Advocates: Include e-cigarettes in N.Y. Clean Indoor Air Act

Medical groups renewed their call Tuesday for the state to include electronic cigarettes in the 13-year-old Clean Indoor Air Act, which would ban their use everywhere tobacco products are prohibited, including restaurants, bars and other workplaces.

The push follows the federal Food and Drug Administration's long-awaited move earlier this month to regulate e-cigarettes.

Anti-smoking advocates have for several years urged the FDA to issue rules regarding the battery-powered devices, which release a vapor of nicotine and other often unknown ingredients when puffed on.

While many counties in New York state have already banned their use at workplaces and other indoor environments, the rules are inconsistent. Albany County banned their use two years ago.

Representatives from the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and others joined bill sponsors Sen. Kemp Hannon, R-Garden City, and Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, D-Manhattan, in support of statewide legislation.

Their goal, they said, is to reduce the health risk to e-cigarette users as well as bystanders who inhale potentially dangerous chemicals, as well as to eliminate the modeling of unhealthy habits for young people.

High school students and young adults use e-cigarettes at almost twice the rate of New Yorkers 25 and older, according to the survey results released by the state Health Department last year.

Dr. Mark Travers, director of the Air Pollution Exposure Research Laboratory at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, said e-cigarette emissions pose health risks to nonusers, just as secondhand smoke from cigarettes does. Chemicals emitted include the weed killer acrolein, the embalming fluid formaldehyde and cancer-causing agents.

Others have touted the use of e-cigarettes as a safer alternative to smoking and a way to help smokers quit tobacco. Travers acknowledged that e-cigarettes have that potential benefit.

"If a smoker switched completely to an electronic cigarette, they are probably significantly reducing the health risk," Travers said.

"However," he continued, "there is reason to be very concerned about potential unintended consequences to electronic cigarettes."

Smokers may use e-cigarettes to rationalize continued smoking, youth might take up e-cigarettes believing they are a safer alternative, or former smokers may see them as an acceptable away to return to their nicotine habits, he said.

chughes@timesunion.com • 518-454-5417 • @hughesclaire

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