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- Category: January 2020
BRITS could be hit with a hefty fine and road ban for vaping when behind the wheel.
Motorists who use e-cigarettes while driving can find themselves in hot water with police if the clouds of vapour obscure their vision. While vaping isn't illegal, drivers who are distracted by e-cigarette smoke can be prosecuted for driving without due care and attention.
The vape clouds can produce a similar visual impairments to glare from the sun, which can often cause fatal accidents.
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- Category: January 2020
For the first time, in a study conducted in mice, researchers found that tobacco smoke from a hookah caused blood to function abnormally and be more likely to clot and quickly form blood clots, which can increase the risk of heart attack or stroke, according to new research [...] "Hookah smoking, which is becoming more popular in Western countries, is perceived as less harmful than cigarettes, yet hookahs carry a toxic profile that is thought to be comparable or to even exceed that of traditional cigarettes [...] said Fadi Khasawneh, Ph.D., associate professor [...]
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- Category: January 2020
The research is in. Scientists have discovered a cure for cannabis addiction — and it turns out to be cannabis!
That was the gist of a headline-generating paper published in JAMA Internal Medicine, a Journal of the American Medical Association, which wasn’t trying to be satirical.
The July 2019 report, titled “Nabiximols for the Treatment of Cannabis Dependence: A Randomized Clinical Trial,” described an Australian study that probed the use of a standardized cannabis extract for treating cannabis dependence.
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- Category: January 2020
After months of considering a complete ban on flavored electronic cigarettes, the Trump administration announced a new policy on Jan. 2 that soon will forbid the sale of some, but not all, flavored vapes.
According to the Food and Drug Administration, the agency responsible for the policy, the change is an attempt to limit the alarming rise in the use of e-cigarettes by teens — who overwhelmingly prefer flavors — while balancing the potential benefits to adults who already smoke.
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- Category: January 2020
According to multiple studies, e-cigarette use among adolescents is associated with subsequent smoking initiation. However, little is known about its effect on the transition from smoking initiation to daily smoking. Among French adolescents aged 17, 16.8 % declared current e-cigarette use (1.9 % reported daily use) and 34.1 % cigarette smoking (25.1 % reported daily smoking). Among ever-smokers, adolescents who declared having ever used e-cigarettes were less likely than those who did not to transition to daily smoking at 17: RR = 0.62 95 %CI [0.60 – 0.64]. [...]
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- Category: January 2020
For the first time in history, smoke-free alternatives to cigarettes are available that can make a profound difference for people who smoke.
Of course, the best choice for these individuals is to quit tobacco and nicotine altogether. And for those who have never smoked, especially youth, the best option is never to start using any tobacco or nicotine product.
However, thanks to rapid advances in science and technology, better alternatives now exist for those adults who would otherwise continue to smoke: Smoke-free products, including e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products, can be a much better choice than cigarettes. [...]
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- Category: January 2020
Shortly before efforts to legalize marijuana failed in the State Senate last June, the measure’s sponsor made a dire prediction: The issue would be dead in 2020.
State Sen. Liz Krueger, a Manhattan Democrat, believed then that lawmakers would fear taking on such a controversial issue in an election year.
“I’ve changed my mind,’’ Krueger said last week.
The author of the Senate bill, Krueger believes election-year politics are no longer the threat she thought they'd be. Now, she and other lawmakers believe the plan has a better chance of getting approved in the coming months than at any point in 2019.
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- Category: January 2020
The World Health Organization (WHO) has finally admitted that e-cigarettes are less harmful compared to cigarettes.
The acknowledgment came from WHO representative Dr. Ranti Fayokun, scientist in the National Capacity-Tobacco Control Prevention of Noncommunicable Diseases during the hearing on vaping regulation conducted by the House of Representatives last month.
Fayokun’s admission was made amid the organization’s cautious stand on e-cigarettes despite the mounting scientific evidence that they are less harmful than traditional cigarettes.
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- Category: January 2020
President Trump laid into Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar over decisions made by his administration regarding the ban on most flavored e-cigarettes.
According to Axios, citing two sources, the president called Azar during an Oval Office meeting with campaign advisers when the issue of health care came up and said, “I should never have done that fucking vaping thing.” The New York Times also reported about the president lashing out at Azar and using the expletive.
Axios goes on to report that Trump has not changed his mind on his administration’s current vaping policy. [...]
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- Category: January 2020
A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that one sixth of patients who use e cigarettes containing marijuana are at a risk of lung injuries. These e cigarettes containing marijuana products were all obtained from legal dispensaries says the CDC. The CDC warns the public against the use of these THC-containing e-cigarettes or vaping products. This latest report from the CDC comes after several reports of acute lung injuries seen with vaping especially using productions containing Tetra hydrocannabinol or THC. [...]
