Oregon Attorney General John Kroger announced Tuesday that in order to “protect our teens from unsafe products,” Smoking Everywhere, Inc’s electronic cigarettes will be banned from the state. E-cigarettes are a recently developed alternative to cigarette smoking. These devices supply the addictive nicotine that smokers crave, while mimicking tobacco smoking, but without the inhalation or emission of the harmful tobacco combustion products that come from smoking cigarettes. As the first state to prohibit electronic cigarette distribution, Oregon is banning the smoking alternative based on a recent FDA analysis alleging that the devices contain “known carcinogens and toxic chemicals such as diethylene glycol, an ingredient used in anti-freeze.”
“This is one of the most absurd things I’ve heard recently. Teens are not going to be buying e-cigarettes — the starter kit alone costs over $100,” fumes ACSH’s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan.
ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross adds, “Subsequent analyses found that there is no diethylene glycol in any e-cigarettes, but that the vaporant is polyethylene glycol, which is as safe as rain water and is used in asthma inhalers. The ‘carcinogens’ they are referring to are present in such minute quantities that they can’t possibly harm a flea. Besides, the alternative to these so-called carcinogens in e-cigarettes are the known carcinogens found in traditional tobacco smoke. Thank you Attorney General Kroger, we give you a seat under the ACSH table for helping addicted Oregon smokers keep right on smoking.”
