Hah, I actually found a story in my archives from nearly a year ago saying that the Food and Drug Administration was expected to issue e-cigarette regulations the following week. That was 10 months ago.

The Los Angeles Times published an absolutely scathing editorial ripping on the FDA and the White House for delaying implementing final regulations on e-cigarettes. The FDA supposedly finalized its regulations in October after receiving 135,000 comments and sent them to the White House Office of Budget and Management in October, where they have been sitting for five months.

In the L.A. Times’ words: “And there the proposal sits while the fast-growing e-cigarette industry operates virtually unchecked.”

The Times wrote the editorial in response to the apparently growing problem of e-cigarettes catching on fire or exploding. You can find a new story on some e-cig fire or explosion on virtually a weekly basis. However, that’s not really the biggest issue with them. That’s still pretty rare.

To quote from the editorial:

At the moment, federal regulators can do little more than shake their fists impotently at faulty electronic cigarettes manufacturers, most of whom are in China. That’s because e-cigarettes are considered tobacco products, and thus fall under the authority of the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA has yet to start cracking down despite the meteoric growth of “vaping,” as the process of using an e-cigarette to inhale nicotine is known.

While researchers haven’t yet settled the question of whether vaping is as harmful as smoking, we do know e-cigarette users don’t breathe in the same kind of carcinogenic smoke and tar that conventional cigarette smokers do. That’s good, but it doesn’t make vaping a benign pastime. No matter how you package it, nicotine is an addictive chemical linked to cardiovascular disease.

The vaping liquids have also been found to contain other chemicals such as Diacetyl, a flavoring associated with a terrifying illness called “Popcorn lung.” But until the new regulations kick in and require the disclosure of all chemicals in those liquids, there’s no way for consumers to know what other substances they may be inhaling.

The L.A. Times is right. It has been FOUR years since the FDA starting working on e-cigarette regulations. Four years during which the use of e-cigs has exploded (no pun intended) among teenagers. This has taken far too long. And I fear the regulations that are finalized are going to be really weak and won’t address e-cig marketing or online sales to teenagers.