Vapers Digest 16th February

Monday’s News at a glance:

MEPs Urged to Back Pouches ~ expert reaction to DHSC consultation on smoke-free or vape-free spaces ~ A vaping ban in the UK? ~ How “smoke-free” went up in smoke ~ Labour Wants to Ban Vaping in Cars With Children Present ~ New Research Flaw Unlocked? ~ New Hampshire’s Proposed Tobacco Tax Hike Is Regressive and Ignores Long-Term Trends ~ A Long-Overdue Reckoning on Tobacco Policy ~ A Letter From a Future Smoker ~ The “Gateway” Narrative After Fifteen Years: A Retrospective Autopsy ~ Nicotine Pouches and the Collapse of the Prohibition Narrative ~ An Open Letter to Tobacco Control Academics: When Will You Look Abroad? ~ When Evidence Is Ignored: Youth Data, Adult Smokers, and the Reality of Harm Reduction ~ Impact Unfiltered and the Politics of Silencing ~ Shift To Educative Tobacco Harm Reduction: Key To Undercutting Australia’s Illicit Trade ~ UK Government consults on expanding smoke-free rules in England ~ Most cigarette and little cigar users overestimate nicotine’s harm, new U.S. Path study finds ~ Smoke-free, heated tobacco-free and vape-free places in England ~ When Taxpayer-Funded Global Institutions Silence Science and Sovereignty ~ Banning vaping in public? What is Labour smoking? ~ China Caps E-Cigarette Capacity and Requires Export Compliance Proof to Curb “Involution” ~ VTA ‘Disappointed’ by Lack of Progress from FDA Roundtable ~ Myth Over Metrics | FDA Commissioner Rejects CDC Data on Teen Vaping | RegWatch ~ BANGLADESH BANS VAPES! Public Health Move or Policy Disaster?

MEPs Urged to Back Pouches

Dave Cross, Planet of the Vapes

International experts met with MEPs to deliver a do-or-die plea: oral nicotine pouches are the game-changer in the war on smoking and must be made accessible, acceptable and affordable to save millions of lives across Europe. This came as new research reveals that nicotine pouches are driving Sweden’s rapid progress towards smoke-free status and are finally closing the long-standing gender gap in quitting smoking.

expert reaction to DHSC consultation on smoke-free or vape-free spaces

Science Media Centre

Scientists comment on a Department for Health & Social Care (DHSC) consultation of smoke-free and vape-free spaces.

Two From Christopher Snowdon

A vaping ban in the UK?

The Snowdon Substack

There is a semi-conspiracy theory that governments want to keep people smoking because they make so much money out of it. In China and India, which have state-owned tobacco monopolies, this is certainly true. Politicians in a few European countries have occasionally admitted that they are clamping down on vapes to protect their tobacco revenues, but I tend to assume cock up rather than conspiracy when thinking about the UK. If the Treasury wanted to retain its tobacco duty revenues, it would cut rates to the revenue-maximising point, for a start, which it clearly hasn’t.

How “smoke-free” went up in smoke

The Critic

After failing to achieve anything as Prime Minister, Theresa May set a number of challenges for her successors once she had one foot out of the door. In June 2019, the demob-happy PM announced that the UK would be legally bound to “eradicate its net contribution to climate change by 2050”. The following month, just two days before she finally slung her hook, she announced that England would be “smoke-free” by 2030.

Legislation has been introduced in the Granite State that would significantly increase New Hampshire’s excise tax on combustible cigarettes and little cigars. The proposal seeks to generate additional revenue to restore funding for the University System of New Hampshire and to eliminate premium payments for two state-run health care programs. While these policy goals may be well intentioned, funding public programs through tobacco “sin taxes” overlooks a key fiscal reality: tobacco revenues are inherently unstable and tend to decline over time as smoking rates fall. Moreover, tobacco taxes are regressive in nature and disproportionately burden lower-income and lower-educated populations, who smoke at higher rates than other demographic groups.

Click to visit Danish Vapers Association

Five From Alan Gore

A Long-Overdue Reckoning on Tobacco Policy

Australia may finally be confronting the limits of its tobacco strategy, but only if we’re willing to see the problem clearly.

For years, the government has relied on a single lever: price. Since 2020, the tobacco excise has climbed 60%, now making up roughly three-quarters of the cost of a legal pack of cigarettes. A 20-pack legally costs $40 or more. On the street, the same pack sells for $10–$15.

A Letter From a Future Smoker

I quit smoking in 2022.

I was thirty-eight. I had smoked since I was nineteen. I had tried patches, gum, willpower, shame, apps, and promises to myself that lasted until the next stressful week. Nothing stuck for long.

Then I switched to vaping.

The “Gateway” Narrative After Fifteen Years: A Retrospective Autopsy

For more than fifteen years, one word has hovered over every debate about vaping: gateway.

It was never presented as a modest hypothesis. It was framed as a looming public health disaster. If e-cigarettes were permitted to spread, we were told, they would addict a generation of adolescents who would otherwise never have touched nicotine. Those adolescents would graduate to combustible cigarettes. Smoking would be renormalised. Decades of tobacco control progress would unravel.

Nicotine Pouches and the Collapse of the Prohibition Narrative

Konstantinos Farsalinos’ latest review reads less like dissent and more like evidence from a scientist who somehow didn’t get the memo.

Here’s why this paper matters and why it quietly detonates several talking points that still dominate nicotine policy debates.

An Open Letter to Tobacco Control Academics: When Will You Look Abroad?

