Vapers Digest 26th November

Wednesday’s News at a glance:

Tobacco RegulationParliamentary Matters ~ ~ WHO Engages in Science Denial ~ New Powers for Border Force ~ What happened at COP11? ~ What I Saw at the FCTC COP11 on Tobacco Control ~ COP11 Wrap-Up: The WHO Loses Control Over Its Prohibitionist Agenda ~ CAPHRA Calls Out Unfounded Accusations In FCTC Discussions ~ What A Week FCTC COP11 Has Been ~ COP11 Reveals Cracks in WHO’s Tobacco Control Strategy ~ FCTC COP-OUT – Biggest Tobacco Control Failure Yet ~ Why Africa needs locally adapted, science-based tobacco frameworks: A call to action after COP11 ~ Naked 100 Manufacturer Sues FDA for PMTA Inaction ~ Tobacco Regulation ~ USA: Illegal Vapes ~ 6 ways public health messaging is missing the mark ~ Economists tell EU: equal taxes on vapes and cigarettes erase incentives to switch ~ The Rise and Impact of Vape Derangement Syndrome: A Public Health Crisis ~ The Government should admit defeat and undo its terrible excise mistake. Topher Project Ep 258 ~ COPCast: Nancy Loucas & Maria Papaioannoy-Duic

Three from Dave Cross, Planet of the Vapes

Parliamentary Matters

Planet of the Vapes presents the first of two articles for your delectation, covering discussions held in Parliament about vaping and planned future restrictions. Kevin Hollinrake wanted to know more about outside vape bans, Dr Caroline Johnson wants vape tech to verify age, Gregory Campbell was thinking about pregnancy, and Martin Wrigley wants vapes and juice sold separately.

WHO Engages in Science Denial

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), engaged in science denial as he addressed “the growing threat of the new nicotine challenge” in his opening remarks to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control’s (FCTC) Conference of Parties (COP11).

New Powers for Border Force

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is expected to announce that Border Force and HMRC are to be armed with sweeping new powers to seize illegal vapes on the spot with rogue traders that flout the rules facing £10,000 fines and a potential prison sentence at the upcoming Budget, as part of plans to protect Britain’s high streets.

What happened at COP11?

Christopher Snowdon, Velvet Glove Iron Fist

The WHO’s big anti-nicotine bash is over and the delegates have long since taken their first class flights home. So what happened? As usual, not a lot. Very little was agreed, mostly because the FCTC secretariat has become so extreme that it cannot get a consensus. It was hoping for an agreement to get a ban on cigarette filters. That got plenty of sensible opposition to that mad idea, as they did with advertising bans for e-cigarettes. Delegates agree to “consider” the WHO’s loony “forward-looking measures” but that doesn’t mean anything. The nutters who run this conference, including former UK civil servant Andrew Black, put a brave face on it, but very little was achieved.

What I Saw at the FCTC COP11 on Tobacco Control

I was in Geneva for the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control’s Conference of the Parties (FCTC COP11). Not inside the official meetings, but across the street at Good COP 2.0, the “Conference of the People.” It was my second time; my first was in Panama in 2024, where I showed up naïve, wide-eyed, and with only the faintest idea of how the FCTC operated. The learning curve since then has been brutal.

COP11 Wrap-Up: The WHO Loses Control Over Its Prohibitionist Agenda

Last week, the World Health Organization hosted COP11, its flagship global tobacco control conference, and instead of reinforcing its grip on nicotine policy, it revealed how fragile its agenda has become.

From the outset, the WHO attempted to push through stricter global measures against vaping, nicotine pouches, and heat-not-burn products — all without scientific justification, public transparency, or consumer inclusion. But over the course of the week, that strategy began to unravel. What was supposed to be a quiet rubber-stamping of anti-nicotine proposals turned into an open challenge to WHO’s authority.

CAPHRA Calls Out Unfounded Accusations In FCTC Discussions

Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA), Scoop

CAPHRA is raising strong concerns about the increasingly rigid and punitive tone emerging from recent coverage of global tobacco control discussions. The latest article from Health Policy Watch on the recently held FCTC COP11 frames any government or expert who questions full prohibition as being influenced by industry interests. CAPHRA believes this framing is inaccurate, unfair, and risks undermining genuine progress in reducing smoking related harm across the region.

