Vapers Digest 8th May
Friday’s News at a glance:
Smoke Free World A Possibility ~ VPZ’ Vape Tax Warning ~ Canada’s Public Health Groups Are Failing Smokers ~ 5 Things You Need to Know as a Vaper Before Travelling to Hong Kong ~ How do US Adults Who Vape Choose Among Different E‐Cigarette (EC) Models and Cigarettes in Response to Prices and Taxes ~ Argentina Stops Pretending ~ Argentina Ends Failed Vape Prohibition, But New Restrictions Risk Undermining Progress ~ The Tobacco Control Echo Chamber: When Transparency Becomes Ideological Gatekeeping ~ The Smear Machine of Public Health ~ FDA Finally Authorizes Fruit-Flavored Vapes. Here’s What It Took. ~ Can Ozempic Help You Quit Smoking? A Cardiologist Explains ~ Wes Streeting to clamp down on vaping after landmark law passed ~ Trump Pressures FDA to Authorize Glas Flavors ~ FDA Takes a Step Toward Harm Reduction but Still Has Work to Do ~ Why the FDA’s Politically Driven First-Ever Flavored-Vape Approval Almost Gets the Science Right ~ FDA Authorizes Glas Flavored ENDS Products, Opening an Age-Gating Pathway for Flavors ~ Freedom of choice wrapped in surveillance, permission slips. ~ Why the FDA is authorizing fruit-flavored vapes ~ Knives out for FDA head Marty Makary after he blocks, then OKs vape flavors after Trump criticism ~ Belgium’s flavour ban risks pushing smokers back to cigarettes ~ It’s Time to Fix What Was Broken in 2024, and #unlockthepouch ~ ETHRA April news roundup ~ Is the UK’s smoking ban set to fail? ~ Why harm reduction in smoking matters in policymaking ~ Reynolds Launches $3,200,000,000 Investment In America-Made Smokeless Nicotine
Two From Dave Cross, Planet Of The Vapes
Smoke Free World A Possibility
Increased use of smoke-free nicotine products such as vapes and oral pouches can turn the world ‘smoke-free’ by 2040, according to ground-breaking new research by international health experts. The major new study, published in the prestigious Nature journal, concludes that global efforts to end smoking are stalling and warns that sticking with traditional strategies could cost millions of lives.
A new survey by VPZ, the UK’s largest specialist vaping retailer, has revealed widespread concern that the Government’s planned vape tax could drive former smokers back to cigarettes, as rising costs threaten the affordability of vaping. The survey, which gathered responses from 2,640 UK adults, comes ahead of the introduction of a new vape duty in October 2026, which will add £2.64 to the cost of a standard 10ml bottle of e-liquid.
Two From World Vapers’ Alliance (WVA)
Canada’s Public Health Groups Are Failing Smokers
Michael Landl
A new report from the Consumer Choice Center exposes a troubling pattern in Canada. Several major public health organisations are taking government money and using it to lobby against the very tools that help smokers quit. The Consumer Choice Center calls this circular lobbying: taxpayers fund charities, charities lobby the government, and the cycle repeats.
Liza Katsiashvili
Travelling as a vaper can quickly turn from routine to complicated and in some places, outright restrictive.Hong Kong is one of those destinations. With even stricter rules which came into force from April 30th, 2026, here are five things you should know before you go.
How do US Adults Who Vape Choose Among Different E‐Cigarette
(EC) Models and Cigarettes in Response to Prices and Taxes
PubPeer
The research paper cited here estimates price elasticities from data based upon on-line survey responses from 700 subjects, all of whom use e-cigarettes. Some of the vapers also smoke.
The data are experimental in that the participants are presented with different imagined prices and taxes for several different e-cig products and combustible cigarettes, and are asked to report the purchase choices they would make at the different prices/taxes in the menu of options.
Argentina Stops Pretending
Claudio Teixeira, Disobedient Margins
For more than a decade, Argentina banned electronic cigarettes with one hand while learning, with the other, to live with them. In the law, they existed as a prohibition. In daily life, they became a diffuse habit: turning up in neighborhood kiosks, on Instagram profiles, in discreet deliveries, in suitcases crossing borders, in school backpacks, and in whispered conversations during class breaks.
Prohibition Does Not Work
Prohibition Does Not Work (PDNW), an international network of think tanks dedicated to promoting science based nicotine policy, today welcomed Argentina’s decision to end its long-standing prohibition on vapor products, calling it “a necessary step back toward reality,” while warning that new restrictions, particularly on flavors, risk continuing the very black markets the policy aims to eliminate.
“For over a decade, Argentina banned safer nicotine alternatives while cigarettes remained widely available,” said Tim Andrews, Global Spokesman for PDNW. “That wasn’t a public health policy, it was a gift to the black market. Ending prohibition is the right move. The question now is whether they allow a legal market that actually works.”
