- Details
- Category: December 2022
There’s an oversimplified notion that only Big Tobacco supports vaping. On the contrary, thousands of small businesses, selling vapor products manufactured by small companies, are the backbone of tobacco harm reduction in the United States. Until recently, I ran one of them.
Much of my family smoked cigarettes. After a heart attack at age 29, my son switched to vaping. He then opened a vape shop in Brainerd, a small town in Minnesota, to help others quit smoking. That included me; I was his first accidental quitter. We both quit smoking using a rainbow sherbet flavor.
- Details
- Category: December 2022
On February 6, 2020, the US Food and Drug Administration banned the sale of many flavored e-cigarettes, with some important exceptions. The researchers point to policy loopholes as the main reasons the policy failed to push people to quit. Survey results, published in Tobacco Control, show that less than 5% of the 3,500 adult e-cig users who responded to the survey quit using e-cigs in response to the flavored e-cig ban. The rest of the respondents switched to other forms or flavors of e-cigs not covered by the ban or other types of tobacco products.
- Details
- Category: December 2022
Early in November, a website called Tobacco Tactics, which calls itself “the essential source for rigorous research on the tobacco industry,” posted information about a small organization called the International Association on Smoking Control and Harm Reduction, or SCOHRE. [...] Tobacco Tactics’ 1,000-word description of SCOHRE is a model of innuendo and guilt by association. The founders of SCHORE, including a Norwegian tobacco control expert named Karl Erik Lund, stood accused of having “tobacco industry links” as well as “connections” to the Foundation for A Smoke Free World, which is funded by Philip Morris International.
- Details
- Category: December 2022
The Netherlands will ban all e-cigarette flavors except tobacco on October 1 next year, according to an amendment the government published in the Staatscourant. From then, there will be no more banana, biscuit, or fruit loops flavored vape liquids or e-cigarettes, only a limited number of tobacco flavors. The ban also covers pre-filled e-cigarettes and disposable vapes. The government announced in 2020 that it planned to ban flavored e-cigarettes and vapes because they see it as a stepping stone for teenagers toward actual cigarettes. Now it’s clear that stores will have until 30 September 2023 to sell their existing stocks.
- Details
- Category: December 2022
Adolescent cannabis abuse has increased 245% since 2000 in the US, while alcohol abuse has steadily declined over the same period.
That’s according to a national, peer-reviewed study tracking intentional misuse and abuse reported to the National Poison Data System (NPDS) up until 2020.
Findings [...] find over 338,000 instances of intentional abuse or misuse amongst American children aged 6-18.
The majority of ingestions occurred in males (58.3%), and more than 80% of all reported exposure cases occurred in young people aged 13 to 18.
In total, over 32% of instances resulted in “worse than minor clinical outcomes”.
- Details
- Category: January 2023
A new Western study shows that university students who were regularly vaping wanted to cut back after learning about the threat the habit could pose to their health.
Ph.D. candidate Babac Salmani and Faculty of Health Sciences professor Harry Prapavessis have published a paper in the Journal of Health Psychology showing vaping intentions—and, to a lesser degree, the behavior itself—can be reduced after learning about the potential consequences.
- Details
- Category: December 2022
With about eight million persons dying annually due to smoking-related illness and outright quitting being difficult for most smokers, Africa and, indeed, the global community cannot afford to pay lip service to tobacco harm reduction, experts have warned.
The experts from different fields spoke at an exchange programme with the theme, Harm Reduction: Making a Difference in Africa.
Speaking on the need to prioritize harm reduction, a cross section of the discussants noted that there are plethora of researches which suggest that harm reduction is a veritable tool to lower death and diseases.
- Details
- Category: January 2023
“People smoke for nicotine but die from the burning of tobacco at over 350°C. The combustion of tobacco generates smoke and ash containing a toxic mix of chemicals that causes serious health effects, including fatal lung diseases and cancer,” said Dr. Peter Harper.
“Nicotine does not cause cancer. Doctors even prescribe nicotine replacement therapy [NRT] to help smokers quit. Exposure to the carcinogens present in the smoke of combustible cigarette is what causes cancer. There is a dose-response relationship – the greater the exposure to a carcinogen, the higher the risk to develop cancer,” said Dr. David Khayat.
- Details
- Category: December 2022
On the third anniversary of the world's worst tobacco policy, India's prohibition of the manufacture, import and sale of vaping and other products that are much safer than smoking, I give a short (3 min) summary of what's wrong with this policy under five headings.
- Details
- Category: January 2023
Some cigarette companies have started to talk about replacing cigarettes with less harmful alternatives, which might include nicotine vaping products (NVPs), heated tobacco products (HTPs) and oral nicotine delivery products (ONDPs). We consider market competition as a primary driver of whether cigarette companies follow through on their stated intentions. We focus on the behavior of cigarette companies in the US. We compare competition in the pre- and post-2012 time periods, analyze the impact of the growth in NVPs on smoking prevalence and cigarette company profits, and examine the potential future role of competition.
