New York Seeks to Ban E-Cigarettes Completely

Posted on January 25th, 2011 by Jack Stone

The state of New York is trying to ban electronic cigarettes outright with a new bill before the state Assembly Health Committee. Linda Rosenthal, a local New York politician wants to ban the devices until they are more thoroughly investigated and regulated.

Unfortunately, this move suggests Rosenthal hasn’t been paying attention to the electronic cigarette news wire so I’ll key her in on a little “secret”:

A federal judge declared that e-cig companies are not selling the devices as “smoking cessation aids,” and as such, they cannot be regulated by the FDA. In the mind of the United States government at this point in time, electronic cigarettes are no different than regular cigarettes…just another way to get that nicotine fix (albeit probably a hell of a lot more safely).

So, Ms. Rosenthal, the United States government sees electronic cigarettes as simply alternatives to regular cigarettes. Because of this, you may be waiting quite a while for the FDA to run further tests on the devices.

I’m curious as to why Ms. Rosenthal isn’t pushing for testing and further regulation on standard tobacco cigarettes when they are clearly more dangerous than electronic cigarettes.

It amazes me that politicians are fighting so hard – no doubt only to please their constituents and get re-elected – to ban electronic cigarettes when they are quite clearly a safer alternative to tobacco cigarettes. People seem to be against anything that is even remotely linked to tobacco or smoking, even if it’s a product that is clearly a better alternative to traditional smoking.

Ms. Rosenthal’s time would be better spent encouraging people to switch to electronic cigarettes with the ultimate goal of quitting smoking altogether. Any smoker knows how addictive smoking is, and trying to quit cold turkey is tough. If there’s an option to help smokers move to a safer alternative, shouldn’t we be encouraging that instead of trying to handicap them from the outset?

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