Two From Alan Gor
The Tobacco Control Echo Chamber: When Transparency
Becomes Ideological Gatekeeping
There is something deeply revealing about the latest article from The Conversation. It is not simply what the article says. It is what it refuses to confront.
The piece frames the tobacco industry as a uniquely sinister force operating through “donations, access and secrecy” to undermine public health policy in Australia. It leans heavily on the moral panic that has defined tobacco control for decades: the idea that any interaction with industry is automatically corrupt, illegitimate and dangerous.
There is something deeply revealing about the way parts of public health react whenever someone questions prohibitionist nicotine policy. The response is rarely curiosity. It is rarely debated. It is rarely a reflection. Instead, it descends into insinuation, guilt by association, moral panic, and coordinated character attacks.
In a LinkedIn exchange surrounding public health commentary, the Philip Morris debate, and criticism of Australia’s nicotine policies, once again exposed a culture that increasingly appears unable to distinguish disagreement from corruption.
FDA Finally Authorizes Fruit-Flavored Vapes. Here’s What It Took.
Kim “Skip” Murray, Filter
On May 5, the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) did something it has never done before: It authorized fruit-flavored vaping products for the United States market, deeming them “appropriate for the protection of public health.”
The newly authorized products are four G2 pods made by the vape company Glas: Classic Menthol, Fresh Menthol, Gold and Sapphire. The latter two are mango and blueberry flavors, making them the first non-tobacco, non-menthol vaping products the FDA has authorized.
Two From Clearing The Air
Can Ozempic Help You Quit Smoking? A Cardiologist Explains
Peter Beckett
We sat down with Dr. Rohan Sequeira, a cardio-endocrinologist, at the recent World NIcotine Congress, to discuss his involvement in Tobacco Harm Reduction (THR) and its potential synergy with GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic for addressing public health challenges. The conversation covers the latest data on nicotine, pharmaceutical company reluctance regarding THR, and the pushback he faces from the medical community.
Wes Streeting to clamp down on vaping after landmark law passed
Tim Hong
The UK has tightened its grip on vapes after the Tobacco and Vapes Bill became law, as ministers target youth use and fresh data warns tax rises could backfire.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said the Government would use the new law to clamp down on how vapes are promoted, including banning advertising, sponsorship and in-store displays that appeal to children.
He said: “From next summer, the days of flashy vape ads and sponsorships will be over. Tough new rules will shut down advertising that all too often targets children.
Trump Pressures FDA to Authorize Glas Flavors
Jim McDonald, Vaping 360
Yesterday the FDA announced marketing authorization for four Glas G2 refill pods. The new pods include two menthol flavors, along with Gold and Sapphire, which are actually mango and blueberry flavors. All four pods are available in 50 mg/mL only.
FDA Takes a Step Toward Harm Reduction but Still Has Work to Do
Martin Cullip, Taxpayers Protection Alliance
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted authorization of flavored vaping products for the first time in the U.S. The agency’s decision on products in flavors beyond tobacco and menthol, including mango and blueberry, marks a significant step forward for public health and taxpayers saving millions of dollars in lower healthcare costs. Even more notably, the FDA has explicitly acknowledged in a press release that vaping products are “less harmful alternatives” to combustible cigarettes. That admission represents a long overdue recognition of the role these products can play in reducing smoking related disease and death.
Why the FDA’s Politically Driven First-Ever Flavored-Vape Approval Almost Gets the Science Right
Jeffrey S. Smith, RStreet
On May 5, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized four flavored e-cigarette pods—including the agency’s first-ever fruit flavors—from a small Los Angeles company called Glas. It is the biggest shift in the country’s tobacco harm reduction policy in a decade, and same-day reporting in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and POLITICO Pro tells the story of a decision that mostly tracks the science but was reached through a process that sidelined the scientists.
FDA Authorizes Glas Flavored ENDS Products, Opening an Age-Gating Pathway for Flavors
Azim Chowdhury, Neelam Gill, The Continuum of Risk
On May 5, 2026, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued marketing granted orders (MGOs) for four Glas closed-pod electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDS) products: Classic Menthol, Fresh Menthol, Gold (mango), and Sapphire (blueberry). The authorization is a significant development for the ENDS industry because the Gold and Sapphire are FDA’s first authorized non-tobacco, non-menthol ENDS flavors through the Premarket Tobacco Product Application (PMTA) process.
Freedom of choice wrapped in surveillance, permission slips.
Kevin Crowley
The FDA says (bold and italics are my emphasis):
“More than 25 million Americans still smoke combustible cigarettes, and they deserve better, less harmful alternatives”.
