City of Chicago issued the following announcement on March 19.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Corporation Counsel Ed Siskel today announced that the City of Chicago is joining San Francisco and New York in urging the Food and Drug Administration to reverse its 2017 decision granting e-cigarette manufacturers a four-year extension to submit their applications for premarket review and immediately undertake the legally required health and safety review of e-cigarettes.
In a letter to FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the cities noted that the FDA has exclusive jurisdiction under federal law to regulate e-cigarettes, yet the agency has allowed the products to remain available despite any health and safety review, thereby placing millions of youth at risk for nicotine addiction and other health hazards.
“The FDA can immediately protect public health and prevent kids from becoming Big Tobacco’s future customers by conducting the legally required but long overdue health and safety review of e-cigarettes,” said Mayor Emanuel. “Today’s request to Commissioner Gottlieb is a continuation of our efforts to keep our children free from the dangers of addiction, protect our residents, and fight for a healthier Chicago.”
The letter notes that tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States, and tobacco kills more than 480,000 people annually—more than AIDS, alcohol, car accidents, illegal drugs, murders, and suicides combined. Nearly all tobacco product use begins during youth or young adulthood. As a result, the Surgeon General, local governments, health advocates and others have undertaken enormous efforts to reduce youth tobacco use. Until recently those efforts were succeeding.
After hitting an all-time low in 2017, last year tobacco use among youth rose for the first time since the 1990s when the number of middle and high school students who reported being current users of tobacco products increased 36%—from 3.6 million to 4.9 million students—between 2017 and 2018. This dramatic reversal is directly attributable to a nationwide surge in e-cigarette use by adolescents.
The health implications of this disturbing new trend are deeply troubling. The Surgeon General has warned that e-cigarettes pose a significant health risk to young people. Nicotine exposure during adolescence can harm the developing brain—adversely impacting learning, memory, and attention—and can also increase risk for future addiction to other tobacco products and other drugs.
The letter follows recent enforcement efforts by the Department of Law and Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection that resulted in lawsuits alleging that more than thirty online sellers of e-cigarettes and e-liquids had marketed and sold their products to underage individuals in Chicago. The Departments’ investigation and the lawsuits are ongoing but have already resulted in companies changing their practices or leaving the Chicago market.
“Chicago is taking aggressive steps against manufacturers and sellers of e-cigarettes to prevent them from targeting Chicago’s youth, and our request to the FDA is another demonstration of our commitment to protecting youth from the danger of e-cigarettes,” said Ed Siskel, Corporation Counsel.
A Record of Fighting Big Tobacco
Under Mayor Emanuel, Chicago has made great strides in reducing youth cigarette smoking in the last seven years. Last year, youth cigarette smoking hit a new historic low, falling from 13.6% in 2011 to 6.0% today—a nearly 60 percent decline, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These results follow numerous efforts to reduce youth access to tobacco products and e-cigarettes.
In the past eight years, Chicago has incorporated e-cigarettes as part of the Clean Indoor Air Ordinance; expanded smoke-free environments to include all parks, marinas and beaches, and college campuses; and has supported federal efforts to make all public housing smoke-free. Mayor Emanuel also banned the sale of flavored tobacco including menthol cigarettes near high schools, raised the tobacco purchasing age to 21, and banned redemption of tobacco coupons. These measures have helped to keep e-cigarettes out of the hands of Chicago’s youth and ensured that indoor spaces remain free from smoke and vapor
Last year, the City Council passed Mayor Emanuel’s ordinance requiring warning signs disclosing the harms of non-cigarette tobacco products to be posted at all tobacco retailers and prohibited all free sampling of tobacco products. Additionally, Mayor Emanuel increased the tax on liquid nicotine and e-cigarettes and passed new requirements that all tobacco products and accessories be kept behind the sales counter to counter tobacco companies that target youth in retail stores through product displays. These efforts will counter decades of misleading and manipulative marketing techniques, give youth real facts about tobacco, and make it more difficult for youth to access nicotine products.
Original source can be found here.
Alerts Sign-up