This sounds like what the vaping community has been saying all along. Let me pinch myself...nope it's real. Here are some highlights from the FDA Commissioner's remarks on today's announcement.
Remarks by Scott Gottlieb, M.D.
Commissioner of Food and Drug Administration
July 28, 2017
White Oak, MD
We must recognize the potential for innovation to lead to less harmful products, which, under FDA’s oversight, could be part of a solution. While there’s still much research to be done on these products and the risks that they may pose, they may also present benefits that we must consider. FDA’s investment in regulatory science will eventually answer many of those benefit and risk questions.
The nicotine in cigarettes is not directly responsible for the cancer, lung disease, and heart disease that kill hundreds of thousands of Americans each year. Yes, it got them all addicted and kept them addicted for the long term. And it got most of them addicted when they were still teenagers. But it’s the other chemical compounds in tobacco, and in the smoke created by setting tobacco on fire, that directly and primarily cause the illness and death, not the nicotine.
First, he entire spectrum of nicotine-delivering products is now regulated, from the most to the least harmful. Second, regulatory science is providing an evidence-base to inform policy for regulating the addictiveness of the deadliest form of nicotine delivery. And third, even with unanswered questions about benefits and risks, there are now different technologies to deliver nicotine, for those who need it, that doesn’t bring with it the deadly consequences of burning tobacco and inhaling the resulting smoke.