 2009 law that gives it sway over manufacturing, marketing and other tobacco industry practices. The law permits the FDA to determine whether it will extend its reach to related products.

In a government catalog of upcoming federal regulatory actions, called the Unified Agenda, the FDA lists October 2013 as the deadline for issuing a notice for proposing such rules.

The FDA has sent a proposal to the White House Office of Management and Budget, seeking to expand its regulatory authority beyond cigarettes, Steven Immergut, a spokesman for the agency said in an e-mail yesterday. "Their review will begin when the government shutdown ends," he said.

Industry Standard

Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said everyone is watching to see precisely what the FDA has proposed.

"Sometimes OMB takes weeks and sometimes OMB sits on things for a very long time," he said in an interview. "I don't think this is something the OMB plans to sit on."

E-cigarette companies are on board with manufacturing standards and age restrictions while saying advertising limits shouldn't be on the table. VMR's Verleur said his company, which makes the V2 Cigs brand, and his competitors have asked the FDA for meetings to give their side of the argument.

"One thing that would be very bad is to lump us in with traditional cigarettes and apply some of the same standards," he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Anna Edney in Washington ataedney@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reg Gale at rgale5@bloomberg.net

'Vaper': E-cig users see them as a less-harmful alternative

Vintage Vapors employee Brandon White blows smoke from an e-cig.

Photo by C. B. Schmelter.

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Anatomy of a Vaporizer

The vaporizer is a device consisting of a battery and a heating element. When activated, the heating element boils a small amount of liquid in the device, creating a vapor, which is then inhaled by the user.

Tube: the main console of the vaporizer.

Battery: housed power source usually charged through a USB.

Cartridge: component that houses the e-juice.

Atomizer: heats up the e-juice and creates the vapor that's inhaled and exhaled.

Cartomizer: combination of the atomizer and cartridge in one.

E-Juice / E-Liquid: water-based liquid that contains the nicotine. Comes in a variety of flavors or just plain. Four main ingredients: Nicotine, Propylene glycol, Vegetable glycerine, Flavoring - all of which show no evidence of being a carcinogen.

Tip: end where the vaporizer is inhaled.

Source: www.vapingapela.com

As Dimitris Agrafiotis approached his 39th birthday, the age his father died of a heart attack, he wanted desperately to end his 20-year smoking habit.

He'd tried everything to quit over the years, including acupuncture, meds, patches, gum and hypnosis. Nothing worked.

Then about five years ago, he tried his first electronic cigarette; he hasn't had a traditional cigarette since. And he's become so passionate about how his life has changed since transitioning to so-called e-cigarettes, he devotes a good deal of time and energy talking to others about them. He puts together a weekly podcast at vapersplace.com, helped start the Scenic City Vapors Club and hosts a bimonthly gathering that draws around 200 "vapers."

"I used to buy my cigarettes by the carton," he says. "My wife and I both did. We spent $400 a month. After I started vaping, I still had eight packs and I gave them away."

Vapers, as e-cig smokers are known, inhale vapor from water or juice through a personal vaporizer, which come in several different shapes and sizes. The juice is made from nicotine, propylene glycol, vegetable glycerin and flavoring. Proponents of e-cigs point out that there is no tobacco, no combustion and no secondhand smoke. They also are cheaper than regular cigarettes and you can use them in many public places that have banned cigarette smoking.

While e-cigs have been around since 2007, they are now attracting more attention simply because more people are using them. Sales have doubled each year since 2007, according to a recent USA Today article, which quoted Wells Fargo tobacco analyst Bobbie Herzog as predicting annual sales in 2013 to reach $1.7 billion.

Those numbers have caught the attention of Big Tobacco, which still expects sales of regular tobacco products to be around $80 billion this year. But also taking notice are the Federal Drug Administration and state governments as well as companies that have banned smoking or that charge smokers higher premiums for health insurance but don't know yet what to make of e-cigs.

The FDA, which has done virtually nothing regarding e-cigs to date, is expected to issue some regulations regarding them in the coming months. Among the issues are e-cigs use of fruit-flavored juice and cartoon characters in ads, which some contend is designed to go after young users.

Agrafiotis says adults like fruit flavors, too, and if the FDA is truly concerned that the fruit flavors are being used to target young people, they also should be banned from coffee, creamers, vodka and Nicorette, an FDA-approved smoking cessation product.

Timothy Lanier, a 28-year-old who switched to e-cigs after more than 10 years of smoking, says he and other vapers don't want to come off as proselytizers on the wonders of e-cigs for children or non-smokers. They direct their comments to smokers who want to quit.

"We don't advocate this," he says. "It is less harmful than smoking. It should not be promoted to kids or someone who doesn't smoke."

