Vapers Digest 15th June
Monday’s News at a glance:
The Problem with Illicit Vapes ~ The Generation Gap in Public Health: Why a Smoke-Free Generation Is Only Half the Battle ~ The Perfection Protection Racket: How Public Health Strategy Keeps Smokers Hooked ~ The Crime Syndicate AGM: A Record Year for Growth ~ The Tobacco Wars Are What Policy Failure Looks Like~ CAPHRA: Australia and Thailand show nicotine prohibition fuels illicit markets ~ New CoEHAR systematic review finds no evidence linking exclusive e-cigarette use to diabetes ~ The Invoice said Toys ~ Tobacco Harm Reduction IS Harm Reduction – Part 2 ~ Send your comments to the European Union regarding its proposed revision of the Tobacco Products Directive ~ Criticism of the EU Commission over the public consultation on tobacco: “Impossible by design” ~ Most healthcare providers wrongly think vapes are as harmful as cigarettes, US study finds ~ Palau: How to Buy a Small Nation State ~ CBC’s Nicotine Blind Spot: When Journalism Becomes Advocacy ~Swedish health minister slams France pouch ban: ‘idiotic’ ~ Estonia offers Europe a cautionary tale on nicotine regulation ~ Pakistan’s Finance Bill 2026-27 proposes raising FED on e-cigarette liquids ~ BAT Estimates U.S. Unauthorized Vape Market at $9.4 Billion, Plans New Vuse and Velo Launches After FDA Enforcement Shift ~ The Smokeless Word: Live from the Lab – Episode 21- Joe Gitchell ~ US Regulation of Nicotine Pouches & E-Cigarettes: With Special Guest Laura Leigh Oyler
The Problem with Illicit Vapes
Dave Cross, Planet Of The Vapes
Officers from Northamptonshire Police say that they have seized thousands of illegal cigarettes, tobacco products and vapes “as part of a multi-agency crackdown on the sale of illicit goods across North Northamptonshire”. The illicit market was discussed as part of one of the illuminating sessions at last week’s Global Forum on Nicotine in Poland, concluding that prohibition doesn’t stop demand.
Four From Alan Gor
The Generation Gap in Public Health: Why a Smoke-Free Generation Is Only Half the Battle
One of the most refreshing aspects of a recent article published in The Lancet by Ruth Bonita and Robert Beaglehole is its clarity. At a time when many discussions about tobacco control become tangled in ideological battles, moral panics, and debates over nicotine itself, Bonita and Beaglehole return to a remarkably simple question: what would it actually take to create a smoke-free world?
The Perfection Protection Racket: How Public Health Strategy Keeps Smokers Hooked
Every few months, a new study emerges that follows a remarkably predictable script. Researchers publish data showing that vaping is substantially less dangerous than continuing to smoke cigarettes, journalists dutifully report the findings, and for a brief moment, it appears the public might finally receive a balanced discussion about harm reduction. Almost immediately, however, the conversation pivots away from the lives that could potentially be saved through switching and toward warnings, caveats, uncertainties, and reasons smokers should remain reluctant to embrace alternatives.
The Crime Syndicate AGM: A Record Year for Growth
Transcript of the Annual General Meeting of the Southern Hemisphere Organised Commerce Association (SHOCA)
Location: Undisclosed Warehouse
Attendance: Syndicate executives, regional distributors, logistics coordinators, money laundering specialists, and honoured guests.Chairman: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to our Annual General Meeting.
Before we begin, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the illicit trade routes upon which our organisation has built such remarkable success and pay my respects to the generations of criminal entrepreneurs whose vision, persistence, and willingness to exploit regulatory mistakes laid the foundations for the prosperous enterprise we celebrate tonight.
The Tobacco Wars Are What Policy Failure Looks Like
The most important thing about the tobacco wars is not the tobacco itself.
Nor is it simply the crime, the violence, or the increasingly brazen activities of organised criminal syndicates.
The most important thing about the tobacco wars is what they reveal about the limits of public policy and the dangers of becoming so committed to a particular approach that evidence from the real world is no longer given the weight it deserves.
Two From Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA)
CAPHRA: Australia and Thailand show nicotine prohibition fuels illicit markets
Australia and Thailand are showing that nicotine prohibition does not eliminate demand, the Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA) says. It shifts supply from regulated channels to illicit markets.
In Australia, authorities have seized more than 20 million illegal vapes since January 2024.
Recent reporting also suggests the country’s illicit nicotine market has grown dramatically, with black-market supply linked to organised crime and enforcement crackdowns struggling to contain it.
New CoEHAR systematic review finds no evidence linking exclusive e-cigarette use to diabetes
A new CoEHAR systematic review and meta-analysis, published in Internal and Emergency Medicine, has examined the available evidence on the relationship between electronic cigarette use and metabolic health outcomes, including prediabetes, diabetes, and insulin resistance.
The study, led by an international team of researchers from Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Middle East, reviewed and synthesized the current scientific literature to better understand whether e-cigarette use may influence the risk of metabolic disorders.
The Invoice said Toys
Claudio Teixeira, Disobedient Margins
When customs inspectors opened two shipping containers at the Port of Santos, they did not find electronic cigarettes. At least, not at first glance. Not on paper.
According to the cargo manifests, the shipment contained something else entirely: toys, tools, computer accessories, auto parts, and musical instruments. Beneath that layer of bureaucratic disguise, however, lay roughly 450,000 e-cigarettes, stacked, packaged, and ready to move.
The shipment had not yet crossed the country, but it had already crossed a more consequential border: the border between prohibition and language. It had ceased to be called by its proper name.
