Cochrane says: “Since coming on the market over a decade ago, electronic cigarettes have caused a considerable stir in the public health community. It is of prime importance that the debate around this issue is based on high quality, relevant and up to date scientific data.
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- Category: September 2021
“The Philippine Senate will be on the right side of the people when it approves the most progressive vaping legislation in Asia Pacific,” says Nancy Loucas, Executive Coordinator of the Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA).
Her comments follow the release of a survey conducted by ACORN Marketing & Research Consultants. ‘A Survey of Attitudes Among Adult Tobacco & Nicotine Users in the Philippines’ was commissioned by consumer advocacy group, Vapers PH.
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- Category: September 2021
Graphic photos showing the severe consequences of smoking, which will be printed on all cigarette packages beginning in Oct. 2022, will save an estimated 539,000 lives over the remainder of this century, new research by the Yale School of Public Health and its partners finds. “There was a lost opportunity here and people suffered as a result,” said Jamie Tam, [...] the study’s lead author. “When tobacco industry litigation and delays with the [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] keep evidence-based policies from being implemented, public health pays a heavy price.
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- Category: September 2021
Policymakers have impinged on the freedoms of the most disadvantaged members of society – smokers. From 1 October 2021, it will be next to impossible for smokers to legally access Australia’s most popular quitting aid, nicotine vaping.
Smoking rates will most certainly increase, with legal access to nicotine for vaping harder than ever.
Authorities have imposed fines up to $222,000 for attempting to import nicotine liquid for vaping without a doctor’s prescription. With a public health system already reeling from COVID-19 Australia’s 600,000 vapers are set to push it to its limit from 1 October.
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- Category: September 2021
The governor of New York says marijuana legalization will generate “thousands and thousands of jobs” in the state, and she’s touting her recent actions to make regulatory appointments for the industry to get implementation underway.
[...] Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) talked about the state’s business ethic and the importance of supporting markets of all sizes, including cannabis companies.
“We do want to go big or go home, and I want to help you get there,” she said. “I need you to survive because you’re the identity of New York that people create jobs and opportunities. You are who we are as New Yorkers. Your success means the success of this entire state.”
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- Category: September 2021
From October 1, Australians who use e-cigarettes and other vaping products containing nicotine will need a doctor’s prescription to buy them from a local pharmacy or to order them from overseas.
But there’s another evidence-based way to help more smokers quit, which Australia is yet to act on: reducing the nicotine in cigarettes to non-addictive levels. And e-cigarettes could play an important role in this policy.
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- Category: September 2021
Despite the recent setback for its flavored Bidi Sticks, which were caught up in the wave of Premarket Tobacco Product Application (PMTA) marketing denials issued by U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) against all non-tobacco and non-menthol flavored electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS), Bidi Vapor remains committed to compliance with FDA standards, stringent youth-access prevention measures and developing product-specific scientific evidence to support that its ENDS are appropriate for the protection of the public health (APPH), and should remain on the market as an alternative for adult 21 and older) combusted cigarette smokers.
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- Category: September 2021
The Food and Drug Administration needs a wake-up call.
More than 3 million U.S. high-school students and another half a million middle-school students use e-cigarettes, many of which are loaded with so much nicotine they could not be legally sold in Canada, the U.K. or Europe. The addictive nature of these products makes them a menace to students’ health, and it’s clear that kids are being drawn in by a tactic the industry has long used to hook young smokers: sweet, flavored products, including menthol.
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- Category: September 2021
A new Cochrane report has been released that looks at using electronic cigarettes to help people achieve long‐term smoking abstinence. They find that vaping works to help get people off smoking – and works better than traditional nicotine replacement products like patches or gum.
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- Category: September 2021
In my syndicated column last week, I noted that politicians who favor new taxes and restrictions on nicotine vaping products tend to ignore the lifesaving potential of this harm-reducing alternative to conventional cigarettes. One of those politicians, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D–Ill.), responded with a letter to the Chicago Sun-Times that proves my point. Krishnamoorthi exaggerates the threat posed by underage vaping, conflates vaping with tobacco use, and insists "there's simply no evidence" that e-cigarettes help smokers quit.
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- Category: September 2021
The FDA recently blew past a court-set deadline for reviewing nicotine vaping products, a move that has left the entire vaping industry in legal limbo. Steve Forbes on vaping versus smoking tobacco, on what the FDA is getting wrong and on how it is prohibiting smokers from employing a relatively safe, highly effective tool to give up a habit that is the leading cause of lung cancer.
