[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 63 (Wednesday, April 29, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2541-S2542]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    FDA TOBACCO DEEMING REGULATIONS

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, it has been more than a year since the Food 
and Drug Administration issued its proposed tobacco deeming 
regulations. These regulations would give the Agency the same 
regulatory authority it currently has over traditional tobacco 
cigarettes to other unrelated tobacco products such as e-cigarettes and 
hookahs.
  These regulations are critical for public health, especially for 
children. Yet, they have languished within the administration for more 
than a year. A year is too long to wait because we know what has been 
happening.
  According to a report from the Centers for Disease Control--the FDA's 
own Center for Tobacco Products--in the past year, e-cigarette use has 
tripled among teens. Absent any regulation, more and more of these 
potentially dangerous products have found a way into the hands of our 
children.
  After just a few years on the market, children's use of e-cigarettes 
has now surpassed the use of traditional cigarettes. Think back to the 
first time we heard about e-cigarettes. I didn't know what people were 
talking about. Now we see there are more children using e-cigarettes 
than traditional cigarettes. This is in large part because we have 
failed to regulate these addictive products.
  Until these regulations are finalized, e-cigarette companies will be 
able to freely advertise their products to our children in Juneau and 
to our children in Cleveland.
  What many people fail to realize is that often e-cigarette companies 
and big tobacco companies are now one and the same. Marlboro-maker 
Altria Group, the Nation's largest tobacco company, is making up for 
its loss in revenue as cigarette smoking has declined--and it is doing 
so among children too--making up its loss of revenue from combustible 
tobacco products by marketing its MarkTen electronic cigarette. 
Lorillard has acquired Blu e-cigarettes. Reynolds American, the maker 
of Camel and Pall Mall cigarettes, has a new e-cigarette called VUSE.
  Much of Big Tobacco's behavior is driven by one giant and irrefutable 
fact: Tobacco in the United States kills 400,000 people a year. Think 
about that--400,000 Americans die prematurely from tobacco use every 
year. What does that mean? That means tobacco companies need to find 
400,000 new customers a year. They are not going to market to people 
such as the Presiding Officer or me or the people staffing the Senate 
floor. They are going to people like the pages. They are going to 
people 16 and 17 years old to addict them to cigarettes. People my age 
rarely start smoking; people their age so often do.
  Big Tobacco has to find these new customers. It used to be that they 
preyed on children with highly paid, sophisticated tobacco executives 
who spend their days figuring out how to entice teens to start smoking 
with characters such as Joe Camel. We think of Camel No. 5, some of the 
things they did. Now that they are no longer allowed to advertise 
traditional tobacco products to kids--and parenthetically, that is one 
of the great public health victories in this country, what this body 
did, what the House of Representatives did, what Presidents did to 
alert public health and to change young people's behavior so young 
people did not start smoking in larger numbers. That was an effort by 
government and consumer groups and children's groups.
  These tobacco companies now, though, are taking advantage of the new, 
unregulated world of e-cigarettes to advertise their products directly 
to children because they can. Joe Camel has been replaced by 
celebrities smoking e-cigarettes. These companies sponsor youth-
oriented events and air ads on TV and radio aimed at teenagers. They 
are using new advertising platforms on social media to get to kids 
where parents typically are not looking.
  The shameful e-cigarette marketing tactics employed by tobacco 
companies are encouraging this next new generation to use tobacco, and, 
as the CDC's study shows, their tactics are working--triple the use, 
triple the number of young people smoking these e-cigarettes.
  Another recent study revealed that teens were able to purchase e-
cigarettes online in 94 percent of the attempts they made. None of them 
were required to show proof of their age when the cigarettes were 
delivered.

[[Page S2542]]

  A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that 
examined the use of candy flavors in tobacco products found that--no 
surprise here--flavors drive increases in tobacco use among kids. E-
cigarettes and their refill liquids come in thousands of different 
flavors, such as Gummi Bears, Sweet Tarts, and Fruit Loops. Just look 
at this photo of Gummi Bear-flavored e-liquid. The bottle is about this 
big.
  As the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Dr. James 
Perrin, said, ``Because liquid nicotine comes in a variety of bright 
colors and in flavors appealing to children such as cotton candy and 
gummy bear, it is no surprise that these products have found their way 
into the hands of children.''
  I don't think they are making gummy bears to encourage people the age 
of the Presiding Officer, to get them to start smoking, or my age; they 
are getting young children to start smoking. Gummi Bears, Fruit Loops, 
and Sweet Tarts--those are candies young children receive at Halloween. 
They are also flavors of highly toxic products.
  The bottle in this photo contains two teaspoons of liquid nicotine. A 
single teaspoon of this e-liquid, even if it is highly diluted, can 
kill a small child if ingested. It is totally legal. People will see 
this sold at drugstores and at all kinds of places. Children are likely 
to pick it up if they see it around the house. There is a chance--there 
always is in a country of 300 million people--that some child will--
attracted by this, looking at this, the cute little bottle--will drink 
it, and that child could die.
  It is past time for the FDA to regulate these dangerous products 
before more children and more teenagers get hooked on e-cigarettes.
  My colleagues and I, led by Senator Merkley, Senator Blumenthal, 
Senator Durbin, and others, have called on the FDA over and over again 
to finalize these proposed rules and reject efforts to weaken these 
proposed regulations. Every day the FDA waits is thousands more 
children getting addicted to nicotine, thousands more children getting 
exposed potentially to drinking this very toxic liquid, and thousands 
more children smoking these e-cigarettes.
  Tobacco companies are pushing to allow more products to be 
grandfathered out of the new rules. They want to exempt a huge range of 
e-cigarettes from any review to determine whether they are a threat to 
public health. That would mean these products would never be subject to 
review by the FDA. How stupid of a nation can we be? We have been so 
successful in the last 40 years as public health officials, as Members 
of Congress, as responsible adults, as consumer groups and advocates 
for children. We have been so successful in reducing the incidence of 
smoking, especially among young people. It has changed the whole next 
generation. Yet, now we are letting this happen.
  E-cigarettes are still tobacco products. They are used by the tobacco 
industry--I haven't talked about this yet--as a gateway cigarette for 
kids, and that doesn't stop. They see this, and they start smoking 
these e-cigarettes. Then a year or 2 years, 5 years, 10 years down the 
road, they will be smoking traditional tobacco and they will be 
addicted, and we know what addiction to cigarettes is for so many of 
our fellow Americans.
  My colleagues and I urge the Food and Drug Administration to 
strengthen and finalize these regulations before any more of our 
children get hooked on potentially dangerous and addictive tobacco 
products.

                          ____________________