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- Category: June 2018
Leaders of national bodies for e-cigarette users ranked Thailand as the worst country in the world to be a vaper or user of electronic cigarettes. In a survey of the 36 national organizations, 33 of them nominated Thailand as having the most restriction for vaping. Australia, with 18 nominations, was considered the second worst country while India was third with 16.
“Thailand has a draconian approach with tourists as well as local people regularly getting arrested for vaping. [...]
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- Category: June 2018
Earlier this month, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb blamed e-cigarette companies for teen vaping when addressing the American Society of Clinical Oncology. “They better step up and step up soon – to address these trends along with us. So far, I must say, I’ve mostly been disappointed by the tepid response from companies that know that a meaningful portion of their sales are being derived from kids. The e-cig companies have a chance to do something about it. [...]
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- Category: June 2018
Smoking causes heart disease, stroke and lung cancer, among many others. However, smoking-related diseases are not caused by nicotine.
The sickness and death caused by smoking is due to the burning of dried tobacco leaf, which produces poisonous gases, such as carbon monoxide, formaldehyde and cyanide that are inhaled by the smoker.
This was the key message of two Australian doctors, who are advocating for tobacco-harm reduction in their country, [...]
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- Category: June 2018
COUNCIL tenants face a ban on smoking in their own homes under plans being considered by SNP ministers. In a push for a "tobacco-free generation", the Scottish Government said it is looking to crackdown across the social housing sector. This would see local authorities and housing associations introduce "tobacco-free clauses in tenancy agreements". Residents could also be offered "smoke-free housing alternatives" in a move segregating those who light-up.
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- Category: June 2018
We are human and will inevitably fall short of the official advice. So just as we encourage teenagers to use contraception, we should make it easier for adults to switch to safer (but not risk-free) alternatives. Public Health England have to their credit highlighted the relative benefits of vaping by pointing out that it’s at least 95 per cent safer than smoking. In other words, it would take 20 non-smokers to take up vaping to outweigh the good of one smoker switching the other way.
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- Category: June 2018
The researchers note that children and adolescents are highly susceptible to nicotine addiction, which affects brain development. The risk of becoming lifelong tobacco consumers is increased for young people who become addicted to nicotine. Among youth, there has been an increase in the use of nicotine-delivering electronic cigarettes worldwide. In addition to physical dependence, youth are susceptible to the social and environmental influences to use electronic cigarettes.
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- Category: June 2018
I come to praise Juul, not to bury it.
As the electronic cigarette brand has exploded in popularity over the past year — its sales now amounting to more than half of all e-cigarette sales — it has developed a terrible reputation in the public health community. [...]
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- Category: June 2018
Last week, on 7 June, the Canadian Senate approved Bill C-45. That’s the law that will, eventually, make cannabis legal for any Canadian adult. Meanwhile, in Australia, the bureaucrats remain hamstrung by the nanny-staters. So hamstrung, they can’t even agree to legalise e-cigarettes, despite widespread public support. Most Australians want electronic cigarettes legalised, according to a survey by the nation’s peak retail body, but government and anti-smoking advocates maintain [...]
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- Category: June 2018
In these last few months we have witnessed a number of alarming media headlines about how teen vaping is apparently out of control, and how Juul is addicting a whole new generation to nicotine. Perhaps prompted by these headlines, the Lawmakers on a House Appropriations subcommittee had urged the FDA to do more to prevent youth access to the products. “I am concerned that FDA’s silence on e-cigarettes could open the door to the next public health emergency,” said Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y. at the time. [...]
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- Category: June 2018
According to a study published in 2016 by the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center, more than six million tobacco smokers in the EU have succeeded in completely stopping their tobacco consumption with the help of e-cigarettes. Another nine million smokers have been able to at least reduce their dependence on tobacco cigarettes by using the electronic alternative. A German study from 2017 found that 99 percent of all e-cigarette users are current or former tobacco smokers.
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- Category: June 2018
Should e-cigarettes be subject to the state's 40 percent tobacco tax even though the liquids they use often contain nicotine that isn't derived from tobacco?
The answer to that is, "Yes," a Commonwealth Court panel ruled Friday.
However, the court also gave the vaping industry at least a temporary partial win, ruling the tobacco tax cannot be applied to the component parts of an e-cigarette when those parts are sold separately.
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- Category: June 2018
An anti-tobacco use group warned on the proliferation of unregistered vaping products that has threatened the gains of President Duterte’s smoke-free policy citing the gadgets contain toxic chemicals like formaldehyde used to embalm dead bodies based on the recent study at Berkley University. With this, the New Vois Association of the Philippine (NVAP) warned the local government units (LGU) to initiate measures relative to this threat to sustain the government’s anti-smoking initiatives.
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- Category: June 2018
A group of tobacco control experts published an open letter this week in the New Zealand Medical Journal calling for bold new actions from the New Zealand Government to achieve the Smokefree 2025 goal.
The group, which included health and tobacco experts from the Cancer Society and the University of Otago, Wellington, is calling for the vision of the 2010 Māori Affairs Select Committee Inquiry on the tobacco industry to be revived. That vision included a reduction of tobacco retail outlets, [...]
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- Category: June 2018
Despite their popularity, little is known about the health impacts of electronic cigarettes. New research investigates the chemicals used to flavor these products and their effects on cardiovascular health. New research, published in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology, concludes that the chemicals used to create these flavors could be damaging blood vessels and the cells that line the inside of the heart.
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- Category: June 2018
Organic compounds known as ‘aldehydes’ are primary source of damage to DNA and also suppress its ability to repair that damage. When it comes to cancer caused by cigarette smoke, experts may have misplaced the bulk of the blame. According to a new study, scientists at NYU School of Medicine and Rutgers University have found that chemicals called aldehydes — present in tobacco smoke in high quantities — are the primary cause of damage to DNA and suppress its ability to repair damage. [...]
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- Category: June 2018
It is interesting to apply current thinking to decisions taken years ago. Whilst our greater knowledge today can make previous behaviours and thinking seem odd or plain wrong, there are also instances when applying todays approach would have stopped progress. [...] We know that two out of three smokers will die from smoking related illness. On average, smokers live ten years less than non-smokers. [...]
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- Category: June 2018
My colleagues relentlessly mock me for having a vape with Adam Smith’s head displayed on its control screen. But since their emergence onto the market, e-cigarettes have become a key part of smoking cessation efforts in the UK and beyond.
Unlike many other countries, successive governments here have adopted a broadly liberal harm reduction approach when it comes to vaping. [...]
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- Category: June 2018
Smoking rates among U.S. adults have hit an all-time low, new estimates say.
Approximately 14% of American adults said they were smokers last year, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). While that’s still a significant number, encompassing more than 30 million Americans, it’s down from 16% the year before and roughly 20% in 2006. It’s also a significant drop-off from rates recorded around 50 years ago, [...]
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- Category: June 2018
A self-confessed “nanny state” senator has urged the government to develop a policy on e-cigarettes to reduce the number of smokers in Ireland. The Department of Health has said it does not have enough evidence to recommend vaping as part of the Tobacco Free Ireland programme. The initiative aims to reduce smoking from the current rate of 22 per cent to under 5 per cent by 2025.
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- Category: June 2018
Vaping helps people stop smoking - even when they don't want to, according to new research from the University of East Anglia. [...] Lead researcher Dr Caitlin Notley from UEA's Norwich Medical School said: "E-cigarettes are at least 95 per cent less harmful than tobacco smoking, and they are now the most popular aid to quitting smoking in the UK.
"However the idea of using e-cigarettes to stop smoking, and particularly long-term use, remains controversial.