LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. -
Aug. 7, 2013 -
PRLog -- The California City of Laguna Beach voted last evening not to ban the use of electronic cigarettes. The city council took up the measure in its bi-monthly city council meeting by considering a city ordinance “to make clear that electronic cigarettes are subject to regulations and prohibitions”
. In its agenda bill the city council referenced its current Municipal Code recital Sections 7.40.010 and definitions 7.40.020 which can be interpreted to “apply only to the combustible use of tobacco and other weeds or plants for smoking purposes.” In its agenda bill the proposal stated “the City’s regulations and prohibitions are not limited to tobacco products and to make clear that electronic cigarettes are subject to those regulations and prohibitions”
. The councils amendment also stated that the “term smoke includes, but is not limited to, tobacco smoke and electronic cigarette vapors”. In its discussion of the amendment its city attorney stated that “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has conducted laboratory analysis of electronic cigarette samples and found that they contained carcinogens and toxic chemicals to which users and bystanders could be exposed”. The city attorney also stated the city’s “longstanding desire to protect the public from exposure to secondhand emissions and to discourage the inherently dangerous behavior of smoking”. In the meetings attendance were long time Laguna Beach resident and electronic cigarette user Peter French and Co-Founder of the Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association (TVECA) Thomas Kiklas. Both spoke to the city council and made references to personal experiences with the electronic cigarette and long standing flaws with referenced statements made by the FDA that were the basis of the councils concerns. Stated Kiklas on the FDA’s release that electronic cigarettes they tested found that they contained carcinogens and toxic chemicals to which users and bystanders could be exposed, “Dr. Brad Rodu, of the University of Louisiana and Endowed Chair of Tobacco Harm Reduction Research said of the FDA’s study “Unfortunately, the agency did not report TSNA levels. Instead, it reported that TSNAs were either “Detected”
or “Not Detected,” which is entirely inadequate. For hundreds of years, one of the basic tenets of medicine has been “the dose makes the poison.” Mere detection of a contaminant is meaningless;
the critical question is: At what concentration is it present?” Kiklas referenced that in the FDA’s study that total TSNA levels for a single Marlboro cigarette were 11,190 where in a single electronic cigarette there were only 9. French also made references that nicotine is indeed not a drug “as it is not therapeutic nor designed to restore, correct or modify physiological functions but rather a naturally occurring alkaloid similar to caffeine.” Kiklas said “that in the future we, the TVECA, hope that when any state, local or national legislative body considers regulations of the electronic cigarette, it does so by simply not relying on a single source but looks at the now complete body of scientific work available on this now seven year old technology. With 4 million Americans using the e-cig with billions and billions of uses, you have substantial data to make the conclusion that electronic cigarettes are indeed vastly less harmful than tobacco cigarettes and governmental agencies should now embrace the technology as the one option for smokers to transition to away from the one product, tobacco cigarettes, we know kills over 450,000 Americans annually”.
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