Vapers Digest 21st July

Friday’s News at a glance:

Challenging the prohibitionists – Order In The Popcorn For The North West – A fit of the vapers – Simple Simon would refuse to meet the pieman – Pet Owners Warned – We have won one battle – UK Government embraces THR – Silencing Public Dissension – Judge rules for FDA in Nicopure lawsuit – Big Tobacco Finds Surprise Allies – Brexit is Britain’s chance to cut red tape – Why banning vaping products hurts public health – Nicotine Science and Policy Daily Digest

Challenging the prohibitionists

Submissions to Australian parliamentary inquiry into e-cigarettes

Clive Bates, The Counterfactual

Really, it should be a no-brainer! But here is an effort to encourage Australia’s legislators to look beyond the unaccountable clique that dominate Australia’s tobacco control field, and instead to look kindly on lifting the absurd Australian de facto prohibition of e-cigarettes and other low risk nicotine products.

Let’s boil it down to its essentials: supporters of e-cigarette prohibition somehow think it makes sense to deny at-risk citizens, smokers, access to much safer products that are alternatives to the market leader and to only allow the most dangerous products, namely “tobacco prepared and packed for smoking“, onto the consumer nicotine market.

Order In The Popcorn For The North West

Dick Puddlecote

So, the UK government’s tobacco control plan (TCP) was finally published today. I’ve had a read of it and was going to write a few words about the whole thing but I’d instead direct you to Snowdon for an overall critique, and NNA for a short but sweet viewpoint of the vaping elements.

Instead, let’s talk about some people in north west England for whom the TCP must have come as a bit of a nasty pill to swallow.

A fit of the vapers

The Pub Curmudgeon

I spotted the sign on the right in the Prince Rupert in Newark, Nottinghamshire, which belongs to a small pubco called Knead Pubs. Similar blanket bans on e-cigarettes are commonplace, most notably in Wetherspoon’s, but the the faux-politeness of this one is particularly grating. It’s not much consolation to vapers that using e-cigarettes indoors is legal if the pub behaves as though it isn’t.

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Simple Simon

Would refuse to meet the pieman

Carl V. Phillips, Anti-THR Lies

I prefer to write about science (or those pretending to do science, or those who cannot seem to report on it accurately) and the activities of government actors. I very much appreciate the efforts of those who take on blowhards who just pontificate their opinions, but it is just not my thing. However, every now and then, one of the blowhards says something that is really useful as social science. Case in point, a recent tweet by Australian Simon Chapman.

Pet Owners Warned

Mawsley, Planet of the Vapes

People are well aware that liquids for electronic cigarettes can be toxic to small children, which drove the move to have childproof caps on e-liquid bottles. Vets are concerned that not enough is being done to protect household pets from potential vape dangers.
The Veterinary Poisons Information Service are advising the public that they have seen a growth in the number of pets suffering from poisoning related to electronic cigarette liquids.

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We have won one battle

But the war isn’t over yet – Andrew Allison

The Government announced earlier this week that vaping should be allowed in offices and enclosed public spaces  in order to “maximise” access to safer alternatives to smoking. This is good news and follows on from our report last year on the vaping policies of councils, and the way councils treat their members of staff who vape.

UK Government embraces THR

Oliver Kershaw

The UK Government issued today its tobacco control plan entitled: “Towards a Smoke Free Future”. It’s a comprehensive review of anti-smoking policy objectives over the next five years and contains significant support for vapor innovation throughout.

As Clive Bates has pointed out, this makes the UK Government the first in the world to adopt an official tobacco harm reduction agenda.

British health ministry

Puts e-cigs at heart of anti-smoking plans

The British government has promised to examine the EU Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) to ensure that e-cigarettes have the maximum positive impact on public health, which it hopes will include a key role in reducing smoking in England.

The UK Department of Health (DoH) outlines the role it envisages for e-cigs in its newly-published tobacco control plan for England, entitled Towards a Smoke-free Generation.

Silencing Public Dissension 

Public Comment Periods are No Guarantee of Coordination

Fred Kelly Grant – EVCA

In ​ EVERY CASE I HAVE WORKED ON FOR 25 YEARS the federal agency​ ​has​ already predetermined its decision before the public comment period ever begins. Think about it. Who prepares the “proposed decision” to be submitted to the public? The agency does.

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Judge rules for FDA in Nicopure lawsuit

Jim McDonald, Vaping 360

The vaping industry has lost its first major legal challenge to the FDA’s deeming regulations.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson has ruled against Nicopure Labs and the Right to be Smoke-Free Coalition and its fellow plaintiffs, and granted the FDA’s motion for summary judgement. The case was heard in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, in Washington, D.C.

Big Tobacco Finds Surprise Allies

Jennifer Maloney

Tobacco companies want U.S. regulators to bless smokeless tobacco as a safer alternative to smoking, as cigarette consumption falls. In its campaign, Big Tobacco has unusual supporters: some public-health advocates.

Many scientists agree that moist, smokeless tobacco, including chewing and dipping tobacco, is significantly less harmful than cigarettes

Brexit is Britain’s chance to cut red tape

Christian Mulcahy

This week, the government released its Tobacco Control Plan. This has been long awaited by the vaping industry – until now, we did not really know in what light it would cast our products, or if vaping would even feature in it at all.

My industry colleagues and I absolutely welcome the inclusion of vaping in the Plan, and the surprisingly constructive approach the government seems to be taking to smoking cessation.

Why banning vaping products

Hurts public health – Guy Bentley

There’s a strange anti-vaping hysteria hitting governments. Unfortunately, it’s nothing new to Southern California. The Los Angeles City Council voted to ban vaping in public places years before state legislators opted for a statewide clampdown.

In May, the Laguna Beach City Council included vaping in its all-out ban of tobacco use in public places. The Riverside cities of Norco and Hemet banned e-cigarettes from parks in 2016 and 2015, respectively.

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On this Day…2016

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

The Problem With ‘Public Health’

Dick Puddlecote

Yesterday, by total chance, I managed to hear Martin Dockrell of Public Health England on radio 5 live speaking about the new guidelines his organisation has produced on vaping in the workplace. (You can listen to it here from 41:45 onwards).

In the humble opinion of your host here, it speaks volumes about the problems we face with both ‘public health’ and the public sector in general.

Vaping at Work

Stealth Vape

Some times this section of the website gets a little bit more serious. As vaping has blossomed and numbers of people doing it increased, companies have had to form policies on how vapers are treated at work. You have probably noticed you employer adopting a policy for electronic cigarettes and – in all probability – it has meant being treated as if you were still a smoker.

The ENDS Justifies The Ends

Harry Shapiro – DrugWise

You would think that a product with the potential to save a billion tobacco-related deaths this century without costing tax-payers a penny would be universally welcomed by governments and the global public health community. You’d be wrong. Startling revelations from this years’ Global Nicotine Forum Conference in Warsaw.

Five associations appeal against ban 

On vaping advertising and promotion – Jérôme Harlay

Five associations undertake an appeal at the Conseil d’État to contest on the form and substance, and to overturn direct or indirect promotion and advertising ban of vaping products which seriously undermine freedom of speech.

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Visit Nicotine Science & Policy for more News from around the World

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