A reply to Ash.org from E cigarette direct

2nd June 2009

Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
2013 H St., NW
Washington, D.C. 20006, USA

To Whom It May Concern

Links

You recently linked to our website, www.ECigaretteDirect.com, from a page on your website calling for an anti-electronic cigarette petition. Strangely enough, given your position, you linked to a page where a doctor, Joel Nitzkin, Chair of the Tobacco Control Task Force for the American Association of Public Health Physicians, called for an end to opposition to the electronic cigarette.

Let me quote the doctor again:

"As best we can tell, on the basis of currently available research data, these products promise a risk of illness and death well under 1% of the risk posed by cigarettes."

Please note that this is not E Cigarette Direct's claim, but that of a highly respected doctor, and one who is joined by many other distinguished academics and researchers such as Professor Brad Radu and Professor Michael Siegel. Many of these experts believe that electronic cigarettes are 2-3 magnitudes safer than ordinary cigarettes. Dr Joel Nitzkin states that if every smoker switched to cigarettes, the annual smoking toll would eventually fall from 400,000 a year to between 4,000 and 400 deaths a year.

Electronic cigarettes do not contain tar, arsenic, formaldehyde, ammonia, acetone, hydrogen cyanide, carbon monoxide, methanol, acetylene, benzine and other carcinogens and chemicals contained in cigarettes.

I must also defend E Cigarette Direct's "claim" which you point out on our website - that many of the more harmful substances have been removed from the electronic cigarette. Electronic cigarettes do not contain tar, arsenic, formaldehyde, ammonia, acetone, hydrogen cyanide, carbon monoxide, methanol, acetylene, benzine and other carcinogens and chemicals contained in cigarettes. The main ingredient is Propylene Glycol, an compound which Dr Murray Laugesen, who has carried out an analysis of the Ruyan electronic cigarette, calls perfectly safe.

You are right to point out that some of the claims made by other electronic cigarette websites have not been proven. As the World Health Organisation points out, the electronic cigarette has not been proven to aid smoking cessation. (Note that they do not discount the possibility that it could aid cessation.)

Future studies will be needed to see if electronic cigarettes can beat the apalling success rates of approved nicotine cessation aids - success rates recent studies suggest may be no more than 1.6% when measured at 12 months cessation. Studies in New Zealand have already proven that electronic cigarettes can satisfy smoker's cravings and increase the level of nicotine in the blood stream, and Dr Murray Laugesen believes that electronic cigarettes are less addictive than cigarettes, so we believe it would be foolish to rule out the possibility.

Some of the websites you mentioned use unethical selling tactics. Promising customers' money to testify that electronic cigarettes can help smokers quit is morally wrong in the extreme - it would certainly be illegal here in the UK. E Cigarette Direct would support regulation that would stop these claims, claims which bring the whole industry into disrepute. However, the website in question does not belong to the very new American Electronic Cigarette Assocation, which has a strict criteria of membership and does not allow claims regarding nicotine cessation.

The anti-smoking lobby has also used unproved claims (and in some cases outright lies) to promote their cause.

As Professor Michael Siegel points out, the anti-smoking lobby has also used unproved claims (and in some cases outright lies) to promote their cause, including one claim that a mere 30-minute exposure to secondhand smoke may cause atherosclerosis.

It is E Cigarette Direct's intention to market the electronic cigarette in a responsible and ethical manner. We would like to invite you to visit this page on E Cigarette Direct: Is the electronic cigarette right for you? You will notice that we say the electronic cigarette is for smokers who can't quit or who don't want to quit. We give strong advice to non-smokers not to use the electronic cigarette. We point out that nicotine can be a lifelong addiction, and that somone taking up smoking as a result could end up dying because of it.

I note you call for further regulation by the FDA. Current plans for regulation and testing evisaged under the Philip Morris sponsored tobacco bill will lead to a effective ban on electronic cigarettes as well as many other smoking alternatives. Many of these smoking alternatives have been disdainfully labelled 'tobacco candy' by senators who support legislation which Bill Godsall of Smokefree Pensylvania calls the "Philip Morris protection bill".

The FDA is in fact already engaging in heavy handed regulation by seizing shipments of electronic cigarettes. Indeed, MarianYoung, an ex-smoker who owns True Vapour and who has sunk her life savings into a venture she believes can help other smokers, tells us that the FDA is currently holding fifteen thousand dollars worth of her stock - despite the fact that there is no nicotine contained in the stock in question!

I'm not quite sure how you wish the FDA to step up their current regulation. Indeed, E Cigarette Direct does not believe that even more positive FDA regulation would help build confidence in electronic cigarettes. A body which, if the current tobacco bill goes ahead, will approve the cigarettes that kill 400,000 Americans a year while seeking to ban Cheerios will not command the credibility necesssary to convince anybody of any product's safety.

Finally, please note that E Cigarette Direct does strongly support further research into the safety of electronic cigarettes. We support research into whether the electronic cigarette can help smokers quit. And we support regulations that will enable a healthier and better electronic cigarette to reach customers who can't or don't want to quit.

We call on you to not to urge a ban on electronic cigarettes, or to support regulations so restrictive that they will result in an effective ban on e-cigarettes.

We suggest instead that you talk to us and work with us to both ensure the safety of the electronic cigarette and to research the possibility of its use as a smoking cessation aid.

We believe that publishing pages attacking electronic cigarette companies without consulting or talking to either those companies or to the tobacco harm reduction experts who have spoken out in support of the electronic cigarette is not productive. We suggest instead that you talk to us and work with us to both ensure the safety of the electronic cigarette and to research the possibility of its use as a smoking cessation aid. E Cigarette Direct will be more than happy to discuss any issues of concern you may have.

I do hope you will take these suggestions into consideration, and work with us for a safer, better electronic cigarette.

Yours sincerely

James Dunworth

james.dunworth@ecigarettedirect.co.uk
Tel: +44 1792 391384