Tobacco Harm Reduction IS Harm Reduction – Part 2
Skip Murray, Skip’s Corner
A LinkedIn post by Jason Semprini caught my attention yesterday [1]. After reading an internal communication from the University of Iowa Health Care (UIHC), Semprini was concerned he could no longer trust UIHC’s smoking cessation program because of the information they shared about vaping nicotine [2]. His commentary piqued my interest because I am interested in misperceptions about nicotine and non-combustible products, and lately I’ve been noticing a disconnect between harm reduction practices and the use of nicotine.
Send your comments to the European Union regarding its proposed
revision of the Tobacco Products Directive
Jean-François Etter, Nicotine, tobacco and smoking cessation
The European Union plans to revise the Tobacco Products Directive and the Tobacco Advertising Directive. These revisions will affect millions of citizens across the EU. A consultation process is currently underway, and everyone is invited to participate. If you would like to submit your comments, the deadline is this Monday, June 15.
The online submissions system is here.
Additional information can be found here.
There is an evaluation report of these two directives here.
Here is the feedback I just submitted (but please write your own comments and do not copy mine):
Criticism of the EU Commission over the public consultation on tobacco: “Impossible by design”
Annachiara Magenta, EU News
The European Commission’s pubblic consultation published on 22 May 2026, which aims to guide future regulation of tobacco and nicotine products, has been heavily criticised by
ETHRA (European Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates) as “impossible to answer” for anyone with an “understanding of the differences in risk between the various products and a rational interest in public health.” Damian Sweeney, a partner at ETHRA, does not mince his words: “The questionnaire lumps all nicotine and tobacco products together as if they posed the same level of risk, making it impossible to answer in a meaningful way.”
Most healthcare providers wrongly think vapes are as harmful as cigarettes, US study finds
Ali Anderson, Clearing The Air
A new PLOS One study found only 21.4% of healthcare providers and trainees recognised vapes as less harmful than combustible cigarettes.
Most participants, 60.2%, believed vapes were just as harmful or more harmful than smoking.
The study also found widespread confusion about nicotine, with 25.9% wrongly believing it causes most smoking-related cancer and 42.8% wrongly believing it causes most smoking-related cardiovascular disease.
Researchers said better education is needed so healthcare providers can give evidence-based advice on smoking cessation and harm reduction.
Palau: How to Buy a Small Nation State
David Zaruk, Firebreak
Life has never been better for environmental-health activists. Unlimited funding from billionaire philanthropists that also own the mainstream media you are free to use, tort law firms willing to amplify your campaign message while lending you their highly-paid activist science networks and international research agencies, and political operatives in various governments happy to give you a microphone and access to lobbyists and funding. Activists can run worldwide campaigns against technologies they hate, from Golden Rice to nuclear energy to tobacco harm reduction strategies, using their deep foundation-funded pockets to impose their will on poor nations, global trade and international politics.
The Smokeless Word: Live from the Lab – Episode 21- Joe Gitchell
BAT
Editor Note: Video is age restricted
Reducing the toll that smoking tobacco has on populations worldwide. That’s the vision Joe Gitchell brings to The Smokeless Word: Live from the Lab. Joining Dr James Murphy, the Pinney Associates CEO explores the global state of tobacco harm minimisation, how countries like Sweden, Japan and New Zealand are paving the way, and why tackling nicotine misperceptions demands differential policy, not just better communication. From trust and collaboration to regulation and risk, tune in for a conversation about finding common ground and accelerating progress.
US Regulation of Nicotine Pouches & E-Cigarettes: With Special Guest Laura Leigh Oyler
Arielle Selya PhD
I chat with Laura Leigh Oyler, Vice President of US Regulatory Affairs at Haypp Group, and formerly Philip Morris International. We discuss the US regulatory scheme for novel nicotine products including e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches, including: the two ways nicotine are regulated (“safe and effective” drug pathway vs. “appropriate for the protection of public health” postmarket tobacco product application (PMTA) pathway); what kind of science is needed for a PMTA; FDA’s recent authorization of Glas e-cigarettes in (for the first time) fruit flavors; and FDA’s recent enforcement priorities.
A look back at how things have moved on or otherwise…
Smoking Rates Decline, Again
Paul Barnes, Facts Do Matter
Today saw the release of the latest set of data for smoking prevalence within the UK from the Office of National Statistics Annual Population Survey and the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey.
As you would expect from the UK, with its generally liberal stance on e-cigarettes, and despite the shitstorm of piss poor media reporting on various studies, stupid legislation proposals, daft bans, and general bullshit; e-cigarettes remain the most common aid for people to move away from tobacco.
New CDC Data
Should Put to Rest the Contention that E-Cigs are a Gateway to Youth Smoking
Michael Siegel – The rest of the Story
New data released moments ago by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) should put to rest the contention that electronic cigarettes are a gateway to smoking among youth. These new data show that the prevalence of smoking among high school students was cut in half in just five years – from 2011 to 2016 – at the same time as the use of e-cigarettes among these very same students increased dramatically from 1.5% to a peak of 16.0% in 2015.
Visit Nicotine Science & Policy for more News from around the World
CBC’s Nicotine Blind Spot: When Journalism Becomes Advocacy
The Nicotine Project
Two From SnusForumet
Swedish health minister slams France pouch ban: ‘idiotic’
Estonia offers Europe a cautionary tale on nicotine regulation
Pakistan’s Finance Bill 2026-27 proposes raising FED on e-cigarette liquids
Zia Uddin, LinkedIn
BAT Estimates U.S. Unauthorized Vape Market at $9.4 Billion, Plans New Vuse and Velo Launches After FDA Enforcement Shift
2Firsts