E-Cigarettes To be Regulated as Tobacco

April 28th, 2011

After two years of deliberation, the Federal Drug Administration has decided to regulate Electronic Cigarettes as a tobacco product.

The suit began in 2009, when Sottera, a manufacturer of e-cigarettes based in Arizona, sued the FDA after they determined that e-cigarettes were “unapproved drug/device combination products” as opposed to regular tobacco products and subsequently deemed it illegal for the company to market them in the U.S. The FDA has made the decision not to appeal the court’s decision that e-cigarettes can be regulated as “tobacco products” under federal law “and are not drugs or devices unless they are marketed for therapeutic purposes.”

These electronic cigarettes resemble regular cigarettes, but differentiate in the regard that they are battery-powered metallic tubes that consist of a liquid nicotine mixture derived from tobacco and other chemicals, with their own distinctive taste. The user then inhales the liquid when it is converted to vapor.

With the current federal Tobacco Control Act, restrictions exist for tobacco products are  even though they are not drugs/device products under their definition. The FDA will soon propose a extension of the law to include “other categories of tobacco products that meet the statutory definition of ‘tobacco product,” which would presumably include e-cigarettes.

To read more on E-Cigarettes, check out our interviews with Professor Brad Rodu and Dr. Mintz, which go into more detail about the effects.

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Brandon Yu, Senior Managing Editor