[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 150 (Wednesday, September 18, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5549-S5551]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              E-Cigarettes

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, it started sounding too familiar to me. 
For a long time on Capitol Hill, I have been involved in public policy 
debates about Big Tobacco, about nicotine and cigarettes, and about the 
public health consequences of smoking. It is a personal issue, of 
course, for me and for so many of us.
  Our families have been touched by tobacco-related disease and death. 
I lost my father to lung cancer. He was 53 years old. He smoked two 
packs of Camels a day. I stood by his bedside when I was just a high 
school student and saw what tobacco could do.
  When I was elected to Congress, I decided to try to take on Big 
Tobacco. It was not an easy task. Those in Big Tobacco had very many 
friends in high places, and they made it clear in both political 
parties in the House of Representatives that tobacco was untouchable.
  I offered an amendment, quite a few years ago now, to ban smoking on 
airplanes. It was really because of my irritation and strong feelings 
that the people who were on the plane who were nonsmokers shouldn't 
have to breathe in secondhand smoke. To my surprise, we passed it in 
the House by a handful of votes even though the leadership of both 
political parties opposed it. Then it came over here, and Senator Frank 
Lautenberg, of New Jersey, passed it as well. It became the law of the 
land.
  Neither Frank nor I could have predicted what would happen next, but 
as the American people noticed that secondhand smoke was taken off of 
airplanes, they started asking a lot of these questions about why you 
wouldn't take it off of trains and buses and out of offices, hospitals, 
restaurants, and on and on. The net result was that of a change across 
America when it came to standards for smoking and tobacco cigarettes.
  Then I enlisted a group that was showing extraordinary leadership in 
Washington. It was called the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Matt 
Myers, the director, still works for that organization. We went to the 
heart of the issue, and that was the fact that Big Tobacco was doing 
its best to make teenagers its customers. It had to. It was losing too 
many of its best customers because they were dying from Big Tobacco's 
product.
  It tried to addict children, and it was successful with ad campaigns. 
The Joe Camel ads, the Marlboro cowboy, and all sorts of cartoon 
figures were really appealing to children. It worked. It was able to 
replenish its smokers with kids who started smoking at earlier and 
earlier ages.
  We went after them. Eventually, there was a national lawsuit against 
the tobacco companies. We changed the standards for selling tobacco in 
America. We made it much more difficult for kids to get their hands on 
cigarettes, and, over time, we reduced the percentage of kids who were 
using these tobacco products.
  The tobacco companies faced a dilemma. They were losing their best 
customers--the kids. What were they going to do to maintain their 
profits?
  Several years ago, it became pretty obvious that they had found an 
alternative product called e-cigarettes and vaping. What was good about 
this was they could make health claims about e-cigarettes and vaping. 
They could argue that since you were taking tobacco out of the 
equation, merely sucking in some form of nicotine vapor was preferable 
from a health perspective. Yet, when it came right down to it, there 
was no proof of that whatsoever.
  JUUL is the biggest e-cigarette/e-vapor device maker in America. Its 
full-paged ads in newspaper after newspaper have made these health 
claims that, in fact, e-vaping is a healthy alternative to tobacco 
cigarettes. Yet there is no proof--none.
  Then something else started happening. We started noticing that all 
across America, kids--the same kids who once used to be the targets of 
Big Tobacco--were now the targets of Big Vaping. Vaping targets kids. 
The numbers tell the story. As of 2 years ago, 11 percent of high 
school students in America were vaping. A year later, there were 20 
percent, and there are 27 percent today. More than one out of four high 
school students is using e-cigarettes and vaping today. Even worse, 10 
percent of middle school students--10-, 11-, and 12-year-olds--are 
vaping.
  The numbers are growing, and you wonder why. The people in the vaping 
industry know how to target kids. They target them with flavors that 
are designed just for kids--Razzleberry, Gummy Bears, Bubble Gum, 
Unicorn Milk. How many 50-year-old chain smokers can't wait to get 
Unicorn Milk flavoring for their vaping devices? It is all about kids. 
The vaping industry, despite all of its public denials, has targeted 
these kids and has, effectively, recruited our children to be the next 
generation of vaporers for life.
  How much nicotine is in that little vaping device, the one that looks 
like

