Read articles from United States of America

December 23, 2021 by denverpost.com

On the heels of a defeat to ban flavored smoking and vaping products in Denver, state lawmakers are considering a flavor ban that could be enacted across Colorado.

Several cities have passed similar bans, but an attempt to do so in Denver failed after Mayor Michael Hancock vetoed the City Council vote and members failed to overturn his veto. He and other councilors cited a need to have statewide regulations, saying a ban in Denver wouldn’t achieve the goal of keeping these products out of the hands of teens when surrounding municipalities didn’t have the same regulations.

December 22, 2021 by kptv.com

An ordinance banning the sale of flavored tobacco products went into effect in Washington County earlier this month, but some opponents of the law are now gathering signatures to put the measure on the ballot.

County commissioners passed the ordinance by a 3-2 vote at the beginning of November. It bans the sale of several types of flavored products including flavored vapes, chewing tobacco, cigars and cigarettes.

Plain Pantry CEO Johnathan Polonsky says it’s hurting local businesses that rely on those sales.

December 15, 2021 by nypost.com

For the first time in 20 years, smoking rates are on the rise. That mournful finding ought to be reinvigorating the effort to stamp out cigarettes. Astoundingly, the opposite is happening.

A new tax on nicotine vaping, which Democrats have tried to inject into the Build Back Better bill, would drag more than 2.5 million Americans back to cigarettes, according to National Institutes of Health-funded academic research. And just weeks ago, the Food and Drug Administration effectively outlawed nearly all vaping products, though they’ve proven to be the single most effective method to quit smoking ever devised.

December 14, 2021 by journalnow.com

Graphic warning labels, designed to cover the top half of the fronts and backs of cigarette packages, have been threatened about since at least 2009.

[...]

The government fired the first shot way back in 1964 with the landmark surgeon general’s report that broke the news that cigarettes were bad, very bad in fact for those who’d care to breathe unaided or avoid gruesome, premature deaths. [...] Now, though, news about warning labels barely rates a raised eyebrow.

The government, through an act of Congress called the Tobacco Control Act of 2009, began requiring full color, graphic labels showing such things as smoke billowing through a tracheal hole or a cadaver on packaging.

December 14, 2021 by vaportechnology.org

The vapor product industry is an important part of the US economy.  About $8.1 billion in vapor sales lead to 133,600 jobs and $22.1 billion in economic activity. About 35,000 of these jobs are held by people working for the over 9,850 independent adult-only, retail vape shops located across the country.  Even so, the number of independent adult-only, vape shops has fallen by 27 percent since 2018 as a result of new state and federal taxes and regulations. Congress is currently deciding whether to impose a new tax only on vapor products of 2.78-cents per milligram of nicotine, believing that such a tax would “equalize” or create “parity” with cigarette taxes.

December 14, 2021 by reason.com

Senate Democrats have nixed the idea of imposing a new federal tax on nicotine vaping products, which would have disadvantaged a potentially lifesaving alternative to cigarettes and violated President Joe Biden's pledge to avoid raising taxes on American households that earn less than $400,000 a year. The Wall Street Journal reports that Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D–Nev.), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, "pushed to remove the tax," which was included in the House version of the Build Back Better spending package, and "helped force its deletion."

December 09, 2021 by news-medical.net

Electronic cigarettes with cigarette-like nicotine delivery may help some people stop smoking cigarettes, according to a new study [...] By switching to e-cigarettes, the researchers said tobacco users may reduce their exposure to certain carcinogens, or cancer causing substances.

For six months, the research team followed 520 smokers who were looking to reduce their cigarette consumption by at least 50% but had no plans to quit. They observed whether the use of various electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) – used by around 10 million U.S. adults – led to reduced cigarette consumption. [...]

December 08, 2021 by triblive.com

Recently, the CDC published overwhelmingly positive news: Youth vaping is down by 60% or more since the high watermark (in 2019) of kids using e-cigarettes. But you’d have to use your own calculator to figure that out if you only read the CDC’s report on the data. And the FDA Center for Tobacco Products’ interpretation also plays fast and loose with the numbers, suggesting many more teens and youth are using e-cigarettes than what the data actually show.

I agree with the CDC and the FDA: Youth should not vape or use tobacco products of any kind, especially combustible cigarettes. [...]

December 07, 2021 by denverpost.com

The Denver City Council approved a ban on most flavored tobacco and vaping products Monday night.

Come July 2023, the only places adults will be able to legally buy any flavored smokables in the city will be at hookah lounges or shops selling pipe tobacco and handmade cigars. [...] The vote brings to a close a months-long debate between council members who argued that limiting access to flavored products was essential to fighting youth smoking and vaping and members who viewed the ban as government overreach more likely to hurt small business owners than make a dent in the youth nation’s vaping epidemic.

December 02, 2021 by journalnow.com