E-cigs and Minors

I have been gone over the weekend at a conference.  During the weekend there came out a report e-cigarettes have grown in popularity with those under the age of 18.  The USA Today released a report on teen use:

Last year, 10% of high school students say they tried e-cigarettes, up from 4.7% in 2011, according to the National Youth Tobacco Survey released Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A doubling also occurred among U.S. middle school students saying they've experimented with e-cigarettes — from 1.4% to 2.7% — and similar spikes in teen usage were found in the 2013 Florida Youth Tobacco Survey.

Many may think that because e-cigarettes are smokeless they are safer.  The other problem is that these e-cigarettes are legal to sell to minors in South Dakota and many other states because of a lack of regulations.

South Dakota: NoDeputy state’s attorney Roetzel said e-cigarettes do not fall under the smoking banpassed in South Dakota last year because they do not contain tobacco products. E-cigscan be used in areas where smoking is not allowed.

The industry claims that they are not trying to sell to minors (we may have heard that before from nicotine providers) and that they support laws that do not allow the sell to minors.

Managing member of V2 Cigs, Jay Meistrell, stands behind the bans to those under legal age. “Our products have always been intended for current smokers of legal smoking age. It’s on our website. It’s on our packaging, “says Meistrell. 

Pat Powers MC at the South Dakota War College provides a warning to his readers about the use of e-cigarettes:

I will not suggest a non-smoker, of any age, try the e-cigarette. It is just as addicting as the analog cigarette. Unchecked, the e-cigarette can be just as, or more, dangerous as it analog counterpart, not so much from cancer, but more immediate issues like nicotine poisoning. The industry needs guidelines, rules to stay on the straight and narrow. I hope that is what the FDA is going to propose next month. I fear they will go overboard, again.  

I think based on Pat's MC's warning and the disturbing new evidence of the growing popularity of the products, there is one simple thing South Dakota legislatures can do when they meet this winter: pass a law that bans the sale of the products to those under the age of 18.  The product is dangerous, the industry claims that it is not trying to sell to minors, and it would align it with the current practice of cigarettes.  

Update:  I did it again.  MC was the writer on the entry at Dakota War College.  My apologies.