[[Page S5550]]

it is a flash drive for your computer? There is an equivalent amount of 
nicotine in vaping as in a total pack of cigarettes. You get 20 
cigarettes in one hit on a vaping device. Nicotine is a very addictive 
chemical. I know from my family experience, and we all know, from those 
who try for long, long times to quit using tobacco cigarettes, that the 
nicotine draws them back time and again.
  This addiction was underway, and I started writing letters, which 
Senators do. I protested to the Food and Drug Administration, to the 
Surgeon General, and to anyone else who would listen that this vaping 
epidemic was dangerous--dangerous for our kids and dangerous for our 
future. It took the longest time to get their attention. In fact, with 
those in this new Trump administration, they initially postponed any 
action against vaping until the year 2022, which would be beyond the 
President's first term.
  Well, I went to Dr. Gottlieb, who then was head of the FDA, and said: 
You can't wait 4 years. You have to do something right now about 
vaping.
  He resisted for a while, but then he came around. He held a press 
conference, and do you know what he called this vaping situation? An 
epidemic. The head of the Food and Drug Administration, a medical 
doctor, Dr. Gottlieb, called it an epidemic.
  So then he left for family reasons, and he had a successor, Dr. Ned 
Sharpless, Acting Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. I 
appealed to him, saying: Do something. You have the power right now to 
take all of these children's flavors off of the market for vaping. You 
could do it today.
  Secondly, you could ban most of the vaping devices, which have never 
been approved by the government. He didn't want to do it. He dragged 
his feet. It went on for months.
  I will have to say, in all candor and honesty, last week there was a 
breakthrough. Last week, the Trump administration addressed this issue 
directly.
  Last Monday, the Food and Drug Administration said to JUUL, the major 
manufacturer: Stop making health claims you can't prove. Stop telling 
people your product is a healthy alternative to tobacco cigarettes. 
There are no clinical trials. There is no proof, no credible medical 
study you can point to, to make that claim, so stop saying it.
  Then, just a couple days later, they went even further, banning the 
use of these flavors that have enticed children into vaping and e-
cigarettes. They have announced that probably within 30 days, as their 
estimate, these are all going to have to come off the market, and in 
May of next year, the companies that make them can apply to bring them 
back on the market if they can prove they are good for public health.
  Well, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a Republican, and I have had 
a bill for several months now on this issue. I thank her for her 
bipartisan cooperation in this effort. It is great to have her by my 
side. She is a terrific ally.
  She and I believe none of these flavors should come back on the 
market until it is proven they are not dangerous to children and that 
they in fact do help adults stop smoking and can show positive results. 
I think that is a hard measure, a hard standard for them to meet, and 
it should be because the alternative is unacceptable--more children 
addicted to e-cigarettes and vaping.
  There may be a place for e-cigarettes at some point in the future. I 
am not sure where it will be, but as long as they are endangering our 
children with their products and their flavors, I am going to continue 
to fight their efforts.
  I want to say something else. Even in the midst of my battles against 
Big Tobacco, I still remember what my dad went through when he tried to 
stop smoking--dying of lung cancer, trying to stop smoking. It was so 
hard and painful, and I watched him as a young boy and saw the struggle 
he went through.
  I have always said we have to show some caring and compassion for the 
people who were once tobacco users and want to quit, and today we have 
to show the same level of caring when it comes to all of these high 
school students--5 million American high school students--who are 
vaping and using e-cigarettes and should quit. We need to give them a 
path, a recommendation.
  I wrote to the Surgeon General last week and asked him to come up 
with a plan, an educational approach, to allow these young people to 
get off this nicotine addiction before it is too late.
  What has happened in the past, sadly, is that many of the high 
schoolers who were using e-cigarettes didn't quit completely from 
anything; they moved to tobacco cigarettes with the nicotine they were 
seeking in a different form.
  So that is the challenge we face. After years of inaction and a lot 
of telephone calls and letters and meetings, the Food and Drug 
Administration has done the right thing. I hope by the end of this 
year, these flavors will be off the shelf, and I hope the Food and Drug 
Administration truly enforces what they announced last week.
  It has been 10 years since Congress gave the Food and Drug 
Administration the legal authority to regulate all tobacco products, 
including e-cigarettes. There is no doubt about their legal authority.
  Last year, 4 million children under the age of 18 were vaping in 
America. As I mentioned, today the number is 5 million.
  Over the last 2 years, we have seen a 135-percent increase in 
America's children using e-cigarettes.
  Ask any public health official what this means. If we didn't do 
something, the numbers would continue to grow unchecked. Schools are 
taking doors off of toilet stalls so kids can't sneak in and use e-
cigarettes and vape between classes. Some kids are bold enough to try 
to do it in class.
  We have now linked e-cigarettes and vaping to over 380 cases of 
confirmed and severe respiratory illness nationwide. As of last night, 
in California, the seventh young person has died from vaping.
  We have 52 confirmed cases and 1 reported death in Illinois, but I 
can tell you that on Monday morning, one of my friends, a doctor in 
Chicago, told me in private that he had visited a major hospital, and 
three young people who had been vaping were hanging on by a thread to 
life. Kids as young as 15 have been hospitalized.
  There is no specific device or substance that has been linked to all 
of these cases, but the one common denominator is e-cigarettes.
  This nicotine addiction and what it leads to--especially JUUL's 
devices, which are extraordinarily popular, with the highest levels of 
nicotine we have seen in products legally sold in America.
  Nicotine is both toxic and highly addictive. It raises blood 
pressure, spikes adrenaline, and increases the risk of heart disease. 
It can have short- and long-term negative health impacts on 
the developing brain, particularly, including increased risk of 
addiction, mood disorder, and permanent lowering of impulse control.

