Author: Staff Writer

The UK based electronic cigarette company, E-Lites, has overturned an attempt by a European government to have electronic cigarettes classified as medical devices.

The Administrative Court in Estonia last week found in favour of Zandera Ltd, owners of the E-Lites brand, and against the Estonian State Agency of Medicines.

This decision comes at a time when the EU is proposing to classify electronic cigarettes as medicinal products under the revised EU Tobacco Products Directive (TPD).

It follows similar recent court decisions in Germany, the Netherlands and the US. All refused medicinal classification for electronic cigarettes.

“We are delighted common sense has prevailed,” said Michael Ryan, chairman of Zandera, in welcoming the decision in Estonia.

“E-Lites are not designed as a medicine; they’re designed as an alternative consumer product choice for smokers.

“We welcome the Estonian Court’s decision and we hope it will persuade other governments and regulatory bodies to review any similar proposals.”

The TPD, as drafted, would have the effect of removing from the market, pending medicinal authorization, virtually all electronic cigarettes, despite the fact they are proving a popular alternative for smokers and are increasingly widely recognised as being safer than cigarettes are.

“We are confident e-cigs are an exciting breakthrough and potentially ‘transforming’ product and we want to work with governments and regulators across Europe to agree the appropriate regulatory framework,” said Ryan.

“Public health experts are proclaiming the significant contribution to tobacco harm reduction e-cigs are already making and we desperately want that to continue.”

Israel’s Health Ministry is asking for public feedback on electronic cigarettes before deciding whether or not to ban them, according to a story by Judy Siegel-Itzkovich for the Jerusalem Post.

This is despite a ministry committee’s having recommended that the marketing, import and use of e-cigarettes be prohibited for five years and that the prohibition then be assessed.

According to the story, lot of people lined up to say they wanted electronic cigarettes banned on the grounds that they had not been proved to be safe; so the thinking seems to be that the traditional cigarette, a product that has been found to be unsafe, should be allowed to continue to be on sale when electronic cigarettes, which a lot of people use to wean themselves from traditional cigarettes, should be banned.

Nowhere in the story does anybody make the point that it is the tar from traditional cigarettes that is believed to be the risk factor in smoking and that tar is totally absent from electronic cigarette vaping.

The public’s views are being sought via the website www.shituf.gov.il until March 25.

The ministry will announce its decision over the summer.

In a re-play of the tobacco industry’s former close connection with sport, Totally Wicked, a supplier of electronic cigarettes, on the weekend announced a sponsorship deal with St Helens’ RFC, one of England’s top rugby league clubs.

According to a PRNewswire story, under the deal, the club’s Langtree Park North Stand is to be renamed the Totally Wicked Stand.

Totally Wicked products will be available to buy throughout the stadium on match days.

And the club will hold a ‘cigarette amnesty’ where fans will be able to swap their tobacco cigarettes for a St Helens branded electronic cigarette.

Dr. Michael Cummings, a tobacco researcher at the Medical University of South Carolina’sHollingsCancerCenter, says e-cigarettes could be an effective product to help people quit smoking, but that research hasn’t proven the product’s safety or efficacy, according to a WCBD-TV2 report.

“It could absolutely be a tool, but I think we need good studies to evaluate the claims,” said Cummings, who added that current products such as nicotine patches, gums and lozenges had relatively low quit rates.

Cummings said the effectiveness of e-cigarettes was inhalation – the most efficient form of delivering a drug to the brain. It was the same reason smoking was so addictive, whether it was in relation to nicotine or other drugs.

But Cummings and some other health advocates are worried about what they see as the unknowns of e-cigarettes. Earlier tests by the FDA, he said, had found chemicals similar to those used in car washes.

And he is worried about the ‘metal tubings’, which he says ‘potentially could contain lead’. The metal could leach into the inhaled vapor and be dangerous for the smoker and bystanders, he said.

However, he said that vaping e-cigarettes was clearly less dangerous than was smoking a cigarette because you could hardly get more dangerous than smoking a cigarette.