Vapers Digest 26th June

Friday’s News at a glance:
The Michael Russel Oration ~ Parliament Matters ~ The Budget Says Tobacco Control Is On Track. Reality Suggests Otherwise. ~ The Predictable Consequence of Prohibition: Australia Created the Market It Now Warns You About ~ The Question Australia Refuses to Ask: Why Is New Zealand Succeeding? ~ Another Sham E-Cigarette Study is Retracted; Can We Trust Any of this Literature? ~ The Population Is Shifting to a Less Harmful Form of Nicotine ~ The Cleveland Clinic’s very bad advice ~ Aotearoa New Zealand: Battleground of Tobacco Harm Reduction Perceptions ~ New UK vape tax expected to raise £565m as border rules tighten ~ Italy fines Philip Morris €7m as smoke-free ruling clashes with FDA evidence on safer nicotine ~ US adults are moving from smoking to vaping, US study finds ~ Tobacco and Vapes Act: Regulating the Graveyard ~ Historic Youth Tobacco Declines Highlight the Need for Regulatory Reform ~ Tiny Pacific Nation Applies for Global Nicotine Ban. Who’s Behind It? ~ Media Statement: Committee on Health Adopts the Motion of Desirability of the Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Control Bill ~ Where’s the Outrage? | Lack of Urgency Mires U.S. Nicotine Industry | RegWatch
Two From Dave Cross, Planet Of The Vapes
The Michael Russel Oration
The Michael Russel Oration at the Global Forum on Nicotine (GFN26) was presented by Dr. Alex Wodak, a retired physician with a wealth of experience in drug law reform and tobacco harm reduction. He was president of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation for many years and now he’s dedicating himself to drug law reform and tobacco harm reduction “as his kind of retirement hobby”.
Parliament Matters
James Wild, he could be an MI5 operative or maybe a devil-may-care outlaw biker in a 50s film. Could be, but isn’t, and is interested in Vaping Duty Stamps. Jack Rankin sounds like the kind of person who either assassinates bad guys or is the love interest in a Bridget Jones knock-off. He isn’t either, he’s just the kind of bloke who wants to know about retail licensing scheme timetables. Which leaves Dr Caroline Johnson this week, and whether on the Big Screen or in real life, she’s a baddie.
Three From Alan Gor
The Budget Says Tobacco Control Is On Track. Reality Suggests Otherwise.
Buried deep within the Australian Government’s 2026-27 Budget papers is a brief section on tobacco control that most Australians will never read. It contains a simple conclusion that policymakers appear comfortable repeating: Australia’s tobacco control strategy is “on track.” According to the Department of Health, progress continues toward the long-standing objective of reducing daily smoking prevalence to below 5 per cent through smoking and nicotine cessation and prevention activities. On paper, it sounds like a success story. In reality, it raises a much more uncomfortable question. On track according to whom?
The Predictable Consequence of Prohibition: Australia Created the Market It Now Warns You About
Another uncomfortable reality sits beneath this latest warning, and it is one that policymakers rarely acknowledge. The discovery of etomidate in an illicit vape is not simply evidence of a contaminated product. It is evidence of a market that has become so detached from regulation that consumers can no longer have confidence in what they are buying. In a functioning legal market, consumers may still face risks, but those risks are at least known, monitored and subject to oversight. In a black market, uncertainty itself becomes the risk. A person purchasing a nicotine vape may unknowingly be purchasing a product containing synthetic cannabinoids, excessive nicotine concentrations, undisclosed chemicals or, as this latest warning demonstrates, even a hospital anaesthetic. The danger is not merely the substance itself. The danger is that nobody knows what else might be there.
The Question Australia Refuses to Ask: Why Is New Zealand Succeeding?
For more than a decade, Australian politicians, health departments and tobacco control organisations have presented New Zealand as a close policy cousin. Both countries pursued high tobacco taxes, adopted plain packaging, invested heavily in anti-smoking campaigns and set ambitious goals to reduce smoking prevalence.
Yet in recent years, the two countries have begun moving in very different directions.
Another Sham E-Cigarette Study is Retracted; Can We Trust Any of this Literature?
