Today, my elected representatives received this letter from me. Feel free to copy/edit/paste for your own benefit, and use as you see fit.
Cheers
Good afternoon, Honorable Representative Graham and Staff:
I write today to ask for your support of HR-2058, The Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Deeming Authority Clarification Act of 2015, sponsored by your colleague Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), and/or any other similar legislation which may come before the House.
Please indulge a few minutes of your precious time while I explain why I ask for your support of this important legislation.
The FDA, as you likely know, on May 5th, 2016, released their Final Rule regarding the Deeming of certain products in the marketplace as “Tobacco Products.” The 499 pages of this regulatory document includes items such as batteries, wires, electronic circuits, software, and even cotton and similar textiles, and surreptitiously classifies them as a “tobacco product.” These items, which are clearly not tobacco products, are classified as such by the FDA, because they are components of Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS), as the FDA would call them.
Myself, along with millions of other Americans who are now, or becoming ex-smokers, have taken up “vaping;” the use of ENDS, or Advanced Personal Vaporizers (APVs) as we “vapers” would call them, as a safer alternative to smoking conventional, analog tobacco cigarettes. These devices provide users an OPTIONAL dose of nicotine by heating a solution to an aerosol which is then inhaled. It does not burn or combust whatsoever, and produces no smoke. The exhaled emission is basically a water vapor, not much different in composition than the “fog” produced by “fog” machines used for decades in movies, theater productions, and other similar events.
The ingredients in the solution (e-liquid) include the following; 1) propylene glycol (PG), which is a substance that is Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) for human consumption by the FDA, 2) vegetable glycerine (VG), which is also a substance that is
GRAS by the FDA, 3) food-grade flavoring compounds, usually in a PG solution, or a PG and ethyl alcohol solution and 4) an OPTIONAL nicotine extract additive. The ingredients of cigarette smoke however, are well known to be harmful to public health and contain hundreds if not thousands of harmful substances. In fact, PG is commonly used as a vehicle for delivering other substances via inhalation, such as bronchodilators in asthma inhalers; while VG is a common, non-toxic component of soaps, cosmetics, suppositories, and other items.
While the vaping community is not opposed to SENSIBLE regulation, such as codifying age restrictions for the purchase of these products, the sweeping regulations and onerous as well as prohibitively expensive Pre-Market Tobacco Application (PMTA) process as outlined in these regulations, will ostensibly create a de-facto ban on all such products currently in the marketplace, stifle innovation in the creation of new and improved products, and kill a burgeoning $3.4B+/year industry which has created tens of thousands of jobs over the past several years.
While the economic impact due to the loss of jobs will be significant, the more important issue is that public health will be greatly harmed by the inability of the vaping community to obtain goods and services to assist them with their continued journey of staying quit from tobacco cigarettes; not to mention those smokers who have not yet discovered vaping as a safer alternative to smoking who will be deprived of the latest generation of devices which have already helped millions of people world-wide.
I invite you to review research on vaping presented by Dr. Konstantinos Farsalinos, a cardiac surgeon in Greece (http://www.ecigarette-research.org/research/), as well as the recent report from Public Health England (https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/457102/Ecigarettes_an_evidence_update_A_report_commissioned_by_Public_Health_England_FINAL.pdf).
After reviewing the material above from the medical community, I also invite you to visit the testimonials page at CASAA.org (http://testimonials.casaa.org/testimonials/), where you can view thousands of stories from real people, like myself, speaking about how the use of Advanced Personal Vaporizers (APVs) has helped or is helping them “kick the habit,” and its overall positive
impact on their health and well-being.
I also request that Congress undertake a Congressional Review of these new regulations, due to the economic impact of so many lost jobs and the thousands of small businesses that will surely have to close their doors due to the excessive financial burdens of filing PMTAs to keep their product(s) on the market.
Thank you for taking the time to read this letter, and I pray that you will make the correct and honorable decision regarding this important issue.
Sincerely,
Your constituent