Earlier this week, 40 attorneys general, including Tennessee AG Bob Cooper, asked the FDA to place restrictions on e-cigarettes and their ingredients. In a letter signed by all 40, the attorneys general asked the FDA to take all available measures to regulate e-cigarettes as tobacco products under the Tobacco Control Act, which dictates such things as age requirements for buying and advertising restrictions. The attorneys general from Georgia and Alabama did not sign the letter.

Agrafiotis, who owns Portifinos restaurant in East Ridge, says he has devoted countless hours to researching e-cigs and recently attended a national conference on the subject that drew 14,000 people to California. He also encourages his staff and patrons at Portifinos to consider e-cigs as an alternative to smoking, but is adamant that the devices be described as a safer -- not a safe -- alternative.

He does all of this on his own dime and tells those who'll listen that he no longer has the insatiable craving to light up as soon as he wakes up.

"I don't have that emotional attachment anymore. It's a whole different feeling. I rarely cough anymore and, when I do, it surprises me. My girls now want to hug me because I don't stink."

That's the same line of reasoning that Steve Dockery used when opening Vintage Vapors, an e-cigarette and coffee lounge on Ringgold Road. The former interior and theme designer opened the shop -- available only to those 18 and older -- in June after he used e-cigs to quit regular cigarettes.

"Once I saw the impact this had in my life and then in helping others, it became personal," he says.

Another store, Vapor Tonics, recently opened on Vine Street on the edge of the University of Tennesee at Chattanooga campus. Ben Connally, manager of Vapor Tonics, which opened Sept. 2, says he doesn't sell to anyone under 18. Connally himself quit smoking five years ago before e-cigs gained in popularity.

"I wish I'd had them," he said. "It would have been easier to quit."

His store, which is near UTC and also Unum and the Hamilton County Courthouse, was strategically located to be near "a lot of smokers," he says. "I see this an alternative to smoking."

On a recent morning before Vintage Vapors opened for the day, Dockery, employees Brandon White and Jonathan Dan and Agrafiotis were inside the store just to talk about vaping.

A 26-year smoker, Dockery says he quit the minute he tried his first e-cig three years ago. He, like Agrafiotis and Dan, who used to smoke three packs a day, all were "automatic switchovers," meaning they quit cigarettes the minute they tried their first e-cig. White's switch was more transitional.

"I smoked one or two cigarettes a week after switching for a couple of weeks," he says.

In addition to not smoking anymore, another big selling point is that vaporizing is much cheaper than smoking. Agrafiotis estimates that vaping costs about $1 a day after you've bought a vaporizer, which range in price. A start-up kit at Vintage Vapors is $39, or you can spend about $140 for the iTaste 134.

A big part of what Dockery and his staff try to do is educate people not just on how the mechanisms work, but also how to choose the right juice. They offer samples with zero nicotine content for people to try during their initial visit.

Dockery has an off-site lab where he makes most of the juices sold at Vintage Vapors, which offer varying levels of nicotine --0 mg, 6 mg, 12 mg and 24 mg. The juices, sold in 6 ml bottles, cost around $6 each and last about a week, depending on the user. The varying levels are designed to aid in the transition process, Dockery says. A heavy smoker might start with higher nicotine level, for example, and later switch to something lower.

The nicotine in the juice is made from tobacco, which is one of the reasons the FDA is looking at e-cigs and why Agrafiotis and Dockery insist that vaping should be described as safer and not safe. Nicotine is the addictive element in cigarettes but has not historically been classified as carcinogenic. The Centers for Disease Control say studies on the carcinogenic qualities of nicotine are "inconclusive."

Many people assume when they first start vaping that they will prefer a tobacco-flavored juice, but Dockery says the opposite is true. The flavored juices, according to Dockery, Dan and Agrafiotis, are important in helping people move from traditional cigarettes to e-cigs.

"Once you stop smoking, your tastesbuds come back and you actually taste things again," Dan said.

Lanier, who started smoking when he was 15 growing up in North Carolina -- "We had a smoking section in my church" -- says most former smokers don't want that tobacco taste.

"It's the nicotine that brings you back. After you've been vaporizing for a while, you don't want it to taste like a cigarette."

He bought his first e-cig at a gas station a little more than a year ago and says vaping now is more of a hobby than an addiction. He meets every Wednesday at Vintage Vapors with a group of six or eight guys and they share stories and information about which juices they have tried and which e-cig styles they prefer. The meetings help each of the men stay away from cigarettes as well, he says.

"It's more like a cigar smoker, where it's something you plan and enjoy instead of something you are doing in the rain out behind the office and feeling guilty about," Lanier says.

Contact staff writer Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354.