Read articles from United States of America

December 13, 2019 by youtube.com

Every attempt to isolate a cause to explain the war on vaping faces its difficulties, as no cause is entirely defective in explanation, yet neither is any satisfyingly sufficient to explain the level of hysteria engulfing the nation. Clues are best found by examining similar phenomenon and terrifyingly, there’s no better example than the decades-long battle in the “War on Drugs.”

In this edition of RegWatch we’re joined by Ethan Nadelmann [...]

For decades Nadelmann led the fight to end the “War on Drugs,” so he knows all too well the dehumanizing, slanderous, coercive tactics used by moral crusaders. [...]

December 12, 2019 by medicalxpress.com

New York's ban on flavored e-cigarettes is still held up in court but the state may try to keep it alive and expand it to include menthol. The state's Public Health and Health Planning Council is set to vote Thursday to keep the emergency ban on the books for another 90 days. The council had approved the ban in September but a state appeals court blocked the state from enforcing it in October.

Council members could also vote Thursday to ban menthol e-cigarette flavoring.

December 12, 2019 by ama-assn.org

Flavored e-cigarettes and vaping products are quickly erasing decades of progress in decreasing youth tobacco use. And, unless the Trump administration takes swift action, these products will lead to severe but entirely preventable health consequences for a new generation of Americans addicted to nicotine. Although vaping technology is too new to gauge its long-term effects on health, the immediate impact is stark: More than one-quarter of U.S. high school students, and one in 10 middle school students, have used e-cigarettes in the past 30 days [...]

December 11, 2019 by time.com

At a time when Washington, D.C. is paralyzed by partisan gridlock and impeachment hearings, it can be challenging for lawmakers to focus on their day jobs: lawmaking. But Raja Krishnamoorthi [...] has won bipartisan support for his efforts to curb young people’s use of e-cigarettes, as their surging popularity perpetuates a health crisis among the nation’s youth. [...] In October, he introduced a bill that would limit the amount of nicotine in vaping products, which he says is crucial to preventing children from getting addicted. “The forces of Big Tobacco and the e-cigarette industry are very powerful. [...]

December 11, 2019 by inquirer.net

Carrie Wade, Director of Harm Reduction Policy of think tank R Street Institute, told DZIQ Radyo Inquirer in an interview that regulating e-cigarettes is a “better pathway for public health” as “a ban would only create criminalization”.
She explained that in markets where e-cigarettes are not regulated, an opportunity for dangerous products to enter is created, similar to what has happened in the United States. America is currently gripped in a health scare due to a spate of deaths and over 2,000 lung injuries linked to the use of illicit drugs in e-cigarettes.

December 11, 2019 by vice.com

During a meeting Donald Trump held about the vaping epidemic in November, Mitt Romney suggested a reason for the spike in teenage usage: unicorn poop.

Trump had invited both critics and advocates for e-cigarettes to the gathering in a rare moment of civilized debate, as if he were actually looking to better understand the issue. He had been waffling for weeks about what to do, entertaining at one point a full-on ban of flavored vaping products, though his campaign staff reportedly talked him out of it, fearing that such a strategy could antagonize a chunk of his political base. [...]

December 11, 2019 by washingtonpost.com

The Food and Drug Administration can regulate e-cigarettes like it does conventional cigarettes, an appeals court said Tuesday, finding that the products are “indisputably highly addictive and pose health risks, especially to youth, that are not well understood.” [...] The issue for the court was whether the FDA has the authority to treat e-cigarettes as “tobacco products” and to subject the vaping products to the same set of rules and regulations as their conventional counterparts.

December 10, 2019 by medicalxpress.com

People with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are more likely to self-administer nicotine and report more pleasurable responses than people without the condition, according to a study by Duke Health researchers. [...] Duke researchers tested a nicotine nasal spray to determine the effects of the addictive chemical on non-smoking young adults. They recruited 136 people aged 18-25 years. About half (61) of the participants had a clinical diagnosis of ADHD, and the others (75) were free from any psychiatric condition.

December 10, 2019 by plos.org

Many cancer survivors continue to use tobacco products after their cancer diagnosis despite the mounting evidence showing reduced effectiveness of cancer treatments, increased overall and cancer-specific mortality and increased risk for a second primary cancer. Tobacco use has also been associated with poorer response to cancer treatment and cancer recurrence leading to significantly increased costs associated with cancer treatment. Cigarette smoking rates among cancer survivors have been reported in prior studies using two national data sources. [...]

December 10, 2019 by vice.com

At the end of September, about 24 hours after Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf came out in support of legalizing recreational cannabis, he talked to a journalist on the street about the so-called vaping epidemic. [...] "The real problem with vaping is the illicit substances that are being introduced into the vaping," Wolf said that day. "Again, bring it out in the open. Let's deal with it." Now Wolf's administration is more explicitly tying their push for legal weed to the need to respond to the ongoing vape crisis. [...]