Two new scientific reports suggest that e-cigarettes are a safer, more effective way to satisfy a nicotine addiction while reducing the risk of killing the addicted.
That's a credible argument, if you put it all on a scale: E-Cigarettes do not contain the tar, carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, and thousands of other chemical compounds found in tobacco products, and for those trying to wean themselves from a nicotine habit, it is a potential life safer.
This was the chief conclusion reached last week by the Royal College of Physicians - the British version of our American Medical Association - which says that smokers should be encouraged to use these electronic nicotine-delivery devices.
A similar conclusion was reached in a study funded by our own Food and Drug Administration from seven international tobacco control experts, who essentially recommended that the FDA tread lightly when it issues its first-ever set of rules on this unregulated $3.3 billion industry in the next few weeks.
But there is a catch: While e-cigarettes might improve lives, they also may entice children to take up the nicotine habit - especially when the industry is targeting them with advertising and kid-friendly flavor varieties.
As it spells out the wonky aspects of testing requirements and health and safety standards, the FDA must lay down the law on the industry's odious and persistent efforts to draw in the youth market - indeed, we hope that is the headline when these regulations are announced.
E-cigarettes are used by 3 million American youth, and their use has exploded in the last five years. Two weeks ago, the CDC released a report that showed vaping among high-school students has increased tenfold in just five years - from 1.5 percent in 2011 to 16 percent in 2015. Among middle-schoolers, it has gone from 1 percent to 5 percent in the same time frame.
And there's little wonder why:
This product is seen by 18 million kids a day in TV and print advertising. It is sold in hundreds of flavors like Cotton Candy and Scooby Snacks and Froot Loops.
State Sen. Joseph Vitale (D-Middlesex), chairman of the Health Committee, put it best: "This isn't a marketing strategy aimed at your 60-year-old brother-in-law trying to kick a two-pack habit."
These marketing campaigns tend to leave out the fine print, which is understandable, because warning labels haven't even been mandated yet. E-cigarettes may be safer than traditional tobacco, but they still contain carcinogens such as formaldehyde and components found in antifreeze, and its key selling point, a vaporized form of nicotine, is still one of the most addictive drugs on the planet.
A drug, by the way, that that may cause lasting harm to brain development in adolescents.
True, the FDA should seek to maximize e-cigarettes as effective harm-reduction tools - Big Tobacco will probably be on board, as it owns half the global vaping market anyway. But federal oversight is long overdue, even if some believe that any reduction in the use of tobacco - the largest cause of preventable deaths in the U.S. - deserves scientific approbation and free-market liberties.
And the FDA must still determine whether this is a path away from tobacco or a potential gateway to regular cigarettes, especially for kids.
That same CDC study says that traditional tobacco use among youth groups has stayed flat, so maybe fears that increased e-cigarette use would lead to more toxic stuff are unfounded. Maybe. But that doesn't validate vaping as something acceptable for young people - not now, not ever.
More: Recent Star-Ledger editorials.
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