San Francisco is set to restrict e-cigarette sales in 2020, devices will require FDA approval

[Polycount]

San Francisco-based e-cigarette users will likely be disappointed to hear that the city's residents have voted to place heavier restrictions on the devices beginning next year. E-cigarette makers will be required to receive FDA approval before they can sell their products in the city, which could effectively ban the sale of many such devices -- no e-cigarette products sold in San Francisco have received that approval yet.

These sales restrictions will come amidst increased pressure from regulators against e-cig and vape makers like Juul. These companies have been accused of introducing more minors to the world of tobacco addiction, and states like San Francisco have taken it upon themselves to address the problem.

San Francisco's new rules have been a long time coming. The regulations came about back in June (when they were first approved by the city's mayor) but they'd been in the works for months prior.

Shortly after the mayor's approval, Proposition C was introduced; a ballot measure (once heavily supported by Juul) that could have overturned the sale and distribution restrictions (while bringing some alternate rules in their place).

However, San Franciscan voters have largely voted against Proposition C, which means the original rules will take effect as planned. The specific enforcement date for the rules is January 1, 2020, so if you're a San Francisco resident who buys e-cigarettes regularly, it might be in your best interest to stock up now.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/82665-san-francisco-set-restrict-e-cigarette-sales-2020.html

 

[Hexic]

SF keeping up the entertainment as usual, well played you delusional basket cases.

 

[cliffordcooley]

SF keeping up the entertainment as usual, well played you delusional basket cases.

I'm not suggesting San Francisco are not all basket cases. I just don't see any evidence supporting your claim within this article. All other food and drugs have to pass FDA approval before being sold. I see absolutely no reason vaping should not be held to some kind of standard.

 

[Hexic]

I'm not suggesting San Francisco are not all basket cases. I just don't see any evidence supporting your claim within this article. All other food and drugs have to pass FDA approval before being sold. I see absolutely no reason vaping should not be held to some kind of standard.

Eliquids do mandate FDA approval before being sold, just like tobacco. In fact, the same arm of the FDA that governs tobacco compliance governs Eliquids. I’d know this because I was a TRLM compliance officer that interfaces with the FDA on the daily.

All eliquids have been mandated to submit every variance of flavor, nic level, PG/VG content, bottle type/size/color, and packaging volume.

SF isn’t “legitimizing” anything with the FDA, those laws (and the Prop 65 label in CA, or to sell to CA residents) have been mandatory for years. SF is taking this to a ridiculous level and regulating for the sake of regulation, for the feel-good feeling of making the exact same products “safer” on paper. They want tax money, that’s all this is.

 

[cliffordcooley]

They want tax money, that’s all this is.

I will not argue on that point at all. I'll even lean toward agreeing with you.

 

[scavengerspc]

I think the ironic thing is we may soon be seeing people quit vaping in favor of tobacco for safety reasons.

 

[EClyde]

Freedom is just a word

 

[yRaz]

Wow, ~600,000 people die every year from smoking related diseases. But, you know what's the real killer? Vaping...

I don't care what you do to substatiate your nicotine habit, but vaping isn't as bad as smoking.

"OMG, vaping kills people. It's killed 37 people!!;"

Yet, we continue to let people smoke tabacco. Tabacco kills almost 600,000 people a year.

This is nothing more than a politized media sensation

 

[ZedRM]

SF keeping up the entertainment as usual, well played you delusional basket cases.

This is a legitimate public health problem. SanFran is not being nitwits here. In reality, the States, Feds and FDA also need to step up and enforce existing regulations to protect the public from harmful vaping devices and fluids.

I'm not suggesting San Francisco are not all basket cases. I just don't see any evidence supporting your claim within this article. All other food and drugs have to pass FDA approval before being sold. I see absolutely no reason vaping should not be held to some kind of standard.

Fully agree with you. Under the strict definition of the law, the FDA has jurisdiction over any manufactured product that is designed to enter the human body. They need to very carefully regulate vaping products..

 

[Uncle Al]

FDA Approval of such a device? Seems that would be contrary to FDA's mandate ... or maybe that's exactly the point.

