Cities and towns a patchwork of e-cigarette restrictions

Published 4:45 pm Thursday, April 2, 2015

BOSTON Public health officials in cities and towns on the North Shore and Merrimack Valley are adopting tough rules on the sale and use of electronic cigarettes, even as the state considers banning their sale to minors.

In Danvers, the town’s Board of Health has proposed a litany of new regulations that would outlaw the sale of e-cigarettes to children under 18 while prohibiting their use in bars, restaurants, and public buildings.

If approved by the board later this month, Danvers would join dozens of other communities — including Salem, Marblehead, Andover, Haverhill, Gloucester and Newburyport — that in recent years have passed regulations on e-cigarettes and other so-called nicotine delivery products, such as wafers, candy, and vapor inhalers.

To date, 150 Massachusetts communities have approved regulations on e-cigarettes, according to the state Department of Public Health’s tobacco control program. Many communities voted to extend the state’s smoke-free workplace law, which outlaws smoking in enclosed workplaces as well as restaurants, bars and nightclubs.

The efforts come in response to inaction on a federal and state level as e-cigarettes have proliferated.

The Federal Drug Administration is expected to release guidelines for the sale and distribution of e-cigarettes and is also considering whether to ban online sales of e-cigarettes due to potential health risks. But that effort was thrown into question this week with the abrupt resignation of FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg.

The FDA started work on the regulations four years ago, but public health advocates say they’re still waiting.

Massachusetts is one of the few states that hasn’t taken steps to regulate e-cigarettes. Attorney General Maura Healey is working on statewide rules that would ban the sale of electronic cigarettes to minors under 18 and require the devices be kept out of the reach of customers at convenience stores, among other restrictions.

“The regulations make it clear that in Massachusetts an e-cigarette is a cigarette when it comes to protecting our kids,” Healey said at a press conference two weeks ago, flanked by lawmakers and anti-smoking advocates.

Healey’s regulations won’t require the approval of state lawmakers or the governor.

A bill backed by dozens of lawmakers — including Sen. Barbara L’Italien, D-Andover and Reps. Ann-Margaret Ferrante, D-Gloucester and Marcos Devers, D-Lawrence — would ban merchants selling nicotine “vaping” products from giving out free samples, a marketing tactic that some say targets younger users.

Other proposed legislation would add to the regulatory framework by imposing a 45 percent state tax on the sale of e-cigarettes and require manufacturers to use child-proof packaging for nicotine delivery products.

“They’re flooding the market,” said Joyce Redford, executive director of the North Shore and Cape Ann Tobacco and Alcohol Policy Program, a state-funded group that advises towns and cities on regulations. “We have seen a huge proliferation of nicotine products, marketing and advertising that is clearly targeting young people.”

Redford said the industry has been spending heavily on advertising to glamorize e-cigarettes, using Hollywood celebrities like Steven Dorff to market them as healthy alternatives to tobacco smoke in TV advertisements.

Industry representatives say they are being unfairly labeled as a front for the tobacco companies.

“We’re not big tobacco,” said Cynthia Cabrera, executive director of the Smoke-Free Alternatives Trade Association, which represents the industry. “All they’re doing with there regulations is punishing small business owners who are creating jobs in their state.”

Cabrera said the industry supports age restrictions, but has concerns about over-regulation of an burgeoning market that reported nearly $2 billion in sales last year, with hundreds of companies getting into the act.

“They’re intended for adult smokers, and we’ve been clear about that,” she said. “We just wish the restrictions would come out on a federal level, so we don’t have this confusing patchwork of state and local regulations.”

Public health advocates contend that the real health consequences of e-cigarettes are yet unknown. The three main ingredients of most of the e-cigarettes on the market are nicotine, flavoring and propylene glycol.

On its website, the FDA points out that the public health effects of e-cigarettes have not been studied enough for regulators to determine if they are safe. About 250 brands are on the market with no federal restrictions.

While supporters say e-cigarettes are a less dangerous alternative to cigarettes, health officials said they worry the devices could spur teen cigarette use, possibly undermining decades of work to reduce smoking rates.

At least 10 percent of high school students say they tried e-cigarettes in 2012, up from 4.7 percent in 2011, according to a National Youth Tobacco Survey by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The increased use of e-cigarettes by teens is deeply troubling,” CDC director Thomas Frieden said in a recent statement. “Many teens who start with e-cigarettes may be condemned to struggling with a lifelong addiction to nicotine and conventional cigarettes.”