E-Cigarettes consumption and popularity have overtly grown over the last few years. It is presumed that they are less hazardous to combustible cigarettes, hence touting their safety. However, due to insufficient research leaning towards the claims, most institutions and policymakers have raised insurmountable concerns on their safety and their impacts on users (Rahman, 2014). Therefore, it was a matter of necessity that laws are put in place to curb the possible unknown menace that would be instigated by their continuous usage. Laws regulating E-cigarettes usage vary across different states. These regulations range from an absolute ban of their usage or even no regulation at all.
In Japan, for instance, e-cigarettes were declared illegal where the State ordered the usage of heat-not-burn tobacco products for cigarette substitutes. The UK, on the other hand, licensed the devices as medicines. Conversely, several other nations introduced stricter restrictions. Despite the free pass by the UK government that legalized their usage, by 2018, there wasn't a single e-cigarette device that was medically licensed.
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As of the year 2015, it is estimated that around two-thirds of the major nations had in some way regulated e-cigarettes. This intervention was deemed necessary due to the potential linkages with policies on medical drugs and tobacco laws. In 2016, for example, the US Transportation Department banned e-cigarettes' usage in commercial flights. On the flip side, however, researchers such as the Royal College of Physicians intimated the necessity of a balanced e-cigarettes regulatory approach in 2018, which would ascertain product safety while advocating their tobacco usage. They also recommended an in-depth research centered approach towards e-cigarettes and their effects on human health other than tobacco control agencies.
States Regulation on THC Containing E-Cigarettes
E-cigarettes' legal status in a majority of the countries is unresolved. A majority of the nations such as Uruguay, Brazil, India, and Singapore have intermittently banned e-cigarettes. In Canada, for example, their sale was technically illegal, but due to insufficient regulation by Health Canada, the regulations were unenforced, and they became commonly available around the State. However, in 2016, Health Canada initiated plans that sought vaping products regulation.
E-cigarettes' sale and usage in the UK and US to adults is legal. In the pursuit to regulate E-cigarettes' market consumption, the revised EU Tobacco Products Directive was effected in 2016. It limited their advertisement in print, radios as well as televisions. In addition to these limitations, nicotine levels and flavors used were as well reduced. However, there were no banning enforcements on vaping at public arenas. The purchase is only limited to those over the age of eighteen years (Wang, 2017). These Tobacco Products Directives were deemed to be business insensitive by most tobacco lobbyists who forecasted adverse effects on businesses.
As of 2016, FDA's regulatory powers extended to include e-liquid and cigarettes and its allied products. FDA is mandated to evaluate ingredients, features of products, and associated health perils as well as minors and non-users' appeal. The FDA ruling also banned minors' access. A photo ID was necessitated in e-cigarettes purchases and a ban imposition on their sale in all-age vending machines.
As of 2017, regulatory adherence deadlines concerning premarket review necessities for most e-liquid and e-cigarettes products were extended to 2022. However, the move was opposed by the American Heart Association and other plaintiffs, attracting a lawsuit to oppose the ruling. The FDA ruling in 2016 deemed e-cigarettes and e-liquids to be tobacco products and were hence obliged to regulate the manufacture, marketing, and labeling of the liquids and devices (Kalininskiy, 2019). Vape shops that mixed e-liquids and modified devices were deemed manufacturing sites that necessitated registration with the FDA in compliance with reasonable manufacturing practices regulations.
E-cigarette Policy Implications
In some sort, the original aptitude behind e-cigarettes pushes for a more expansive cultural impulse amongst a majority of consumers striving to overcome pleasurable but unhealthy traits. Experts reveal that vaping has overtly been presumed a more sensational tool that avails a risk-free smoking alternative (Yang, 2014). Instigated by a pop-savvy business engulfed in sophisticated and complex market techniques, vaping has been purveyed as a cultural phenomenon that is deemed cooler amongst cigarette smokers. Teens have overtly perpetrated these falsified perceptions.
The downward spiral in smoking has profoundly resulted in an increased surge in vaping and e-cigarette usage. Tremendous research has been put in place by most nations, including the US, that tries to devise the fundamental cultural and fundamental economic reasons for perpetuating these substances' continuous usage.
Youth Smoking
Vaping and other addictive behaviors have resulted in a broader scope on youths' structural and social influences. Policies regulating these drugs' usage is a great incentive towards mitigation of adversities instigated by addict\ion and continued overuse (Yule, 2017). Regulations inhibiting the sale of e-cigarettes amongst kids below eighteen years is a huge milestone.
A research study conducted by the New England Journal of Medicine indicated that smokers who moved swapped to e-cigarettes had a higher quitting likelihood than their counterparts turning to nicotine patches. The biggest issue under contestation is the masking possibility of a potentially addictive product, "masked" as a healthy cessation tool. Vaping products in the US exploded profoundly in 2018, indicating that it had approximately eleven million users. Students comprised a majority of these numbers, approximated at three million, nearly twenty-one percent of the high school population. These figures depicted an eighty percent incline from 2017, according to the CDC.
Gender Disparities in E-cigarettes Usage and Expectancies
Numerous researches reveal that there are minimal effect sizes of gender variations. Conversely, the studies also revealed significant intermittent variations in usage patterns, reasons for use, and e-cigarette expectancies. To a greater extent, males' e-cigarettes usage has been deemed a leeway in quitting smoking tobacco cigarettes, which is associated with health hazards. They generally enjoy e-cigarettes tastes (Milicic, 2017). On the other hand, however, females reported e-cigarettes usage based on recommendations from friends, mood, or even stress controls.
Studies also reveal that females are more likely to use first-generation devices that closely resemble tobacco cigarettes. It is also evidenced that women's smoking behaviors might be more influenced by non-nicotine stimuli linked to smoking, including cigarettes' feel, touch, and look. The necessity of sensorimotor smoking aspects was also intimated. On the flip side, however, males reported second-generation device usage. This might be profoundly related to the fact that men have proven to be sensitive to nicotine dosing.
Works Cited
Kalininskiy, A., Bach, C. T., Nacca, N. E., Ginsberg, G., Marraffa, J., Navarette, K. A., ... & Croft, D. P. (2019). E-cigarette, or vaping, product use associated lung injury (EVALI): case series and diagnostic approach. The Lancet Respiratory Medicine , 7 (12), 1017-1026.
Milicic, S., & Leatherdale, S. T. (2017). The associations between e-cigarettes and binge drinking, marijuana use, and energy drinks mixed with alcohol. Journal of Adolescent Health , 60 (3), 320-327.
Rahman, M. A., Hann, N., Wilson, A., & Worrall-Carter, L. (2014). Electronic cigarettes: patterns of use, health effects, use in smoking cessation, and regulatory issues : tobacco-induced diseases , 12 (1), 21.
Wang, T. W., Asman, K., Gentzke, A. S., Cullen, K. A., Holder-Hayes, E., Reyes-Guzman, C., ... & King, B. A. (2018). Tobacco product use among adults—the United States, 2017. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report , 67 (44), 1225.
Yule, J. A., & Tinson, J. S. (2017). Youth and the sociability of "Vaping." Journal of Consumer Behaviour , 16 (1), 3-14.
Yang, L., Rudy, S. F., Cheng, J. M., & Durmowicz, E. L. (2014). Electronic cigarettes: incorporating human factors engineering into risk assessments : tobacco control , 23 (suppl 2), ii47-ii53.