 

[Hexic]

This is a legitimate public health problem. SanFran is not being nitwits here. In reality, the States, Feds and FDA also need to step up and enforce existing regulations to protect the public from harmful vaping devices and fluids.


Fully agree with you. Under the strict definition of the law, the FDA has jurisdiction over any manufactured product that is designed to enter the human body. They need to very carefully regulate vaping products..

I’m unsure if the root problem is understood by the general public. The root problem isn’t that eliquids and their respective vaping products aren't regulated, because they are - which is a surprise to many, apparently. The problem is that a small amount of vape pods (who were illegally manufactured, distributed, and inhaled), THC pods that were home made, ended up harming people.

Is the natural reaction in these circumstances to blame the vaping companies that are regulated, tested, and legally sold? Yes, yes it is. Because some children who shouldn’t have had these to begin with (enter parenting) got sick off of these, now the entire [legal] industry is being demonized.

I suppose every time home made alcohol has been produced, distributed to friends, and then kills someone its time to go after anheuser-Busch. That’s the exact same logic being legislated here.

You must understand the problem in order to offer up efficient solutions. And SF (along with most of the media) doesn’t understand the problem. They are knee-jerk reacting to this vaping craze to make it look like they’re doing something, anything to protect the kids.

I don’t smoke, I don’t vape - but what does concern me is when misinformation has led the general public to attack the wrong concept. It boils down to common sense.

 

[wiyosaya]

The problem is that a small amount of vape pods (who were illegally manufactured, distributed, and inhaled), THC pods that were home made, ended up harming people.

The cause has still not been determined.

Find a statement from the CDC that definitively states that THC pods are causing the deaths if my statement is incorrect.

Never mind, I'll do it for you - https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/basic_information/e-cigarettes/severe-lung-disease.html

What We Know

About the Outbreak:

As of October 29, 2019, 1,888* cases of e-cigarette, or vaping, product use associated lung injury (EVALI) have been reported to CDC from 49 states (all except Alaska), the District of Columbia, and 1 U.S. territory.
Thirty-seven deaths have been confirmed in 24 states (as of October 29, 2019).
Latest outbreak information is updated every Thursday.

About Patient Exposure:

All EVALI patients have reported a history of using e-cigarette, or vaping, products.
THC is present in most of the samples tested by FDA to date, and most patients report a history of using THC-containing products.
The latest national and state findings suggest products containing THC, particularly those obtained off the street or from other informal sources (e.g. friends, family members, illicit dealers), are linked to most of the cases and play a major role in the outbreak.

More importantly:

What We Don't Know

At this time, FDA and CDC have not identified the cause or causes of the lung injuries in these cases, and the only commonality among all cases is that patients report the use of e-cigarette, or vaping, products.
No one compound or ingredient has emerged as the cause of these illnesses to date; and it may be that there is more than one cause of this outbreak. Many different substances and product sources are still under investigation.

Until there is a definitive answer on the cause or causes from the FDA and/or CDC, posts like yours are misleading.

Note I said, "cause or causes" because that is the exact wording from the page I quoted. There may be more than one cause.

Whether or not it is one of the causes, this THC pods thing is being beaten to death and I imagine that it is partly because people fail to investigate what they are posting and instead follow the crowd that has latched onto THC pods definitively being being the cause.

Though THC pods have been linked to several cases, it has not been linked to them all. Therefore, even if it is one of the causes, there is no definitive link yet.

 

[yRaz]

I’m unsure if the root problem is understood by the general public. The root problem isn’t that eliquids and their respective vaping products aren't regulated, because they are - which is a surprise to many, apparently. The problem is that a small amount of vape pods (who were illegally manufactured, distributed, and inhaled), THC pods that were home made, ended up harming people.

Is the natural reaction in these circumstances to blame the vaping companies that are regulated, tested, and legally sold? Yes, yes it is. Because some children who shouldn’t have had these to begin with (enter parenting) got sick off of these, now the entire [legal] industry is being demonized.

I suppose every time home made alcohol has been produced, distributed to friends, and then kills someone its time to go after anheuser-Busch. That’s the exact same logic being legislated here.

