Vapers Digest 12th August
Friday’s News at a glance:
Are secondhand ENDS emissions dangerous? – Vape wars: The fierce debate over the banning of Juul e-cigarettes – Replication Study Confirms Vapes Reduce Heart Risks – The FDA’s Early Plan to Expedite Open-System Applications – Scrutiny of the new Malaysian bill – SGF Research: Ecig Support – Throw The Book At Them – Parliament – Who, and where, is the science on novel tobacco products coming from? – California Voters Can Veto a Flavored Vape Ban – CTP Science Office – Nicotine Science and Policy Daily Digest
Are secondhand emissions dangerous?
Clive Bates – Consumer Choice Center
WHO avoids a comparison between secondhand smoke and secondhand aerosol. Again, WHO uses the words “potentially” and “potential” to avoid saying anything about how toxic or how risky. In my own Q&A on vaping and harm reduction, I highlight three key differences between secondhand smoke and secondhand vape exposure:
The main issue with vaping in public is etiquette and consideration for others. At this stage, there is nothing to suggest that indoor vaping presents a material risk to bystanders. But that does not mean there should be a license to vape at will anywhere. It means the owner of a property should determine the policy for their premises. A government override of these property rights can only be justified if there are material risks to bystanders or workers.
Vape wars: The fierce debate
Over the banning (and unbanning) of Juul e-cigarettes
If you were trying to create a villain that embodied the worst fears of youth-focused, anti-smoking activists, it would be hard to top Juul, the e-cigarette company that launched in 2015. Juul’s early growth was fueled by ad campaigns on child-oriented TV channels, including Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, and on websites aimed at middle school students. It infiltrated summer camps and schools in what a US House of Representatives subcommittee called a “sophisticated program” to target teens and children. Its flavored products delivered higher doses of nicotine in smaller, easier-to-conceal packages than other vaping products. And it’s owned in part by Altria, the successor to Philip Morris, which for half a century schemed to deceive the public about the true dangers of smoking.
Replication Study Confirms …
Vapes Reduce Heart Risks Compared to Cigarettes – Helen Redmond
A new in vitro study shows that aerosols from nicotine vapes do not produce the cellular effects caused by cigarette smoke that lead to vascular damage and the onset of a host of heart diseases. It also found that aerosols from heated tobacco products produced substantially fewer adverse cellular effects compared to cigarettes.
This research is critical because cigarette smokers are two-to-four times more likely to get heart disease than nonsmokers, and one in five smoking-related deaths is caused by cardiovascular diseases.
Details on how @cafreeland & her henchpeople intend to tax quitting smoking.#cdnpoli https://t.co/9AC4JUCk1K
— Phil (@phil_w888) August 12, 2022
The FDA’s Early Plan to Expedite …
Open-System Vape Marketing Applications – Alex Norcia
Documents obtained by Filter provide insight into how the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) originally intended to handle an avalanche of incoming premarket tobacco product applications (PMTA) for open-system vapes.
Open-system vaping products, which remain popular among consumers and many of the most vocal tobacco harm reduction advocates, have a tank that’s manually refilled with e-liquid. Past research has suggested that around half of vapers use them, and they are rarely—if ever—associated with youth use. Most vapers, of course, are former smokers who have switched to a safer way of consuming nicotine…
Four from Dave Cross, Planet of the Vapes:
Scrutiny of the new Malaysian bill
Scrutiny of the new Malaysian bill is good for vaping legalisation says the Malaysian Organisation of Vape Entities (MOVE). Malaysia’s legalisation of vape sales remains on the cards after some unexpected twists in Parliament before it adjourned for the country’s imminent general election.
President of MOVE, Samsul Kamal Ariffin, says it’s good news that the proposed ‘generational endgame’ anti-smoking bill has now been referred to a parliamentary special select committee for further scrutiny.
SGF Research: Ecig Support
A new poll for the Scottish Grocers’ Federation (SGF) shows that Scots think quitting smoking by vaping e-cigarettes should be encouraged, and that they think vaping is much safer than smoking cigarettes.
