Read articles from United States of America

May 12, 2022 by cn2.com

The SC Legislation Ends on Thursday, May 12 and there is one Bill in particular that Dr. Dave Keeley is interested in talking about.

Dr. Keeley, semi-retired in the areas of public health and family medicine, says the big news is the latest tobacco survey showing that 30% of South Carolina Youth are still involved using tobacco products. He says the bulk of that is in the use of electronic cigarette form. The big concern lately is the attraction of flavored products.

May 11, 2022 by vaping360.com

Hard work by vaping advocates helped kill flavor ban bills backed by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids in two state legislatures. In a year thought to be ripe for state-level flavor bans, so far only Hawaii’s legislature has passed a bill prohibiting vape flavors in 2022.

Even though the FDA may never authorize any flavored vape products, shutting down state and local flavor bans is important because the FDA could be tied up for years fighting legal challenges to their Marketing Denial Orders (MDOs).

May 11, 2022 by nytimes.com

As regulation of the tobacco industry has grown more and more extensive in recent decades, menthol cigarettes have been an exception. They account for more than one-third of cigarette sales in the United States and are especially dangerous because the menthol enhances nicotine’s already potent addictive effects.

Now the Food and Drug Administration is moving to ban these cigarettes, smoked by more than 18 million people ages 12 and over. Among Black smokers, 85 percent smoke menthol cigarettes, compared with 30 percent of white smokers. Banning them in the United States is a crucial step in the decades-long effort to reduce smoking, especially among young people. [...]

May 10, 2022 by filtermag.org

On May 3, the Hawaii House of Representatives passed legislation that would ban the sale of flavored vaping products. Previously passed by the Senate, the bill now moves to the desk of Governor David Ige, a Democrat. If he signs it, Hawaii will become the fifth state to prohibit flavored e-cigarettes, joining Rhode Island, New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts. [...] The industry and consumer advocates, of course, oppose the bill on the grounds that it will strip from the market the flavored products that adults prefer to help them switch from cigarettes—deterring the adoption of safer products and prompting current vapers to potentially return to smoking. [...]

May 04, 2022 by time.com

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is moving forward with plans to ban menthol cigarettes and all flavored cigars—policies that agency officials say could help prevent some of the roughly 500,000 U.S. deaths linked to tobacco each year.

“The actions we are proposing can help significantly reduce youth initiation and increase the chances that current smokers quit,” FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf said in a statement. “It is clear that these efforts will help save lives.” But whether the proposed menthol ban will work as intended is a matter of active debate.

May 03, 2022 by medpagetoday.com

On April 28, the FDA announced regulations to prohibit menthol as a characterizing flavor in cigarettes and all characterizing flavors (other than tobacco) in cigars. [...]

Why Ban Menthol in Cigarettes?

First, the basics: Menthol is a regulated drug when used in products like cough medicine and topical pain relievers, but in cigarettes and cigars it is used as a non-medicinal "flavor" additive with a minty aroma and taste that makes it less irritating to inhale smoke. Menthol also interacts with nicotine in the brain to increase addiction.

May 03, 2022 by reason.com

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is moving fast to close off what seems to be the last remaining legal option for vaping companies that want to provide the e-liquid flavors that former smokers overwhelmingly prefer. Exercising regulatory authority that Congress recently gave it, the FDA has set a May 14 deadline for seeking "premarket" approval of vaping products that deliver nicotine derived from sources other than tobacco. Companies that fail to submit applications by then, the agency warns, "will be subject to FDA enforcement."

May 03, 2022 by lajollalight.com

Although I have been studying electronic cigarettes for several years, sometimes it feels like the same questions keep coming back around: Are e-cigarettes safe? What are the health effects of vaping e-cigarettes? Is vaping better than smoking?

These questions come from parents, policy-makers, reporters, patients and health care workers. However, there are many parents here in La Jolla who could tell you firsthand that e-cigarettes are addictive and dangerous. These parents learned about the dangers of vaping e-cigarettes when their own children became addicts.

May 02, 2022 by filtermag.org

The announcements have been years in the making: On April 28, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced proposed rules for a ban on menthol cigarettes, after a recent announcement saying it would move forward on a menthol ban, following a previous announcement saying a menthol ban was imminent. [...] Explicitly, the proposed law would prohibit “menthol as a characterizing flavor in cigarettes”—meaning that “a cigarette or any of its components or parts [...] shall not contain, as a constituent (including a smoke constituent) or additive, menthol that is a characterizing flavor of the tobacco product or tobacco smoke.”

May 02, 2022 by thehealthy.com

The federal agency is advancing two tobacco product standards that would ban menthol cigarettes and all flavored cigars. These new standards aim to build on the 2009 landmark Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which banned all forms of flavoring agents in cigarettes except for menthol. The National Library of Medicine explains that companies first began adding menthol to cigarettes in the 1920s, but the ingredient didn’t become widely used until the 1950s and ’60s. Today, the American Thoracic Society says an estimated 25 percent of all cigarettes in the U.S. contain menthol.