The American Heart Association released its first detailed policy report Sunday on the increasingly popular e-cigarettes, which heat up liquid that contains nicotine and vaporizes it. The report recommends officially categorizing it as a tobacco product.
Kurt Ribisl, a health behavior professor in UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health, served on the team that helped compile the report.
Assistant State & National Editor Hayley Fowler sat down with Ribisl to discuss his role on the team and the importance of e-cigarette regulation.
THE DAILY TAR HEEL: Can you summarize the results of the policy report?
KURT RIBISL: The early studies suggest that e-cigarettes have much lower amounts of most of the harmful chemicals found in cigarette smoke. There’s a difference between being safer and being less dangerous.
However, there is enough concern that the products should be banned indoors, in any place that smoking is banned. You shouldn’t be able to fly on an airplane and take out an e-cigarette; you shouldn’t be able to smoke at the workplace or in restaurants.
One reason is you are also exposing people to second-hand nicotine. Right now, there is very little regulatory oversight over e-cigarettes, which is something that really needs to change.
We also recommended that the products be taxed ... at a high enough level to discourage youth from using them. But also, we mentioned the possibility that e-cigarettes should not be taxed at a rate equivalent to cigarettes. Just the idea of simply the tiered regulatory approach is particularly novel in these recommendations.
We are the Wild West right now in terms of regulation of e-cigarettes.