“The technology requires the user to verify their age and identity with a government-issued ID and pair the device with a smartphone via Bluetooth.
Why the FDA is authorizing fruit-flavored vapes
Sarah Todd, Lizzy Lawrence, Stat News
The Food and Drug Administration authorized fruit-flavored vapes for the first time on Tuesday, after reports of pressure from President Trump.
The approval might sound like a move guaranteed to alarm public health experts. But the decision is instead proving divisive among researchers and anti-smoking advocates as they debate whether the potential benefits in helping people quit cigarettes outweigh the risks of youth uptake.
[PDF: Why the FDA is authorizing fruit-flavored vapes ]
Knives out for FDA head Marty Makary after he blocks,
then OKs vape flavors after Trump criticism
Steven Nelson, New York Post
A panoply of critics is trying to take down Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary — sensing blood in the water after President Trump forced him to approve flavored e-cigarettes with new “age gate” ID-verifying technology.
The president’s over-the-weekend anger, followed by Makary’s swift capitulation on Wednesday, uncorked an outpouring of attacks, with anti-abortion campaigners, novel nicotine-delivery advocates and some administration officials joining forces to try to topple the telegenic cancer doctor.
Belgium’s flavour ban risks pushing smokers back to cigarettes
Smoke Free Sweden
Belgium’s decision to ban flavoured vapes has come under fire from international health experts, who warn the move will sabotage quit-smoking efforts and push former smokers back to deadly cigarettes.
The Belgian federal government has approved plans to prohibit flavoured vapes from September 2028, allowing only tobacco and neutral flavours to remain on the market.
The decision ignores growing international evidence that flavours play a critical role in helping adult smokers switch away from combustible tobacco.
It’s Time to Fix What Was Broken in 2024, and #unlockthepouch
The Nicotine Project
There’s something soooooooo frustrating about watching bad policy outlive the moment that created it.
Let’s go back to 2024, then Minister of Health Mark Holland made a decision that continues to affect Canadians who use nicotine. Through a Ministerial Order, nicotine pouches, products that had been approved as nicotine replacement therapies, were pulled from retail and placed behind pharmacy counters.
ETHRA April news roundup
European Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (ETHRA)
ETHRA’s monthly roundup of news: TPD Evaluation Report – Open Evidence Report – Belgian Ban – PRDT Letter to the Commission – Rise of the pragmatists – Ten reasons to dislike the UK Tobacco and Vapes Bill – Impacts of the UK disposable ban – Health Risks of Dual Use – Country updates. Read on for more.
Is the UK’s smoking ban set to fail?
Liam O’Dowd, Leafie
On 21st April, 2026, the UK Parliament voted to approve the Tobacco and Vapes Bill. A policy that prohibits tobacco sales to anyone born after 31st December 2008.
Under the bill, which comes into force on 1st January 2027, the legal age for purchasing tobacco will rise annually. This means someone born on 1st January 2009 will never legally buy cigarettes in the UK, whilst their friend born just a day earlier can, once they turn 18. As each year passes, the cohort unable to buy tobacco expands, eventually creating a situation where a 40-year-old cannot purchase cigarettes whilst a 41-year-old can. The bill also extends restrictions to vaping products, imposing controls on flavours, packaging, and where vapes can be used.
Asanda Gcoyi, Sowetan
South Africa is no stranger to complex social and public health challenges. From road safety and substance abuse to food regulation and environmental conservation, policymakers have long recognised a simple reality: human behaviour is not easily eliminated, but its risks can be managed.
Reynolds Launches $3,200,000,000 Investment In America-Made Smokeless Nicotine
John Oyewale, Daily Caller
The tobacco company Reynolds American announced Thursday that it would invest $3.2 billion in American manufacturing and job creation.
The company said it partnered with the media outlet Semafor to highlight the launch of the sprawling investment, Semafor hosted a sponsored feature on the announcement.
On this day…2017!
A look back at how things have moved on or otherwise…
The Staggering Hypocrisy Of ASH
Dick Puddlecote
Sometimes the hypocrisy displayed by ASH reaches spectacular levels, and today is one such occasion.
Via the BBC (emphases mine):
Some 1.5 million vapers are ex-smokers, compared with 1.3 million who still use tobacco, a survey of 12,000 adults for Action on Smoking and Health found. But Ash said the message that vaping was much less harmful than smoking had not yet got through to all smokers.
U.S. E-cigarette Summit Survival Guide
Clive Bates, The Counterfactual
Today is the first US E-cigarette Summit in Washington DC
It is likely that some very deceptive, weird or hysterical arguments will be made the course of the day by organisations that usually avoid situations where they may be called out it. So here is a brief survival guide to the day…
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