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- Category: October 2018
All tobacco products in Singapore may soon be required to be sold in plain packaging with graphic health warnings covering at least 75 per cent of the packet.
This comes after the Ministry of Health (MOH) announced on Wednesday (Oct 31) that it will introduce standardised packaging for such products sold in Singapore, as part of ongoing efforts for a tobacco-free society. The proposed measures will apply to all tobacco products, including cigarettes, cigarillos, cigars, beedies [...]
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- Category: October 2018
Like a parent who’s just caught the kids vaping in the backyard, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been jolted into realizing that electronic cigarettes are a problem. The agency’s wake-up call came in the form of startling early data from the National Youth Tobacco Survey indicating that e-cigarette use among high school students is up more than 75 percent since last year, and among middle-schoolers by 50 percent.
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- Category: October 2018
Unlike the typical tobacco cigarette, which is made of paper, tobacco, and a filter, each e-cigarette has five components — residual nicotine, plastic, lithium batteries, aluminum, and fabric — each of which has to be disassembled and recycled separately. The products come in various shapes and sizes, from large, refillable tank devices to rechargeable devices that incorporate single-use plastic pods that look like USB flash drives.
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- Category: October 2018
Smoking is one of the biggest killers in Britain today: each year it leads to just under 80,000 deaths and about half a million hospital admissions. The cost to the NHS is estimated to be at least £2 billion.
The good news is that each year tens of thousands of people are giving up smoking with the help of e-cigarettes — devices that mimic the act of smoking but without the toxic tobacco smoke. They are about 95 per cent less harmful than conventional cigarettes.
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- Category: October 2018
When Rafe Poirrier smoked cigarettes, he smoked as soon as he woke, after eating, while driving, and whenever he took a break at work. "I think my favorite (part) was socializing—hanging out with smokers outside an office building, [...]
Physical cravings, combined with environmental, behavioral and personal triggers like those Poirrier experienced, can make quitting very difficult. In fact, a 2009 study showed that simply viewing an image of a person smoking can trigger someone who has recently quit to abandon their newfound resolve.
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- Category: October 2018
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may be ready to drop the hammer on tobacco companies by forcing them to produce cigarettes with virtually no nicotine. Although the agency has been mulling whether to impose a strict new limit, no new pronouncements have been issued. However, an agency staffer recently gave a presentation that suggests the FDA could be readying a decision with potentially severe consequences for Big Tobacco.
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- Category: October 2018
Over 35m people worldwide now use e-cigarettes, according to one estimate. In the US, this includes 4.5% of the adult population. But the rise in vaping has led to a trade in fake e-liquids – the mix of water, glycerol, propylene glycol, flavours and (usually) nicotine used to create the vapour of e-cigarettes.
Fake e-liquids are those that contain ingredients or incorrect concentrations of them that do not match those on the label. In particular, fakes often contain less or more nicotine than their labels claim, or impurities such as other drugs. [...]
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- Category: October 2018
Wrapped around Monday’s Daily Mirror was a big four-page “advertising feature” paid for by Philip Morris International, the big tobacco corporation. It wasn’t advertising cigarettes, because that’s illegal in Britain. Or maybe that “because” is unfair? Perhaps I should say: “It wasn’t advertising cigarettes. Unrelatedly, that’s illegal in Britain.”? Is it unjust of me to suggest that Philip Morris International would even want to advertise cigarettes?
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- Category: October 2018
Canada could soon become the first country in the world to require cigarette manufacturers to include warnings about the dangers of tobacco on individual cigarettes.
The federal government has launched a consultation process looking at regulations around warnings on tobacco products.
One of the most significant ideas being floated in the consultation is a new requirement for “smoking causes cancer” or similar wording to be included on individual cigarettes. [...]
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- Category: October 2018
The Colorado Division of Criminal Justice Office of Research and Statistics on Friday released “Impacts on Marijuana Legalization in Colorado,” a report that compiles and analyzes data on marijuana-related topics including crime, impaired driving, hospitalizations and ER visits, usage rates, effects on youth, and more. “This is exactly the kind of data collection we need to inform our regulatory and law enforcement framework,” said Governor John Hickenlooper. [...]