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- Category: September 2021
Smoking is highly likely to worsen the severity of COVID-19 and the risk of dying from the infection, finds a large UK Biobank study published online in the respiratory journal Thorax.
It is the first study of its kind to pool observational and genetic data on smoking and COVID-19 to strengthen the evidence base.
The evidence on whether smoking is associated with a greater likelihood of more severe COVID-19 infection has been inconsistent, note the researchers.
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- Category: September 2021
Asia-Pacific countries should challenge the World Health Organization’s stance against vaping, an innovative product that has helped reduce smoking rate in New Zealand, the United Kingdom, France and Canada, according to consumer groups.
The Nicotine Consumers Union of the Philippines (NCUP) and Vaper Ako particularly asked the Philippine government to join the four vaping-friendly countries in rebuking the extremist stance of the WHO on vaping that deprives millions of smokersbetter alternatives to combustible cigarettes.
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- Category: September 2021
“Huge step backwards for recovery, it sucks!” was how one participant in a new study described the smoking ban in drug treatment programs in Philadelphia.
The exploratory study* was conducted by Dr. Casey Bohrman, a researcher at West Chester University, in partnership with Angels in Motion. It used both qualitative and quantitative methods to examine how the policy was impacting people with a substance use disorder (SUD) who also smoke. Over half, 56 percent, of people with SUD smoke cigarettes.
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- Category: September 2021
Every year, 21,000 Australians die prematurely from smoking cigarettes. That is more deaths than from alcohol, plus prescription drugs, plus illicit drugs, plus road crash deaths, plus HIV, plus suicide. Governments have moral and health obligations to reduce smoking-related deaths by adopting policies that minimise the harm caused by the inhalation of tobacco smoke. Vaping provides nicotine without the toxic products of combustion and is far less harmful than smoking. Policies that support vaping could help to reduce the huge toll from smoking-related disease. [...]
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- Category: September 2021
Misinformation threatens progress toward a smoke-free future, reveals a new international survey released [...] by Philip Morris International Inc. (PMI) (NYSE: PM). Well-funded groups continue to promote false narratives and spread confusion even as societal support increases for smoke-free alternatives that are scientifically substantiated to be a better choice for adults than continued smoking.
The survey—fielded among nearly 30,000 adults in 26 countries by independent research firm Povaddo and commissioned by PMI—reveals that too many adult smokers remain unaware that better alternatives to cigarettes exist, [...]
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- Category: September 2021
This segment of What’s Ahead sharply admonishes the Food and Drug Administration’s cruel and wrongheaded crusade against e-cigarettes. The agency refuses to green-light even a single application, putting the vaping industry in legal limbo. It should follow the science, as other countries are doing.
Real world experience and studies have demonstrated that nicotine vaping is 95% safer than traditional cigarettes. It’s by far the most effective way to stop smoking—better than nicotine patches, gums and other antismoking aids. [...]
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- Category: September 2021
South Africa’s Control of Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Bill, was first announced last year by Deputy Health Minister Joe Phaahla, and is currently being reviewed. The Bill proposes stricter e-cig regulations, and restrictions on the use, marketing, and sales of certain tobacco products in South Africa. Moreover, it would set in place a provision allowing the government to implement a “100% public cigarette ban”.
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- Category: September 2021
Clive Bates, the former director of the anti-smoking campaign group ASH, told journalists at a briefing last week that Britain needs to push internationally for a change of policy to save millions of lives. It came as Parliamentarians have called for the UK Government to use its Brexit freedoms to have a “big independent voice” at the United Nations (UN) COP9 summit on tobacco harm to push for greater use of e-cigarettes as an alternative.
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- Category: September 2021
On October 1, domestic and international purchases of liquid nicotine, including products containing liquid nicotine, will require a prescription. This is a result of the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) amending the Poisons Standard for nicotine.
But, in reality, not much has changed. Nevertheless, there are several public health implications, both positive and negative, to the TGA’s decision. First, these changes to nicotine scheduling will make it legal for consumers with a valid prescription to obtain Nicotine Vaping Products (NVPs) – like e-cigarettes – domestically from local and online Australian-based pharmacies.
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- Category: September 2021
The e-cigarette or vaping product-use-associated lung injury outbreak in the United States has raised concerns about the potential health effects of cannabis vaping, a method of cannabis use that is becoming increasingly popular. We used 2017-2019 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data to estimate yearly prevalence and trends of past-30-day cannabis use and vaping among US adults. We used multivariable logistic regression to evaluate the associations of cannabis vaping with high-risk behaviors, asthma, and other respiratory symptoms. [...]