In the twenty-first century, remarkable technology innovations have improved nearly everyone’s lives. Smartphones are the obvious example. But life-changing innovations have popped up in all aspects of people’s lives—even smoking.
Americans are trading their old-fashioned cigarettes for e-cigarettes, but in this heavily regulated industry, policymakers aren’t keeping up.
E-cigarettes were invented in 2003 by a Chinese pharmacist, Hon Lik, whose father died as a result of smoking cigarettes. Lik believed that the technology of e-cigarettes could help reduce the harm of tobacco-related diseases. Michael Russell, a South African psychiatrist and research scientist, often considered to be the godfather of tobacco control, warned that “people smoke for nicotine but they die from tar.”
Nicotine, when removed from tobacco combustion, is relatively benign, though not completely risk-free. Products like e-cigarettes primarily rely on nicotine delivery through synthetic and non-toxic nicotine-laced “juice.” The nicotine juice is then heated by a battery (no lighter needed). No flames means no smoke, eliminating some of the harm of cigarettes.
Heat-not-burn tobacco products are similar: batteries heat the tobacco, but nothing actually burns. This reduces the release of the harmful aerosols associated with cigarette smoke.
As small manufacturers and large tobacco companies develop e-cigarettes and heat-not-burn products, federal regulators have clung to a regulatory regime that is suited to traditional cigarettes, rather than e-cigarettes.
The Food and Drug Administration already regulates e-cigarettes, and continues to try to impose all regulations on the new products as they do on traditional cigarettes. The folly: mountains of research conclude that e-cigarettes are healthier than smoking, and they often used instead of smoking. In other words, federal regulators are committed to maintaining the same restrictions on products that have the potential to save millions of lives and hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars in tobacco-related healthcare costs that they impose on traditional tobacco products.
The U.S. spends nearly $170 billion per year, or 8.7 percent of all healthcare costs, on tobacco-related illnesses and diseases. E-cigarettes and heat-not-burn products have the potential to reduce the financial stress that smoking cigarettes has put on the U.S. healthcare system and reduce the human toll that arises from traditional smoking.
Even if cigarette use decreased by a modest 5 to 10 percent, that would be a huge win, not only financially, but health-wise for the millions of American who now smoke traditional cigarettes.
The primary goal of government regulators should be to reduce both the adverse financial and health impacts of tobacco. E-cigarettes and heat-not-burn products are paving the way to this future. But an overzealous and stubborn government agencies operating under an archaic regulatory regime could get in the way of this life-changing innovation.
Andrew Nehring is state policy manager for Citizens Against Government Waste. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