You must understand the problem in order to offer up efficient solutions. And SF (along with most of the media) doesn’t understand the problem. They are knee-jerk reacting to this vaping craze to make it look like they’re doing something, anything to protect the kids.

I don’t smoke, I don’t vape - but what does concern me is when misinformation has led the general public to attack the wrong concept. It boils down to common sense.

I wish I could give this post more than one like

 

[Sir Sparkles]

Though THC pods have been linked to several cases, it has not been linked to them all. Therefore, even if it is one of the causes, there is no definitive link yet.

In 89% of current cases the victims admit to vaping black market cannabis products. Do you think there's a good chance that the other 11% don't want to admit that? I do. That's pretty obvious when you think about it.

Considering that tens of millions of people all over the world are vaping and the only lung injuries reported are this year and only in the US, the cause is obviously something that American people have done to their peers. Probably through adding oil to cartridges. The same nicotine vaping gear and liquid is everywhere else in the world and this isn't happening there. Vaping has been around for more than a decade and this hasn't happened before.

All this SF regulation does is hand a market monopoly to wealthy companies (think big tobacco) who can afford the rigorous FDA approval process. It wouldn't surprise me if these companies deliberately distributed harmful cartridges in a medical false flag operation.

 

[Hexic]

The cause has still not been determined.

Find a statement from the CDC that definitively states that THC pods are causing the deaths if my statement is incorrect.

Never mind, I'll do it for you - https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/basic_information/e-cigarettes/severe-lung-disease.html



More importantly:

Until there is a definitive answer on the cause or causes from the FDA and/or CDC, posts like yours are misleading.

Note I said, "cause or causes" because that is the exact wording from the page I quoted. There may be more than one cause.

Whether or not it is one of the causes, this THC pods thing is being beaten to death and I imagine that it is partly because people fail to investigate what they are posting and instead follow the crowd that has latched onto THC pods definitively being being the cause.

Though THC pods have been linked to several cases, it has not been linked to them all. Therefore, even if it is one of the causes, there is no definitive link yet.

You are correct, there is no definitive link to vaping currently, because it hasn’t been around as long and as mainstream as big tobacco.

Quoting your... quote?:
“The latest national and state findings suggest products containing THC, particularly those obtained off the street or from other informal sources (e.g. friends, family members, illicit dealers), are linked to most of the cases and play a major role in the outbreak.“

This confirms my post, isn’t misleading, and lends exactly to what I stated. We don’t know everything for vaping like we know tobacco, correct. But we know tobacco and it’s effects very well, and vaping is being absolutely demonized compared to tobacco’s *confirmed* causes of death. If the government is going to regulate one industry from literally the same department within the FDA, they need to regulate it equally. This is not happening.

THC pods have been confirmed to be a major role in the outbreak that just recently broke out, and got everyone’s misinformed selves on the anti-vaping bandwagon. Your quote above states that.

Doesn’t it sound natural that any foreign substance into your body can cause harm? If that’s the case with vaping it should be expected. The general consensus currently is that vaping can “cause no harm” and this is where statistics such as your first quote above play in quite nicely, and they themselves are misleading.

Recently, the very fast deaths have been attributed to illegal pods and home-made items. These issues have been inappropriately rolled into general vaping consequences because that’s what our media does, blowing things out of proportion.

I loop back to my original statement of understanding the root problem is key to solving it.

 

[cliffordcooley]

I suppose every time home made alcohol has been produced, distributed to friends, and then kills someone its time to go after anheuser-Busch. That’s the exact same logic being legislated here.

E-cigarette makers will be required to receive FDA approval before they can sell their products in the city, which could effectively ban the sale of many such devices -- no e-cigarette products sold in San Francisco have received that approval yet.

Until a product passes FDA approval, it might as well be considered "home made". Until there is a legality line drawn in the sand, all vaping has to be seen as the same. Lawyers need to know which products they can defend and prosecute.

Seriously what the hell are you complaining about? If you want your vaping then partition to have it approved.

 

[Sir Sparkles]

Until a product passes FDA approval, it might as well be considered "home made". Until there is a legality line drawn in the sand, all vaping has to be seen as the same. Lawyers need to know which products they can defend and prosecute.

Seriously what the hell are you complaining about? If you want your vaping then partition to have it approved.