  Kids who use e-cigarettes are three times more likely than their 
peers to transition to traditional tobacco cigarettes, and they, of 
course, kill almost half a million Americans a year.
  So that is our problem. That is our challenge.
  I would add, too, that it is time for us to start taxing this 
product. For years, I have been sounding the alarm that the vaping 
industry is following Big Tobacco's playbook when it comes to appealing 
to our children.
  I have learned over the years, in all my battles against Big Tobacco, 
that the single most effective tool to prevent children from starting 
the use of tobacco cigarettes is to price it out of their range.
  That is why we passed cigarette taxes years ago--and many States and 
localities followed suit--and why later this week I will be introducing 
the Tobacco Tax Equity Act. This legislation will establish the first 
Federal e-cigarette tax. It will close loopholes exploited by Big 
Tobacco to avoid the taxes, and it will double the Federal Government 
tax rate and peg it to inflation so it remains an effective public 
health tool in the future.
  Studies have shown that even a 10-percent tax lowers tobacco use by 
as much as 5 percent. The Surgeon General and World Health Organization 
have called it the most effective way to reduce tobacco use. I think 
the same will be true for e-cigarettes.
  The FDA's flavor ban announcement was an important first step. Now we 
need to make sure the ban is implemented quickly and that it is 
enforced strictly.

[[Page S5551]]

  We need the FDA to better regulate e-cigarette devices, many of which 
are easily tampered with and being used in conjunction with adulterated 
and counterfeit products.
  We need the Surgeon General to come up with a plan to help the 
millions of kids who are now addicted, and we need to start taxing e-
cigarette companies who have created today's youth vaping epidemic.
  A movie we have seen before of Big Tobacco exploiting kids, finally--
finally--resulted in public action against those tobacco companies, and 
the rate of teen tobacco cigarette smoking went down dramatically. 
Let's not sit through that same movie again.
  When it comes to vaping and e-cigarettes, let's move quickly to 
protect our children.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.