July 3rd, 2014
From: Convenience Store Decisions
Electronic cigarette sales are surging. CSD partnered with Study Hall Research to go inside the minds of e-cigarette consumers to learn
what motivates their tobacco purchases.
By John Lofstock, Editor and Josh Tahan, Study Hall Research
The prevalence of electronic cigarette usage amongst the general population is growing and analysts are predicting the category now accounts for more than $500 in retail sales in the U.S.
The category’s popularity has grown at a record pace. “E-cigarette sales have been growing at over 30% annually,” Bonnie Herzog, managing director of beverage, tobacco and convenience store research at Wells Fargo Securities LLC,” told Convenience Store Decisions. “E-cigarette sales could surpass the sales of traditional cigarettes in the next decade.”
June 26th, 2014
From: OIRA Watch
Publisher’s Note: The publisher of this website was instrumental in the initiation of centralized regulatory review in the White Office of Management and Budget– its origins having begun in the Johnson Administration and utilized by eight subsequent Presidential Administrations.
A plethora of press articles are coming on line in the last eight hours which cast the OMB review in a non-favorable light. I remind all our readers that the office in OMB, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, consisting of less than four dozen employees out of a million plus federal employees is the only group between an unchecked regulatory bureaucracy and the taxpayers check book.
June 19th, 2014
From: TobaccoToday
I have long argued that tobacco control advocates who have financial ties to Big Pharma must disclose these ties if they opine about national strategies for electronic cigarette regulation because these ties represent a conflict of interest. My argument was based on the premise that electronic cigarettes represent a major form of market competition with pharmaceutical cessation aids and that drug companies therefore have a financial interest in seeing electronic cigarettes squashed.
Today, I reveal that this speculation about pharmaceutical financial interests in the demise of e-cigarettes was not just speculation, but it has now been confirmed.
June 12th, 2014
From: Reuters
By Toni Clarke
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is working to develop strong product standards for electronic cigarettes and other nicotine delivery devices that will protect public health and enable the agency to withstand legal challenges, its tobacco chief said on Wednesday.
Mitchell Zeller, director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, said the agency is exploring potential product standards in the areas of addiction, toxicity and product appeal as it prepares to gain regulatory authority over electronic cigarettes and other nicotine-delivery devices.
June 5th, 2014
From: The Verge
By Jacob Kastrenakes
The World Health Organization is interested in regulating e-cigarettes like all other tobacco products, but an international group of over 50 researchers is hoping to change its mind. The group has sent it a letter arguing that placing strong regulations on e-cigarettes would harm the opportunity for them to save millions of smokers’ lives by removing the ill effects of traditional cigarettes.