ObamaCare-Funded Federal Program Leads to Crackdown on E-Cigarettes

Devices that Help Smokers Quit Smoking Now to Be Heavily Regulated in Boston

Which City is Next? Federal Program Funding Pro-Regulation Effort Set to Spend $2 Billion Tax Dollars a Year by 2015

Washington, D.C. – Following lobbying from the federal government through an effort funded by ObamaCare, the city of Boston voted Thursday to ban the use of e-cigarettes in workplaces and to impose other restrictive regulations on their use and sale.

To discuss this with Jeff Stier, Director of Risk Analysis at the National Center for Public Policy Research, who addresses below the controversy surrounding the new rule, contact Judy Kent at 703-759-7476 or David Almasi at (202) 507-6398 x11 or (703) 568-4727.

A Boston Globe story about the ban is available here: http://tinyurl.com/d2npdem

A National Center story about the lobbying link to ObamaCare is available here: http://tinyurl.com/825269g

“Boston has now joined a small but growing list of cities that are forcing e-cigarette users, many of whom are ex-smokers, back into the smoking section based on nothing but pure hype and conjecture,” says Stier. “The new rule will make it harder for those trying to quit smoking cigarettes with the help of the non-tobacco e-cigarettes.”

“What’s worse,” says Stier, “is that federal money is paying localities to produce these regulations, and neither the Centers for Disease Control, nor the BPHC, have responded substantively to repeated written requests for the science behind the ruling.”

Adds Stier, a tobacco policy expert who has frequently written on the topic, including recently with Gregory Conley for National Review Online, “There is no evidence whatsoever that e-cigarette vapors contain anything more harmful than small amounts of nicotine, which is not a carcinogen.”

In National Review Online, Stier and Conley wrote, “Published surveys suggest that e-cigarettes have helped a significant number of people remain abstinent from traditional cigarettes.” See the full piece here: http://tinyurl.com/3k7pypa

The National Center for Public Policy Research, founded in 1982, is a non-partisan, free-market, independent conservative think-tank with over 100,000 recent supporters. Its 2010 revenue exceeded $12 million. Contributions to it are tax-deductible and greatly appreciated.

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The National Center for Public Policy Research is a communications and research foundation supportive of a strong national defense and dedicated to providing free market solutions to today’s public policy problems. We believe that the principles of a free market, individual liberty and personal responsibility provide the greatest hope for meeting the challenges facing America in the 21st century.