Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/550313
20 tobaccoasia Available for iPad free from the iTunes store now BAT Toxicants, BAT's rst science app. The BAT Toxicants app. for iPad describes the results of our rst clinical study of reduced toxicant prototype cigarettes and the underlying technologies that were used. Search for 'BAT Toxicants' Companies would also not be able to assert that e-cigarettes were less harmful than real cigarettes unless they got approval from the FDA to do so by submitting scientific information. However, what the proposed regulations do not cover is any proposal to ban fla- vors in e-cigarettes nor a move to restrict the marketing of e-cigarettes, as is done for traditional cigarettes. It would seem that the FDA's proposed rules, while seen by some as not being strict enough, would be a first step to regulate the e-cigarette industry while recogniz- ing that more research is needed to fully understand the implications of e-cigarettes in all aspects. The FDA has approved a budget of US$ 270 million on 48 research projects currently underway to better determine the risks and benefits of e-cigarettes. While leaders of these research projects say final results may not be ready until 2018, non-FDA-funded research may also be a contributing factor in the FDA's regulations coming into effect sooner than that. Even though there are no federal regulations in place yet, due to the growing popu- larity of e-cigarettes, many US states have already passed laws that ban e-cigarettes from public places, regulate their sale, ban their sale to minors, and tax them. To date, 38 states have moved to ban e-cigarette sales to minors. Of these 38 states, only Colo- rado, Nevada, North Carolina, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming categorize e-cigarettes as tobacco products, 13 states exempt e-cigarettes from being categorized as a tobacco product, and 19 states define e-cigarettes as a separate category altogether. In Asia, e-cigarette regulation has not received as much attention as e-cigarettes' popularity is not as tremendous as in the US and Europe. In China, for example, tra- ditional tobacco cigarettes are still preferred over e-cigarettes. Yet, even though there is currently low demand domestically, the potential for e-cigarettes in this market, con- sidered to be the world's largest producer and consumer of tobacco products with approximately 350 million smokers, is enormous, particularly with increasingly strict anti-smoking laws. How and when e-cigarettes will be regulated here remains to be seen.