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- Category: January 2020
E-cigarette retailers have pledged to go to court to fight any attempt by the government to ban sales of flavoured vaping products.
Health minister Simon Harris said last month he wanted to ban flavours such as bubblegum and strawberry, which he claimed were designed to be attractive to children. [...] The Irish Vape Vendors Association, which represents independent e-cigarette shops, said this weekend it would “oppose any widespread ban of e-liquid flavours, and if this must take the form of a legal challenge then we are willing to do this”.
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- Category: January 2020
According to the Vapor Technology Association, in 2018, the industry created 451 direct vaping-related jobs, including manufacturing, retail, and wholesale jobs in Hawaii, which generated $18 million in wages alone.[1] Moreover, the industry has created hundreds of secondary jobs in the Aloha State, bringing the total economic impact in 2018 to $100,745,600. In the same year, Hawaii received more than $9 million in state taxes attributable to the vaping industry. [...]
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- Category: January 2020
This paper turned up in my weekly search of PubMed. [...] The commentary claims to show the “invalidity” of the statements made by Public Health England (PHE) and the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) regarding the relative risk of vaping and smoking – in short that vaping is likely to be at least 95% lower risk than smoking. As this is an important harm-reduction risk communication, it is worth asking: how valid is this critique?
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- Category: January 2020
Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg on Tuesday said he would ban the sale of all flavored e-cigarettes and raise taxes on traditional cigarettes if he wins the White House.
Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, said he would also push to reduce the amount of nicotine in traditional cigarettes, e-cigarettes and other tobacco products to "nonaddictive levels."
Tobacco control has been one of Bloomberg's top priorities as a philanthropist and as a politician.
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- Category: January 2020
The latest episode of the Vaping Weekly podcast is an experiment in format and an interview with world-renowned smoking cessation expert Marewa Glover, director of The Centre of Research Excellence for Indigenous Sovereignty & Smoking, in Auckland, New Zealand.
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- Category: January 2020
Smoking tobacco is strongly associated with negative affect, psychological distress, mental health disorders – particularly depression, anxiety disorders, bipolar disorders and schizophrenia. Child physical and sexual abuse, and parental smoking are strongly associated with smoking initiation. Negative affect, such as grief, is a primary trigger to smoke and to relapse to smoking. The disproportionately high rates of child neglect and physical and sexual abuse, and suicide, likely is a significant contributor to the high smoking rates observed among the Kalaallit.
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- Category: January 2020
Vape store owners in Halifax Regional Municipality worry that an impending provincial ban of flavoured e-liquids for nicotine vaporizers will force them to close their businesses.
Bill McEachern owns and operates The Cloud Factory in Dartmouth. He is one of the 65 vape shop owners in the province who will be affected by the ban. He said his employees are hoping for the best, but planning for the worst.
“We’re just holding on to hope that it’s not set in stone. We’re trying to be more hopeful,” he said.
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- Category: January 2020
Anyone caught selling menthol cigarettes could be fined up to €1,000 as from May 20, when EU-wide rules come into force.
New tobacco regulations that form part of the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive come into force in the coming months, and they bring with them significant fines if not adhered to.
When contacted, Superintendent of Public Health Charmaine Gauci said those who are caught by the authorities selling such products could be liable to a fine of between €200 and €1,000, in line with the law.
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- Category: January 2020
Washington, DC--Diagnosing EVALI--the e-cigarette, or vaping, product use associated lung injury illness that's recently garnered national attention--can be challenging. Initial symptoms may resemble pneumonia or go unrecognized, according to case analysis in the Journal of the American College of Emergency Physicians (JACEP) Open, a new open access journal.
"Electronic cigarettes and vaping products are sending thousands of smokers, especially teens, to emergency departments," said Kaitlyn Works, MD, an emergency physician with Vanderbilt University Medical Center and lead study author. [...]
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- Category: January 2020
Restaurants have changed in more than a few ways over the past 50 years. But the biggest shift, the one that has fundamentally changed what it’s like to eat in a restaurant or spend time in a bar, might be the switch to smoke-free dining rooms — These days, being asked to choose “smoking or non smoking” is something of a novelty. The transition to smoke-free bars and restaurants began with the rise of the anti-smoking movement in the 1960s as the dangers of cigarettes became clear and advocates argued on behalf of restaurant and bar employees, who had no choice as to whether or not they would be inhaling secondhand smoke.