Dr. Michael Siegel, The Rest of the Story
If you missed it, an article published in 2023 in the Journal of Investigative Medicine sent shock waves among researchers and policy makers by concluding that e-cigarette use causes chronic lung disease (both asthma and COPD). The study was cited in an influential meta-analysis concluding the same and was the basis of an advertising campaign in California touting the lung disease risks associated with e-cigarette use.
The investigators based their conclusion on a cross-sectional study of the prevalence of e-cigarette use, smoking, dual use, and nonsmoking among a sample of 178,300 adults interviewed as part of the 2015-2016 and 2017-2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) survey.
The Population Is Shifting to a Less Harmful Form of Nicotine
Arielle Selya PhD, Selya Behavioral Science Substack
A new paper with colleagues Sooyong Kim (Pinney Associates) and Prof. Ray Niaura (NYU) presents a straightforward depiction of prevalence trends for cigarette smoking and e-cigarette use in US adults.
Before I get into the results, I want to note that our article, published in Nicotine & Tobacco Research, was a personal side project (not commissioned, funded, or overseen by my clients Juul Labs or the Global Forum on Nicotine). In this paper we analyze the National Health Interview Survey, which is a nationally-representative annual survey conducted by the CDC. Data are also publicly available, so anyone who doesn’t trust our analysis is welcome to redo our analysis.
The Cleveland Clinic’s very bad advice
Marc Gunther, The Best Laid Plans
In a carefully worded article on its website headlined Vaping vs. Smoking: Both Are Dangerous, the world-renowned Cleveland Clinic says:
Both vaping and smoking are bad for you. But is vaping better than smoking cigarettes, as you may have heard?
The honest answer is: We don’t know yet.
But we do know, for sure, that both behaviors are risky.
This is literally true but far from an “honest answer.” It may be well intended but its effect is to mislead. It’s the kind of thing that leads people to mistrust public-health experts. Worst of all, it could discourage some people who smoke cigarettes to quit by switching to vapes to get their nicotine.
Aotearoa New Zealand: Battleground of Tobacco Harm Reduction Perceptions
N.E. Loucas, Wherever You Go, There You Are
Around the world, tobacco harm reduction is viewed in starkly different ways. In some countries and institutions, offering lower risk nicotine products to people who smoke is seen as a practical, evidence based way to cut disease and death, especially where quitting all nicotine is difficult. In others, any ongoing nicotine use is treated as unacceptable, and harm reduction is portrayed as either a distraction from “real” tobacco control or as an extension of tobacco industry influence.
Three From Clearing The Air
New UK vape tax expected to raise £565m as border rules tighten
Tim Hong
The UK’s new vape tax is expected to raise £565 million a year by 2030/31, as ministers prepare to bring vaping liquids into the excise duty system for the first time.
From 1 October 2026, Vaping Products Duty will apply to all vaping liquids sold or supplied in the UK, whether or not they contain nicotine. The duty will be charged at a flat rate of £2.20 per 10ml of liquid, or 22p per millilitre.
That means a 2ml pod will carry 44p in duty, while a 10ml refill bottle will carry £2.20 before VAT and other costs are added.
Italy fines Philip Morris €7m as smoke-free ruling clashes with FDA evidence on safer nicotine
Tim Hong
Italy’s competition authority has fined Philip Morris Italia €7 million over its marketing of non-combustion products.
The ruling targets claims including “smoke-free”, “smoke-free products” and “building/planning/accelerating a smoke-free future”.
The authority said current scientific and clinical knowledge does not support claims that the products are harmless or less harmful.
That finding cuts across the FDA’s public position that non-combusted products generally sit lower on the risk spectrum than cigarettes.
US adults are moving from smoking to vaping, US study finds
Ali Anderson
Exclusive cigarette smoking fell sharply among US adults who used cigarettes or vapes between 2014 and 2024.
Exclusive vaping rose from 5.5% to 39.9% of cigarette and/or vape use over the same period.
The shift was strongest among adults aged 18 to 29, where exclusive smoking fell from 72.8% to 7.1%.
