In the News March 16th

Wednesdays News at a glance:

There’s Only One Person To Blame, Drakeford – Welsh Government Vaping Ban FAILS At Last Hurdle! – Harmonised classification – Toward Automated E-cigarette Surveillance: Spotting E-cigarette Proponents on Twitter – Ontario’s vaping policy: Did smoke get in their eyes? – Association of Youth E-Cigarette Bans – Tobacco tax affects state revenue – Anti-smoking bills treat everyone as kids – Experts Come Out Of The Woodwork – Nicotine Science and Policy Daily Digest – Wednesday, 16 March 2016

There’s Only One Person To Blame...

Drakeford – Dick Puddlecote

The BBC has carried some pretty awesome news this evening.

A public health law which includes a ban on e-cigarette use in some public places has been rejected by AMs after a row between Labour and Plaid Cymru.

Plaid voted against the bill in a last-minute move, meaning the assembly was tied 26-26 and the bill failed.

It comes after Public Services Minister Leighton Andrews said a previous deal with the party was a “cheap date”.

Health Minister Mark Drakeford said he was “deeply disappointed” that the bill would not become law.

So that’s the ban on vaping in public places binned then, possibly for good….

Welsh Government Vaping Ban

FAILS At Last Hurdle! – Vapers in Power

Vapers in Power is delighted that common sense has prevailed, that science has been followed and vapers have been listened to. Vaping will now continue to be publicly visible as the safer alternative to smoking.

Read more in: Daily Mail – The Telegraph – Financial Times

Harmonised classification

And labelling current consultations – ECHA

Parties concerned are invited to comment on hazard classes open for public consultation. The indicated hazard classes were assessed and concluded by the dossier submitter in their proposal for harmonised classification and labelling (CLH) of the substance, and are indicated in the Substance Details table below. The CLH public consultation lasts normally for 45 days…

Toward Automated E-cigarette Surveillance:

Spotting E-cigarette Proponents on Twitter – PubMed

We develop a high accuracy supervised predictive model to automatically identify e-cig “proponents” on Twitter and analyze the quantitative variation of their tweeting behavior along popular themes when compared with other Twitter users (or tweeters)…

Ontario’s vaping policy:

Did smoke get in their eyes? – David Sweanor

Recently, the Ontario government announced its intention to treat vaping the same as cigarette-smoking. If this strikes you as being as dumb as treating clean needles like dirty ones, or safe sex the same as the unprotected variety, you have grasped the problem with the plan.

Association of Youth E-Cigarette Bans

With Increased Smoking Confirmed – Brad Rodu – Tobacco Truth

There is fresh evidence indicating that attempts to prohibit youth access to e-cigarettes increase youth smoking rates.

Last November, I discussed a Yale research finding that smoking increased significantly among teens aged 12-17 in states that banned e-cigarette sales to minors compared with states with no bans

Tobacco tax affects state revenue

Corey McDonald – The Daily Athenaeum

Senate Bill 420—which would raise taxes on all tobacco products—was stalled in the House Finance Committee this past legislative session. However, there is still a chance for a recovery in a special legislative session this spring, and its implications would be tremendous for the state but devastating for one specific business.

Anti-smoking bills treat everyone as kids

It’s called infantalization – the treating of adults as if they were children. That’s the essence of two bills just passed by the California Legislature.
Senate Bill X2-7 would raise the legal smoking age to 21 from 18 and is authored by state Sen. Ed Hernandez, D-Azusa.

Experts Come Out Of The Woodwork

To Slam Gov. Cuomo’s Sister For HuffPo Video About E-Cigs – Guy Bentley

Margaret Cuomo M.D., sister of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo produced a video Monday for HuffPo that peddled several falsehoods about e-cigarettes, and various experts have since come out to criticize her conclusions…