The polling comes in the wake of a Scottish Government consultation which proposes that in-store promotional displays of e-cigarettes should be banned.
The poll, carried out by the Diffley Partnership, asked more than 2,000 people for their views on smoking and vaping. Just under half of those surveyed are current or ex-smokers, and around one in five are current or ex-users of e-cigarettes.
Throw The Book At Them
The Aotearoa Vapers Community Advocacy (AVCA) says that rogue vape retailers need to have the book thrown at them. Co-founder Nancy Loucas, a leading Kiwi vaping advocate, says a few small owner-operated convenience shops (dairy stores) selling vapes to minors are letting the side down badly.
Her comments follow New Zealand consumer television show, Fair Go, conducting a hidden camera investigation which showed three retailers selling to under 18-year-olds in Gisborne in one afternoon. However, just six vape stores nationwide have been issued with infringement notices in the past two years.
Parliament
Liberal Democrat Daisy Cooper has posed questions to the Secretary of State for Education and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. She wanted to know the government’s position in relation to The Khan review recommendations for the school curriculum and potential restrictions on vape products.
Referring to The Khan review: making smoking obsolete, the representative for St Albans, Daisy Cooper MP asked the Secretary of State for Education what assessment has made of the potential merits of implementing the recommendation to include the risks of and age restrictions for vaping in the school health education curriculum.
Who, and where, is the science …
On novel tobacco products coming from? – Barnaby Page
Scientific research into novel nicotine alternatives has largely focused on vaping. The PubMed database, for example, returns around 5,000 hits for “e-cigarette” against some 700 for “snus”, fewer than 400 for “heated tobacco”, and a mere 20 or so for “nicotine pouch”.
That is likely to change as the products become more widespread. For example, most of the early work on heated tobacco was done by the tobacco companies themselves, and work on snus tended to come from Sweden. But broader adoption should heighten interest among researchers in variegated fields and locations, as well as improving their case for funding.
California Voters Can Veto Vape Ban
Jim McDonald
On Aug. 28, 2020, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law a ban on all flavored vaping products and most flavored tobacco products. However, before it could take effect, the law was put on hold after opponents gathered more than a million signatures to put the question to voters in a 2022 statewide “veto referendum.”
On Nov. 8, California voters will have a chance to veto the bill passed by the state legislature by rejecting Proposition 31. There is no doubt that vapers and menthol smokers oppose the ballot initiative. The question is whether enough people who vape (and smoke) will make an effort to vote in a non-presidential year.
CTP Science Office Once Expected …
To Grant E-Liquid Authorizations – Jim McDonald
The FDA Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) at one point expected to authorize bottled e-liquids from manufacturers that submitted premarket tobacco applications (PMTAs). The FDA tobacco center’s Office of Science submitted a memo outlining a plan to speed up review of e-liquids, according to an exclusive story by Alex Norcia in Filter.
The memo, titled “Bundling and Bracketing Approach for Review of ENDS Open E-liquid PMTAs,” described a process to expedite scientific review of PMTAs for e-liquids by grouping products based on characterizing flavors, using a “flavor wheel” first published in a 2019 paper by a group of Dutch scientists. FDA scientific reviewers could have reviewed multiple products by a single manufacturer, and then bridged their conclusions to additional products included in that company’s PMTA.
On this Day…2021
A look back at how things have moved on or otherwise….
‘Smoking bans don’t work –
Nor will cracking down on vape and cigarette sales’
Jason Reed, Mirror Online
The World Health Organisation’s ‘Tobacco Free Initiative’ aims to speed up the gradual transition to a smoke-free world.
And yet, for some reason, it is also opposed to vaping, the safe alternative to smoking which is the best tool we have for helping people quit cigarettes.
Canada: Young Adults’ Smoking Rates
Are Dropping Unprecedented Rates
Diane Caruana, Vaping Post
The Canadian Tobacco and Nicotine Survey has indicated that between 2019 and 2020, there was a 40% drop in smoking rates in this specific age group, from 13.3% to 8%. This figure is encouraging for Health Canada’s no smoking target (5% by 2035). Moreover this 5% target rate has already been achieved among those aged 15-19
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