- Details
- Category: December 2022
On November 29, R.J. Reynolds and other tobacco and vapor companies filed an emergency application for writ of injunction with the United States Supreme Court, requesting that enforcement of California’s nicotine flavor ban be halted.
The move will be framed as Big Tobacco’s attempt to thwart the will of California voters, who on November 8 overwhelmingly passed a ballot measure—Proposition 31—to ban the sale of almost all flavored nicotine products (hookah and some premium cigars are exempt). The legislation on the ballot, SB 793, had been delayed by constant pushback from tobacco harm reduction (THR) advocates and the industry. [...]
- Details
- Category: January 2023
The past week has seen some discussion – finally – of practical, workable solutions to controlling the black market in vaping products that is targeting Australian kids.
It’s something of a pity it is taking place after the closure of the government’s consultation period on future policy in the area, which is of great concern to millions of parents around the country.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), the agency that currently oversees the regulation of nicotine vaping products (NVPs), closed its doors to public submissions on January 16.
- Details
- Category: December 2022
Dentists are increasingly seeing the side effects of vaping in their patients' mouths including stained teeth, gum disease, bad breath, tooth decay, and in extreme cases wounds from exploding e-cigarettes.
Dental clinicians said the impacts of e-cigarette use was especially increasing among young people and teenagers as their use soared amid a thriving black market.
Pitt Street Dental Centre principal surgeon Michael Cai said the impact of vaping on teeth was just as horrible as smoking and said he’d seen two patients after their vapes exploded, leaving chemical burns on their mouths and gums.
- Details
- Category: January 2023
Rabat - Despite a decline among younger generations, smoking remains prominent across Morocco, with recent studies showing that nearly a quarter of men in the country are regular smokers.
The economic and health cost of tobacco have been well-documented for decades. Lung cancer is the most well-known side effect of smoking, but its economic cost and manufacturing circumstances have also come under the spotlight lately.
There remains one major issue, however, that despite efforts remains endemic according to many in the country: secondhand smoke.
- Details
- Category: December 2022
In a fact sheet titled “Flavored E-cigarettes Hook Kids,” the U.S.-based Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids asserts that “Flavored e-cigarettes are undermining the nation’s overall efforts to reduce youth tobacco use and putting a new generation of kids at risk of nicotine addiction and the serious health harms that result from tobacco use.” Let us call this “the activist proposition.”
The challenge with simple but false activist propositions is that refuting them can require a lengthy embrace of more complex arguments. [...]
- Details
- Category: January 2023
On January 26, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized three heated tobacco products manufactured by Philip Morris International. The agency issued marketing granted orders (MGOs) for three tobacco-flavored heat sticks—Marlboro Sienna, Marlboro Bronze and Marlboro Amber, all of which can be used with PMI’s IQOS device.
In 2019, the FDA had authorized IQOS and handful of other Marlboro HeatSticks through its premarket tobacco product application process (PMTA), in which PMI had to demonstrate that these products would be “appropriate for the protection of public health” [...]
- Details
- Category: December 2022
Brussels, BE, Nov. 30, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Today the EU Commission announced in its “Global Health Strategy” that the new guiding principle will be to “prioritise tackling the root causes of ill health”. Unfortunately, the strategy fails to tackle one of the leading causes of ill health — smoking. Tobacco harm reduction must be included in such a strategy to combat smoking-induced illnesses. Michael Landl, Director of the World Vapers’ Alliance, commented:
“The EU Commission is ignoring science and consumer voices again. Tobacco harm reduction must become a key element of all health policies for the EU. [...]
- Details
- Category: January 2023
A mammoth new report on the public health consequences of e-cigarettes finds there is conclusive evidence that e-cigarettes are less dangerous than regular cigarettes, and smokers who switch to vaping will reduce their exposure to lethal toxicants and carcinogens.
Amounting to more than 600 pages, the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine's report attempts to examine the health consequences of e-cigarettes for the population as a whole. All in all, NASEM presents 47 conclusions categorized by different levels of evidence, with "conclusive evidence" being the strongest.
- Details
- Category: December 2022
Health and Aged Care Minister Mark Butler announced a “patchwork quilt” of tobacco-related laws, regulations, instruments and court decisions would be streamlined into a single Act of Parliament. [...]
AMA President Professor Steve Robson said the announcement couldn’t come soon enough as tobacco smoking remains the leading preventable cause of death and disease in Australia.
“The failure to address lax laws curbing the tobacco and vaping industry over the last decade was a lost opportunity in public health policy, which has created the next generation of young people addicted to nicotine,” Professor Robson said.
- Details
- Category: January 2023
Juul Labs has engaged in discussions with at least three major tobacco companies in an attempt to work out an arrangement that would revitalize the cash-strapped vape manufacturer. The talks are still in early stages. It’s unclear if potential partners are interested in buying Juul outright, but some kind of partnership makes sense for all of them. Even purchasing Juul—which means taking on all of the company’s liabilities and reputational problems—could make sense now. Juul has never been weaker and more in need of a savior.