Dear Tobacco Control Academics,

Australia has long seen itself and been seen by others as a global leader in tobacco control. Plain packaging, graphic health warnings, and sustained taxation policy. These interventions helped drive smoking prevalence down from around 24 % of adults in 1991 to an estimated 8.3 % in 2022–23. The proportion of people who have never smoked continues to rise, now at about 65 % of Australians aged 14 and older. These are not small achievements, and they are rightly celebrated.

Two From World Vapers’ Alliance

When Evidence Is Ignored: Youth Data, Adult Smokers, and the Reality of Harm Reduction

Allison Boughner

For years, public conversation around nicotine has been dominated by one word: youth. Every headline, press release, and policy proposal seems to revolve around the fear that a new generation is on the brink of nicotine addiction. But somewhere along the way, the conversation stopped being about evidence and started being about assumptions.
And that’s where the real problem begins.

Impact Unfiltered and the Politics of Silencing

Amanda Matos

In recent weeks, a little-known NGO called Impact Unfiltered has found itself at the center of a troubling controversy in Brussels. The organization claimed that thousands of consumer submissions to the EU Tobacco Tax Consultation were not genuine, but rather coordinated, industry-driven, or outright fake. Despite offering no transparent methodology or verifiable evidence, those claims were taken seriously in policy circles, raising the possibility that the real voices of citizens could be ignored in the EU’s decision-making process.

Shift To Educative Tobacco Harm Reduction: Key To Undercutting Australia’s Illicit Trade

Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA)

Australia’s record AUD $1.5 million fine against Tobacco Shed Pty Ltd, linked to businessman Sam Kanjo, exposes the flaws in punitive high-tax policies. Over 70% of cigarette prices comprises tax, fuelling a AUD $4–6 billion illicit market.

Queensland raids seized 213,000 illicit cigarettes, 25kg of loose tobacco, and 6,000 vapes across five stores. Black-market packs sell for AUD $8 against AUD $40+ for legal ones, proving demand endures despite steep taxes and handing profits to violent crime syndicates.

Two From Clearing The Air

UK Government consults on expanding smoke-free rules in England

Tim Hong

The UK Government will today (Friday) launch a 12-week public consultation on proposals to extend smoke-free legislation in England, as part of its 10 Year Health Plan.

The consultation will run from 13 February to 8 May and will help shape regulations under the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, currently before Parliament.

The consultation relates specifically to England, where smoke-free place regulations fall under UK Government powers. The Tobacco and Vapes Bill itself provides powers that could be used across the UK, including by devolved administrations.

Most cigarette and little cigar users overestimate nicotine’s harm, new U.S. Path study finds

Ali Anderson

63 per cent of adults who use little cigars and cigarillos overestimate nicotine’s harm

65.7 per cent have incorrect perceptions about nicotine’s health risks

No significant difference compared with people who smoke cigarettes or use both products

Using additional tobacco products linked to more accurate nicotine perceptions

Smoke-free, heated tobacco-free and vape-free places in England

Summary

We are seeking views on proposals to extend smoke-free laws to certain outdoor public places and introduce heated tobacco-free and vape-free restrictions.

Two From Martin Cullip

When Taxpayer-Funded Global Institutions Silence Science and Sovereignty

The Well

International organizations like to present themselves as guardians of evidence, neutrality and the public good. They speak the language of science, transparency and global cooperation. Yet increasingly their actions are to the contrary.

In tobacco and nicotine policy, in particular, multinational bodies are riding roughshod over scientific evidence, dismissing national sovereignty, silencing dissenting voices and treating the public that funds them with contempt.

Banning vaping in public? What is Labour smoking?

Spiked

The planned crackdown on vapes is driven by prejudice and prohibitionist instincts, not scientific evidence. The UK government has announced its intention to ban vaping in public places.

In response to a written question from a Tory MP about banning vaping in pubs, public-health minister Ashley Dalton declared that: ‘Vapes release an aerosol that exposes people to nicotine and potential toxicants and it is important that we act to protect people from these potential health harms.’ It’s on this premise that ministers say they want to make all public places vape-free, just as they are already smoke-free.

China Caps E-Cigarette Capacity and Requires Export Compliance Proof to Curb “Involution”

2Firsts

China’s State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA) has issued a directive aimed at further implementing e-cigarette industrial policy and promoting a “dynamic balance” between supply and demand, marking another step in the country’s tightening oversight of the tobacco and nicotine sector since late 2025.

VTA ‘Disappointed’ by Lack of Progress from FDA Roundtable

Tobacco Reporter

The Vapor Technology Association said it welcomed the chance to participate in a recent roundtable hosted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration focused on premarket tobacco product application (PMTA) submissions for electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS), calling the meeting an opportunity for small businesses to engage directly with regulators. In a statement, VTA Executive Director Tony Abboud said industry representatives advocated for a more transparent, standards-based regulatory framework that would allow companies to invest in vapor technology and navigate product reviews with clearer scientific expectations.

Myth Over Metrics | FDA Commissioner Rejects CDC Data on Teen Vaping | RegWatch

Brent Stafford, Regulator Watch

“Shoddy” and “flawed.” That’s how Trump’s FDA Commissioner, Marty Makary, describes the National Youth Tobacco Survey, the CDC’s flagship youth surveillance system and the very dataset the FDA has relied on for more than a decade to justify vaping crackdowns, public panic, and sweeping prohibitionist policy.

BANGLADESH BANS VAPES! Public Health Move or Policy Disaster?

Global Forum on Nicotine

Bangladesh has introduced sweeping new restrictions on nicotine products, including vapes and pouches – extending penalties even to personal use. In this interview, Will Godfrey of Filter breaks down what the law means, its public health implications, and why critics warn it could fuel illicit markets and harsher enforcement.

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