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TOBACCO BUSINESS INTERNATIONAL
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014
The FDA’s Dr. Cathy Backinger with the
National Center for Public Policy’s Jeff Stier
application process. “The record-keeping
requirements along could preclude
them from compliance,” noted Ritter.
“Regulating these products in the same
way as cigarettes would leave consumers
with a handful of cig-alike options.”
“If
substantial
equivalence
requirements were imposed, innovation
would be stifled and only those with
really deep pockets could survive,”
agreed Freedom Smokeless’s Glenn
Kessel, speaking on behalf of SFATA.
“Approximately 98 percent of companies
currently in the industry would disappear,
taking wit them hundreds of thousands
of jobs. Imposing substantial equivalence
on e-sticks is like imposing it on cell
phones. How would you like to only
be able to use the cell phone models
available before 2007?”
enteR oPtion thRee
Given the complexity involved in
regulating across categories, many in
the industry expressed the hope or
expectation that the FDA would opt
against a one-size-fits-all approach to
regulation. Rather than attempt to apply
existing regulatory framework to cigars,
e-cigarettes and other categories, the
FDA, the industry and the legislators
should start fresh and craft reasonable
regulations addressing each tobacco
segment.
As Troutman Sanders’s Bryan Haynes
put it, “There is nothing in the Tobacco
Control Act that mandating that
the FDA regulate all these different
products in the same way. Regarding
e-cigarettes and vapor products, we
support prohibitions on sales to minors
and we think that consumer knowing
what is in the products would be a good
thing, as would ensuring a basic level
of safety and efficacy. The FDA should
treat the category as new technology
that presents a likely benefit relative to
the other available products.”
TBI
TMA’s Farrell Delman welcomes attendees
[From Left] Attorney panelists Damon and Associates’s
Phil Daman, Latham & Watkins’s Ben Haas, Alston
& Bird’s Marc Scheineson, Keller & Heckman’s Azim
Chowdhury and Venable LLP’s David Adams
[From Left] Mitch Zeller discusses the history of FDA
Tobacco Regulation with fellow panelists AHEAD’s
Scott Ballin, Steven C. Parrish of Steven Parrish
Consulting Group and Swedish Match’s Jim Solyst
