The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has new regulations for all tobacco products as an effort to reduce the number of minors purchasing and smoking them. Another ordinance affecting the tobacco industry has been recently approved in different states, which include the raise of the minimum smoking age, higher taxes, and less retail licenses. All these legal changes are a window opportunity for the E-Cigarette market to grow in the U.S.
The FDA will review new tobacco products that are not yet in the market. The Administration will evaluate the ingredients of tobacco, the production process and in it will communicate health warnings and advisories.
The FDA has also extended its authority to E-Cigarettes, but the restrictions cannot be compared to all the bills that were recently against tobacco products.
Arkansas. California, Maine, Kansas, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, West Virginia, and Illinois are states that will see changes in the consumption of tobacco products in the next days.
In Helena-West Helena, Arkansas, the legal age to buy tobacco products will rise from 18 to 21. This same measure will be followed by Leawood and Leavenworth, Kansas; Portland, Maine; Belchertown, raiseLowell, and Worcester, Massachusetts; and in Lane County, Oregon.
In Illinois, Chicago is the city with the most outstanding measures against tobacco so far. The ordinance to raise the minimum smoking age from 18 to 21 takes effect Friday.
According to the Chicago Tribune, the city leads the nation in federal, county, state and city taxes on cigarettes, which now is $7.17 on a pack of cigarettes that costs around $12. The tax on small cigars is going to rise from 15 cents to 20 cents.
But taxes is not the only aspect that increased regarding tobacco.
People selling illegal cigarettes, if it is the first time, will have to pay a $5,000 fine, which previously was of $2,500. Subsequent offenses raised from $5,000 to $10,000 and jail for 6 months is now an option, says the Chicago Tribune.
All these new regulations are intended to protect youth from the harms of tobacco, and the FDA seeks to prevent diseases and death provoked by tobacco since is the single largest preventable health problem.
E-Cigarettes: a growing business in the United States
E-Cigarettes came to the U.S. and Europe after its invention in China in 2003.
Madison reports that since 2005, the percentage of smokers in the U.S has gone from 25 percent to 19%. The recent regulations to tobacco have influenced on this decrease, and the introduction of the E-Cigarette is another cause to the small cigarette percentages.
There are several cases of people switching from cigarettes to E-Cigarettes, and the surveys say because the tech smoke has fewer adverse effects and the availability of different flavors. The surveys also say that a high number of smokers, 58 percent, would like to stop using cigarettes and the electronic smoking is their first option to do it, according to Madison.
E-Cigarettes cannot escape the FDA authority, and along with the tobacco new regulation, E-Cigarettes will be prohibited to smoke in indoor areas. The U.S is taking a new stand to the unhealthy but popular vice.
Source: FDA