Hawaii state legislature put forth a bill last week with the intention of banning electronic cigarette sales to minors. At The SafeCig, we are happy to support any legislature that prohibits those who are under legal age from acquiring any product containing nicotine. However, the bill in question aims to classify electronic cigarettes and accessories as a tobacco product and impose a 70% tax on those items.

A petition has been created at Change.org to request the Governor of Hawaii to reconsider this bill as it is written.

Rather than conducting the necessary research to create a specific classification of the product and applying a fair tax policy for it, Hawaii's state legislature is merely attempting to classify the product as tobacco and apply the egregious tax rates that are applied to tobacco to electronic cigarettes too. Levying this hefty of a tax on the product would virtually wipe out any local vendors as they would not be able to compete with their out-of-state and international counterparts that are not subject to this unfair tax.

Customers would then be forced to buy their products from vendors out-of-state on the internet, or put down their ecigs and return to smoking again.  Any and all local vendors would either be forced to relocate their operations to another state or face closure due to the competitive disadvantage that would be placed on them.

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Dutch scientists evaluated more than 250 children for signs of arterial damage by means of thickness and flexibility to assess damage caused by smoke exposure while in womb.

In the study, children were evaluated at various points of time. At the initial visit when the child was 4-weeks of age, body dimensions and lung function were measured while parents filled out a survey that included questions regarding smoking before, during pregnancy, and after. At five years of age; the children returned and researchers utilized an ultrasound to measure the thickness and flexibility of the carotid artery, the vessels in the neck that deliver blood to the brain. During this visit updated information about smoking habits was collected from parents.

From the data collected, researchers shared: Continue Reading

A Message From our Founder, Jon Deak:

Happy New Year World. I'm not a big fan of New Years Resolutions because we all know how they play out. I will say this much, we have the technology now to be smart enough as to what we expose our bodies to. If you smoke, put down the cigarettes and pick up an Electronic Cigarette, I don't even care if you buy any electronic cigarette out there, just as long as you give it a shot. Continue Reading

Bar owners have banned together to contest a portion of the statewide smoking ban they claim could put them out of business.

Kevin Haislip's Bar and Grill in Tonganoxie received private club licensing in May 2009. In the smoking ban, licensing cut-offs for private clubs was January 1, 2009. Haislip brought forward a lawsuit stating the cut-off date was unfair given that the smoking ban did not go into effect until July 1, 2010.

Since bringing forth the initial lawsuit, Haislip stated that additional businesses have joined in. All the businesses in question received private licensing after the January 1, 2009 deadline, but prior to the July 1, 2010 enactment of the smoking ban. All they are requesting is that their businesses be grandfathered into the same clause that has allowed smoking to continue in the businesses that received private club licensing prior to January 1, 2009. Continue Reading

Tobacco is tobacco, right? Not so in New York and a few other states. When the tobacco taxes were increased, loose leaf tobacco missed the hike and is taxed at a mere $2.80 per pound versus $25 per pound for manufactured tobacco cigarettes. Some wise people banned together and created a business out of the variation in taxes. Those businesses are now feeling the heat from New York officials.

Island Smokes with two stores, one in Manhattan and another on Staten Island, offer customers the opportunity to purchase loose leaf tobacco and access to cigarette rolling machines to make their own cigarettes. Customers can spend approximately 45 minutes rolling cigarettes out of paper tubes and loose leaf tobacco and walk out of the store with a nominal $4 per pack expense versus paying a minimum of $13 per pack for commercial counterparts. In a lawsuit filed on November 14, 2011 by New York City's legal department claims Island Smokes is participating in "blatant tax evasion."

The shops included in the lawsuit do not pay into the cigarette manufacturer trust fund, nor do they have local tax stamps. In New York City, the local tax stamp includes a $1.40 city tax atop a $4.35 state tax. The complaint states, Continue Reading

Photo used with expressed written permission from Erica Burrell

Thank you to the men and women who have spent their adult-years protecting and preserving our freedoms. It is the dedication soldiers bring to the office every day that ensures our ability to live our lives the way we desire -- from the clothes we wear to the food we eat; those choices are an every day reminder of how valuable our Military personnel are in our lives.

It isn't just those serving who are risking their lives. Behind every soldier is a family who knows that this deployment could mean the end of life as they know. Many of those families band together and run organizations that work hard to encourage, educate, and supply other families with the necessities they need. Those waiting at home spend hours planning coming-home celebrations for soldiers in their units, mindful that not all soldiers are returning home to their families... Continue Reading

Brittan Cabinet Behavioral Insights Team Notes Electronic Cigarettes as an Effective Measure to Curb Smoking Health Risks

Portions of the following are taken directly from the Behavior Health Insight Team's Annual Report. The full text can be viewed as a PDF here.

A key component of the 2010-2011 report discusses the damaging effects of smoking and the team looked to specifically take instrumental problems arising from those who smoke and create legislature to reduce those risks and provide easy-to-implement solutions to reduce harm.

Electronic Cigarette Kit

Smoking remains the biggest preventable cause of death in the UK, killing over 80,000 a year in England alone. Given the severity of the effects of smoking, the desire of the majority of smokers to quit, and the fact that most smokers start smoking regularly before they are 18 years old, this is an area in which DH has been right to pursue policies relatively far up the 'ladder of intervention.' Areas in which the DH is drawing on insights include: Continue Reading