DEPARTMENT: Health
DEPARTMENT HEAD: Dr. Thomas L. Schlenker
COUNCIL DISTRICTS IMPACTED: City Wide
SUBJECT:
Proposed Changes to City Code Chapter 36, "Smoking"
SUMMARY:
Council Member Cris Medina submitted a Council Consideration Request (CCR) on June 26, 2014 asking City staff to review adding restrictions to the sale of e-cigarettes to anyone under the age of 18 to the City Code. The San Antonio Metropolitan Health District (Metro Health) has reviewed the CCR and recommends that the prohibition of the sale of e-cigarettes to anyone less than 18 years of age be added to the City Code. Metro Health further suggests that the City Council consider adding e-cigarettes to the prohibitions applied to traditional cigarettes in Chapter 36 of the City Code.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
Only e-cigarettes that are marketed for therapeutic purposes are currently regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) through the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER). Currently, the FDA regulates: cigarettes, cigarette tobacco, roll-your-own tobacco, and smokeless tobacco.
In 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a decision holding that e-cigarettes and other products made or derived from tobacco can be regulated as "tobacco products" under the Food, Drug, & Cosmetic (FD&C) Act and are not drugs/devices unless they are marketed for therapeutic purposes. Based on this ruling, the FDA is currently proposing to "deem" e-cigarettes as tobacco products.
ISSUE:
Metro Health supports regulation of e-cigarettes based on uncertainty and potential dangers of substances in e-cigarettes, including nicotine.
A recent study of poison centers across the United States examined all calls reporting exposure to conventional cigarettes, e-cigarettes, or nicotine liquid used in e-cigarettes. The poison centers reported 2,405 e-cigarette and 16,248 cigarette exposure calls from September 2010 to February 2014. The total n...
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