Adults aged 60 and over saw little change, with exclusive smoking still accounting for 85.4% of cigarette and/or vape use in late 2024.
Tobacco and Vapes Act: Regulating the Graveyard
James Dunworth, E-Cigarette Direct
Regulation of the graveyard.
It’s a term used for over-regulated markets, where red tape strangles innovation and competition and leads to price increases and inefficiency.
It seems perfect for the vaping industry, where a tsunami of regulation is slowly strangling small, legal businesses to the benefit of both the tobacco companies that have been killing their customers for generations and the now huge illicit, black market vape industry.
The Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026 is a case in point, but it’s also one where there’s huge confusion. I’ve heard retailers conflate it with the Vape Products Duty (VPD), but that’s a whole separate piece of legislation.
Lindsey Stroud, Tobacco Harm Reduction 101
Long-awaited details from the 2025 National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS) have finally been published, and the findings are significant: youth tobacco use has fallen to historic lows, while youth e-cigarette use has reached its lowest level in more than a decade.
Although the NYTS is administered by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the raw 2025 data were quietly released in March by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The full research report, published on June 23 in Nicotine & Tobacco Research, marks a notable departure from the CDC’s longstanding practice of publishing NYTS findings through its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Regardless of the delay, the results are encouraging.
Tiny Pacific Nation Applies for Global Nicotine Ban. Who’s Behind It?
Kiran Sidhu, Filter
One of the smallest countries in the world has set its sights on radically restricting—effectively banning—the global community’s access to nicotine.
On June 10, the Republic of Palau, an island nation in the Western Pacific with a population of 18,000, formally applied for a World Health Organization review of nicotine, under Article 2 of the 1971 UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances. This would have the potential to place nicotine under similar international drug restrictions to GHB, say, or methamphetamine—making the sale of non-medical nicotine products illegal.
Media Statement: Committee on Health Adopts the Motion of Desirability of the Tobacco Products
and Electronic Delivery Systems Control Bill
Parliament of the Republic of South Africa
The Portfolio Committee on Health adopted a motion of desirability of the Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Control Bill in its meeting today. Of the 11 members of the committee, 10 voted in favour of desirability and only one voted against.
The committee Chairperson, Ms Faith Muthambi, told the committee that the extent of the public participation on this Bill showed democracy in action, as the committee took the Bill to 27 municipalities, across all nine provinces. Nearly 7 900 South Africans attended public hearings, and 1 113 rose to make oral submissions.
Where’s the Outrage? | Lack of Urgency Mires U.S. Nicotine Industry | RegWatch
Brent Stafford, Regulator Watch
The U.S. nicotine vaping industry continues to stall as the FDA maintains its de facto ban on flavored vaping products despite recent authorizations while a booming illicit market chokes oxygen from legal trade.
With millions of Americans still smoking and millions more relying on safer nicotine alternatives, many observers are left wondering: Where’s the outrage?
In this episode of RegWatch, Dr. Mark Tyndall shares his candid observations after attending two of the most influential nicotine conferences in the United States—the American Tobacco and Nicotine Forum and the Nicotine Summit. While regulators struggle to contain a massive illicit market and safer nicotine products remain trapped in regulatory limbo, Tyndall says what struck him most was the lack of urgency among those best positioned to drive change.
On this day…2015!
A look back at how things have moved on or otherwise…
Glantz telling us why vaping is a great idea
Vaping Giraffe:
In the beginning of this month I wrote a post about an article written by Tore Sanner and Tor K. Grimsrud, where they try to convince Norwegian politicians to heavily regulate e-cigarettes, in reality handing the market over to Big Tobacco. Pretty much the same kind of propaganda we’re used to from Stanton Glantz, with conclusions drawn out of thin air, preferably backed up by some graphs and data that has nothing to do with the conclusion whatsoever….
Dear @FDATobacco:
Stanton Glantz’s junk science reflects upon you – Carl V. Phillips
Stanton Glantz is not the worst liar or most incompetent excuse for a scientist in public health, or even tobacco control. There are plenty of people who make even stupider claims, including some of his own sidekicks. Since tobacco control is based mainly on junk science, there is a natural niche that is going to be filled by someone….
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