Read articles from United Kingdom

January 24, 2024 by vapingpost.com

“Using nicotine products to stop smoking during pregnancy appeared safe,” Professor Peter Hajek of the Wolfson Institute of Population Health, Queen Mary University of London, and lead researcher of the study told Medscape News UK.

January 22, 2024 by cochrane.org

Turning to the results, based on seven studies with two and a half thousand participants, we found high-certainty evidence that people are more likely to stop smoking for at least six months if they use nicotine e-cigarettes rather than (…)

January 22, 2024 by planetofthevapes.co.uk

The government looks set to launch an all-out attack on vaping in an effort to reduce teen vaping as it gears up for a general election later this year. Conservative Party right-wingers are set to oppose measures such as the generational ban on cigarette sales, but a new tax on vape products look troublingly real. In addition, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs plans to crack down on the collection and treatment of disposables.

January 19, 2024 by theguardian.com

People trying to buy illicit synthetic opioids and sedatives online to treat pain, anxiety and insomnia increasingly risk taking a different drug that has caused dozens of deaths among heroin users, a leading expert has warned. Nitazenes – synthetic and extremely powerful drugs implicated in fatalities of chronic powdered heroin users in Birmingham, Bristol and London in recent months – have been detected in illicit supplies of tablets being sold as diazepam and codeine that appeal to a wider market.

January 18, 2024 by news-medical.net

A new analysis of trial data on pregnant smokers, led by researchers at Queen Mary University of London, finds that the regular use of nicotine replacement products during pregnancy is not associated with adverse pregnancy events or poor pregnancy outcomes. The PREP 2 study used data collected from over 1100 pregnant smokers attending 23 hospitals in England and 1 stop-smoking service in Scotland to compare pregnancy outcomes in women who did or did not use nicotine in the form of e-cigarettes (EC) or nicotine patches regularly during their pregnancy. [...]

January 16, 2024 by filtermag.org

People who vape in the United Kingdom are expected to be hit with a substantial new tax. Tobacco harm reduction advocates see it as a backward step, reducing the incentive to purchase safer products instead of cigarettes, in a country known for years of progressive vape policies. Vaping is a key part of the national smoking cessation strategy. In April 2023, the UK’s governing Conservative Party pledged to give free vape starter kits to 1 million people who smoke. But later in the year, the government divided opinion with “smoke-free generation” plans including not only a ban on cigarette sales to anyone born after 2008, but a raft of potential vape restrictions, subject to a public consultation.

January 04, 2024 by independent.co.uk

The number of independent vape shops has jumped again across the UK over the last year, amid plans to create a “smoke-free generation” by limiting their sale to children. Another 233 independent vape shops opened in 2023, a significant jump from 2022’s next increase of 61 and 2021’s net fall of 23, according to the Local Data Company (LDC), which carries out detailed surveys of all retail areas. The country now has a total of 3,573 specialist vape shops, according to the LDC.

December 29, 2023 by standard.co.uk

Nicotine is one of the hardest addictions to kick; one of the reasons many say you shouldn’t start smoking in the first place. The others you likely know already: it’s catastrophic for health, smothering lungs with tar, wrecking hair, skin, nails, and senses of smell and taste - and that’s just for starters. While smoking rates in the UK are on the decline - according to the ONS, in 2022, 12.9 per cent, or 6.4 million people, smoked, down from 13.3 per cent in 2021 - the invention and widespread use of e-cigarettes means that a new generation of smokers has emerged, with young women the most likely demographic to vape daily. 

December 18, 2023 by dailymail.co.uk

Scare stories and misinformation about the harms of vaping could be triggering a rise in young people smoking, experts have warned. Last week a report revealed that a decades-long decline in the number of smokers in England had flatlined since the Covid pandemic. Researchers suggested this was likely due to more young people starting to smoke. Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health told this newspaper that she believes misinformation about the dangers of vapes is partly to blame. 'All the negative press around vaping hasn't helped,' she said. 'Suggestions that vapes need to be in plain packaging, branded with health warnings and kept out of sight, like tobacco, just give the impression that both are equally harmful when that's not the case.'

December 13, 2023 by tobaccoreporter.com

A new briefing paper from the Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction (GSTHR), a project from U.K.-based public health agency Knowledge Action Change (KAC), examines the significant potential of the approach to help people experiencing homelessness. Surveys consistently estimate that between 76 and 85 percent of U.K. homeless people smoke—six or seven times the smoking prevalence seen in the general population, which is now at an historic low of 12.9 percent. On average, U.K. homeless men die at 44 years of age, compared to 76 in the general population and homeless women at 42 years, compared to 81 in the overall population.