Banning e-cigarettes on planes flies in the face of science

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals refused to reevaluate an appellate court’s December 2010 decision to not grant the FDA the authority to regulate e-cigarettes as medical devices. The FDA has lost another battle in the effort to require e-cigarette manufacturers to conduct expensive clinical trials to prove their devices are safe. These regulations are required of other smoking cessation products such as nicotine patches. But so far e-cigarette manufacturers have convinced the courts that their devices are intended for smoking pleasure and not cessation. Currently, the FDA can only regulate e-cigarettes as “tobacco products.” The FDA still has one last resort, though: it can take its case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Yet this court decision has not stopped the U.S. Department of Transportation from banning e-cigarettes on U.S. flights. Scientifically, this ban is untenable, says ACSH’s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan. “People who need to make long airplane trips are miserable and hungry for a nicotine hit. E-cigarettes satisfy these smokers’ nicotine cravings without posing a health or security threat,” she says.