One does not just petition to have something FDA approved. You need a LOT of money.

Big Vape (think big tobacco) is rubbing their hands at this wonderful outcome for them and hoping it will go nation wide. They have been trying to get this legislation passed for years.

 

[amghwk]

OTOH, how FDA not banning tobacco smoking is beyond me. The excise duty from cigarette sales enter FDA's pockets too?

 

[amghwk]

Vaping is another sorry excuse to smoke. Both are bad. No matter the contents or how far one wants to go to ameliorate the harm containing in vaping liquids.

Other than fresh clean air (which unfortunately, nowadays can only be experienced outside large cities - villages/national parks/forests,etc )

As it is, we're already exposed to vehicle exhaust gases everyday. There's no need to add another vaping liquid into that cocktail.

 

[Hexic]

Until a product passes FDA approval, it might as well be considered "home made". Until there is a legality line drawn in the sand, all vaping has to be seen as the same. Lawyers need to know which products they can defend and prosecute.

Seriously what the hell are you complaining about? If you want your vaping then partition to have it approved.

I’m not sure you’ve been following the thread - as I’ve stated prior, the vaping products here ARE approved by the FDA, or they can’t be sold in ANY location anywhere if their products (eliquids for example) aren’t registered with the FDA. I literally oversaw this myself.

What you fail to understand is that there is current legislation in place, and SF is trying to add another verification later to get more tax money.

Please, feel free to google Eliquid TRLM registration and you‘ll begin to understand.

 

[cliffordcooley]

I’m not sure you’ve been following the thread - as I’ve stated prior, the vaping products here ARE approved by the FDA

I only quoted the article which states they are not.

 

[MaXtor]

“Vaping is less harmful than smoking.” – Health Canada

“There is scientific consensus that vaping is significantly less harmful than smoking.” – Ministry of Health, New Zealand

“E-cigarettes are much less harmful than smoking – at least 95%, with the risk of cancer calculated to be less than 1%.” – Public Health England

“Is vaping better than smoking? Technically yes, but so what?” – Andrew Cuomo, New York State Governor

I'll just leave this here:

 

[ZedRM]

I only quoted the article which states they are not.

And when the government itself states they are not, they are not.

“Vaping is less harmful than smoking.” – Health Canada

“There is scientific consensus that vaping is significantly less harmful than smoking.” – Ministry of Health, New Zealand

“E-cigarettes are much less harmful than smoking – at least 95%, with the risk of cancer calculated to be less than 1%.” – Public Health England

“Is vaping better than smoking? Technically yes, but so what?” – Andrew Cuomo, New York State Governor

I'll just leave this here:

Those quotes mean nothing without their citations.

 

[MaXtor]

Those quotes mean nothing without their citations.

I try to keep my posts simple so less people TLDR. But I know searching an exact phase in Google is difficult, I'll help you out.


“Vaping is less harmful than smoking.” – Health Canada

Statement made in educational vaping video by Health Canada:

“There is scientific consensus that vaping is significantly less harmful than smoking.” – Ministry of Health, New Zealand

First page, under "Executive Summary" number 5:
https://www.health.govt.nz/system/f...s-harmful-alternatives-21nov2018-redacted.pdf


“E-cigarettes are much less harmful than smoking – at least 95%, with the risk of cancer calculated to be less than 1%.” – Public Health England

Third paragraph under "How safe are ECs?"
https://publichealthmatters.blog.go...indings-from-our-e-cigarette-evidence-update/


While I'm at it, lets add a new quote.

“...our advice on e-cigarettes remains the same despite headlines in the US.” – Public Health England

Tweeted November 5th 2019:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1191663701868400640

 

[ZedRM]

To be fair, you didn't quote common knowledge info such as "Pentium 4 Northwood core platform" where socket 478 is common knowledge but easily researched for the uninitiated. You vaguely quoted multiple government agencies. Not really the same, so it is on you to provide citation when challenged. To be fair you are quoting information that is more than 18 months old and is itself based on research that is more than 5 years old. New information has come to light and has been presented to challenge those conclusions. I suspected this was the case which is why I asked for citations. Thank You for providing them.