What A Week FCTC COP11 Has Been

Uddin, LinkedIn

Thank you Laurent Huber sharing this passionate summary of the week at COP11. It is evident that the dedication to ending the tobacco epidemic remains the highest priority for everyone involved. The decisions regarding the environment and liability mark significant steps forward, and the energy to protect public health is truly palpable.

However, as we digest the outcomes of this week, I feel compelled to add a perspective that is crucial to the “implementation where lives are saved” that you mentioned.

COP11 Reveals Cracks in WHO’s Tobacco Control Strategy

Michael Landl, International Policy Digest

The World Health Organization’s global tobacco control conference, COP11, concluded last week in Geneva, bringing together member states to discuss the future of nicotine regulation. The conference was initially intended to strengthen the global fight against smoking, but what ultimately unfolded revealed growing cracks in the WHO’s prohibitionist agenda and clear signs of rising resistance worldwide to what many governments now see as institutional overreach.

FCTC COP-OUT – Biggest Tobacco Control Failure Yet

Kevin Crowley, Vaping Links

An FCTC “COP out” practically defines itself. They’re really having a hard time with a “response to the globalization of the tobacco epidemic and is an evidence-based treaty that reaffirms the right of all people to the highest standard of health” (in their own words here).

The psychotic nanny-state mindset on display has decided the big, bad tobacco industry is simply too powerful for them to actually do anything. Failing humans—people who smoke—is their power. Avoiding literal responsibility is their superpower.

Why Africa needs locally adapted, science-based tobacco frameworks: A call to action after COP11

Providence Ayanfeoluwa, Vanguard

The World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) Conference of Parties (COP11) was held last week in Geneva from 17 to 22 November.

COP11 highlighted key debates between those demanding strong, abstinence-based controls and those advocating for harm reduction. The ‘Lives Saved – 100 Million’ report illustrates the massive potential of harm reduction tools to save lives globally. The time for decisive action is now.

Africa stands at the center of this debate. Faced with overwhelmed healthcare systems and persistent smoking epidemics, the continent must move immediately.

Naked 100 Manufacturer Sues FDA for PMTA Inaction

Jim McDonald, Vaping 360

A major independent American vape manufacturer has filed a lawsuit challenging the FDA’s delayed responses to vaping product marketing applications.

The lawsuit was filed by the Schwartz E Liquid, which does business under the name USA Vape Lab—manufacturer of the popular Naked 100 e-liquid brand. The company is based in Southern California.

The suit was filed Nov. 21 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and names the FDA, FDA Commissioner Martin Makary, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., as defendants.

Two From Tobacco Insider

Tobacco Regulation

The Eleventh Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP11) to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control convened in Geneva from 17 to 22 November 2025, bringing together around 160 Parties and more than 1,600 participants. The meeting focused heavily on the environmental damage caused by tobacco across its entire lifecycle, the growing influence of the tobacco industry in global policymaking, and the increasingly complex debate surrounding novel nicotine products. Although the conference produced several notable outcomes, it also exposed significant divisions within the FCTC process, especially on the regulation of alternatives such as e-cigarettes, heated tobacco products and nicotine pouches. These tensions ultimately shaped the substance and tone of COP11, making it one of the most contested sessions to date.

USA: Illegal Vapes

A bipartisan coalition of 25 U.S. state attorneys general, led by California Attorney General, urged Shopify to intensify its efforts to stop the sale of illegal e-cigarettes on its platform. In a joint letter, they note that 29 unlicensed e-cigarette websites are currently hosted on Shopify and provide an annex listing over 200 more online shops suspected of illicitly selling tobacco products. Although Shopify has reportedly shut down some of these sites before, the coalition argues that the platform’s current actions are insufficient, and they propose a collaborative framework to help identify and block violators more effectively.

A look back at how things have moved on or otherwise…

Willingness to accept misinformation

Is based on perception – Atakan Befrits

Sweden is usually referred to as the best example in Europe of a country that combined wide bans of places to smoke conventional cigarettes with an offer of 250-year alternative product snus, a functional and satisfactory product that the nicotine users understand is a dramatically less harmful alternative.

How vaping helped one ‘hideously addicted’

Doctor quit smoking – Jill Margo

As a junior doctor in the UK, Kevin Murphy said he was “hideously addicted” to nicotine and would creep off the hospital campus to have a smoke, wearing disposable gloves and, on his way back, chewing as many mints as possible.

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