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- Category: October 2018
E-cigarettes or “vapes” are known as the wildly popular “safe” alternative to cigarettes and tobacco products. Though many see them as harmless, little is known about the direct health effects of the products. This is especially concerning considering that a 2016 survey found more than 2 million U.S. middle and high school students reported using e-cigs within the last 30 days.
Because e-cigs and vapes contain highly addictive nicotine and other potentially harmful agents, I believe they should be included in the, Great American Smokeout [...]
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- Category: October 2018
The largest e-cigarette industry in Australia will be “decimated” after major parties in South Australia united to pass the tightest regulations in the nation, retailers and public health advocates say.
Under amendments to the Tobacco Products Regulation Act, passed by both houses of state parliament and due to be finalised next month, South Australia will be the first jurisdiction to ban sales online or by mail, phone, email or fax, preventing interstate or overseas trade.
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- Category: October 2018
Health policy debates around electronic cigarettes should consider the health of the environment, too, according to an editorial in the American Journal of Public Health. Each stage of the e-cigarette product lifecycle, including mining, manufacturing, using and disposing, could pose a potential environmental harm, wrote Yogi Hale Hendlin [...]
“E-waste is a huge problem globally. Anytime we make something that is disposable, we’re essentially stealing from the future,” said Hendlin.
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- Category: October 2018
In 2015, my now-and-then smoking habit had crept up to two or three cigarettes per day, and a lot more when I was drinking. After one tobacco-laden weekend resulted in a full week of phlegm and coughing, I felt like I had to do something. I was working in Times Square at the time. From the window outside my cubicle, I was face to face with video billboard playing the painfully hip new commercial from the e-cigarette company Juul.
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- Category: October 2018
The Central government's notification that packs of all tobacco products must carry its new warning - a scarier image & messaging and a toll-free number for help in quitting - has gone up in smoke in the Capital!
A Mail Today reality check at scores of shops across the city revealed that the order, effective in letter from September 1, has not been enforced in the past two months.
The Delhi state tobacco control cell admitted that it is flooded with complaints [...]
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- Category: October 2018
Japan has always been a unique country, with a culture that is obsessed with order, cleanliness, discipline but also tinged with some quirkiness not seen anywhere else in the world.
Famously considerate, the way Japan has dealt with the growing global anti-smoking trend is to ban smoking in many places but provide well-ventilated areas away from non-smokers for smokers. Every shopping centre in Tokyo has a smoking room. [...]
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- Category: October 2018
The Finnish Medical Association (FMA) says the import of snus, an orally-ingested tobacco product, should be banned altogether.
As part of its agenda to reduce tobacco use in Finland, a working group of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health proposed in May that the daily limit on snus imports should be lowered from 1 kg to 100 grams.
“Selling snus is illegal in Finland. Therefore it would be more logical to completely prohibit its import, instead of just reducing the allowed amount,” the FMA said in a response to the proposal.
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- Category: October 2018
Advocates for e-cigarettes are perplexed as to why the Trump Food and Drug Administration is taking such an aggressive posture against the industry, especially after other agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency have adopted more industry-friendly policies.
E-cigarette advocates have said they are disappointed in the FDA’s threats of bans on e-cigarette sales in convenience stores and new regulations. The FDA has ratcheted up scrutiny of the burgeoning industry in response to what the agency calls an “epidemic” of e-cigarette use among minors.
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- Category: October 2018
With cannabis becoming more available and legal in certain areas, a new study has revealed that women may be enjoying the high more than men. The research also showed that women are more likely to be addicted to cannabis, because of the female sex hormone, oestrogen. Meanwhile, men are up to four times more likely to try cannabis, and use higher doses more frequently because of their testosterone levels.
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- Category: October 2018
A school-based education program sponsored by electronic cigarette maker Juul Labs was abandoned almost as soon as it was proposed, a company spokesperson confirmed.
The vaping prevention education program was widely criticized by anti-tobacco advocates and several public officials, [...]. Healy, whose office is investigating internet sales of Juul [...] suggesting that previous industry-sponsored school-based anti-tobacco programs were at best ineffective, and at worst increased teens' propensity to start smoking.