[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Page 11209]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              E-CIGARETTES

  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I also thank Senators Alexander and Murray 
for including my provisions on a dangerous product that is gaining 
popularity among our children, e-cigarettes. The language in the bill 
allows schools to use their same Federal funding that goes toward 
alcohol, drug, and tobacco education to teach children about more novel 
tobacco products such as e-cigarettes.
  According to the CDC, youth use of e-cigarettes has tripled in 1 year 
from 2013 to 2014. Let me tell you, our kids are not getting accurate 
information. There is advertising that is aimed at them that makes it 
sound like this is just a wonderful opportunity for them.
  What are our children being exposed to? It is not just nicotine--
clearly, e-cigarettes are a nicotine delivery system--but even more.
  Now the Surgeon General has said nicotine has a negative impact on 
adolescent brain development. So for God's sake, let us stop our kids 
from being able to smoke e-cigarettes on campus. I have an amendment 
that would do just that, and I hope it will be unanimously accepted 
because these e-cigarettes also contain benzene, cadmium, formaldehyde, 
propylene glycol, and nanoparticles that are present in traditional 
cigarettes, according to the California Department of Health.
  So we need the FDA to finalize their rule on e-cigarettes. But in the 
meantime, youth use is soaring. We finally are making progress on 
reducing smoking among teens, and yet this e-cigarette situation is out 
of control. That is why I am pleased that in this bill schools will be 
able to teach kids about the dangers of e-cigarettes.
  In conclusion, again I thank the bill's managers for helping me get 
the afterschool language in, protecting our kids after school, getting 
some language in to make sure we can educate our kids against the 
dangers of a new nicotine delivery system called e-cigarettes, but I 
also have three more amendments that are pending and I hope will pass.
  The first one I talked about was clarifying that a ban on smoking in 
schools includes all tobacco products such as e-cigarettes. The second 
amendment would prohibit advertising e-cigarettes to children. When you 
see this--I am sorry I didn't bring the charts to the floor--they are 
using cartoon characters, the same kind of thing that was done by the 
big tobacco companies. Big Tobacco is behind this, let's be clear. We 
don't need another epidemic that starts killing our people before we 
finally turn the corner on regular smoking.

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