WASHINGTON – Last week the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation held a hearing to review the advertising and promotional practices of electronic cigarettes, titled, “Aggressive E-Cigarette Marketing and Potential Consequences for Youth.”
Along with concerns about potential health impacts of youth exposure to e-cigarettes, some Senate members believe that the e-cigarette industry’s marketing is reaching a youth audience.
In April the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced proposed regulations concerning e-cigarettes. In response, Senate members who are supporting legislation that seeks to ban e-cigarette marketing to kids and teens were outspoken that the FDA’s proposal doesn’t go far enough to reduce e-cigarette marketing to youth.
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV) said in his opening statement that as the e-cigarette industry continues to rapidly evolve, “we need to hold companies accountable for promotional activities that encourage kids to start using e-cigarettes.”
Ranking member John Thune (R-SD) commented that while he is opposed to smoking in general, he was looking forward to learning more about the apparent potential of e-cigarettes to reduce harm to current smokers. “As with most issues that we face in Congress, I believe that more scientific investigation and thoughtful discussion is needed,” he said.
Jason Healy, president of blu eCigs , a subsidiary of Lorillard, commented in his prepared testimony that blu has not waited for FDA action to address youth access to electronic cigarettes.
“We have actively advocated for and supported state legislation to prevent minors from purchasing electronic cigarettes and we require third-party age verification for online sales,” he said, adding that with the help of Lorillard, blu has adopted strict and responsible marketing restrictions that reflect “a clear focus on adult smokers while also substantially reducing youth exposure to blu ads and promotions. Our voluntary restrictions, such as limiting ad placement to media and events where the target audience is at least 85% adult, match or exceed restrictions adopted by comparable adult consumer product companies.”
Craig Weiss, president and CEO of NJoy, discussed how electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) give smokers who either cannot or will not quit a positive alternative to smoking. “We understand the grave suspicion caused by the 2012 entry to the marketplace of the first of the three major American cigarette companies. However, it is wrong to believe that ENDS are part of a grand plan by Big Tobacco to lure new smokers,” he said.
Weiss also noted that children could end up being the biggest losers of efforts to restrict marketing and adverting of electronic cigarette products.
“According to the Surgeon General, nearly six million of today’s children will adopt smoking, grow up and die prematurely from cigarette-caused disease if present trends continue. The best thing we can do for the health of all of our children … is to ensure that they grow up in a world in which neither their parents nor any of their other adult role models are smoking combustion cigarettes. … Providing smokers who cannot or will not quit with a positive alternative may be the long-sought solution to an intractable public health problem that has cost millions of lives.”
Earlier this year, NACS issued a statement of position that encourages stores selling e-cigarettes to adopt, as a best practice, a policy of treating these products as age restricted and subjecting them to the same age-verification procedures as those applicable to tobacco products.