Vapers Digest 11th November

Friday’s News at a glance:

California Votes to Ban Sales of Almost All Flavored Nicotine Products – California Voters Approve Flavored Vape Prohibition – Policy Focus: E-Cigarettes and Public Health – Most Americans Get Combustion Is Harmful – CDC’s Confusingly Presented Youth Vaping Data – A Spanish Declaration – ASH Retailer Survey – Kiwi Regulators Get Tough – Backbencher Debate – Australia’s vaping rules – Juul Secures Financing to Avoid Bankruptcy – ‘Positive disruption’ could end smoking

California Votes to Ban Sales

Of Almost All Flavored Nicotine Products – Alex Norcia

California residents voted in the November 8 midterm elections to ban the sale of almost all flavored nicotine products, as the Associated Press confirmed. Only hookah and some premium cigars are exempt.

By the morning of November 9, with only 42 percent of the ballots counted, the result was already clear: More than 62 percent of counted votes were in favor of Proposition 31. That means the state will become the second, after Massachusetts, to prohibit retail sales to this extent, and the fifth to pass some version of a vape flavor ban. Many adults who use vapes to quit cigarettes find flavors helpful or even vital—but that reality has long been drowned out by the national outcry over youth vaping.

Tobacco companies sue California over flavored tobacco ban, hours after voters approve it

California Voters Approve …

Flavored Vape Prohibition – Jim McDonald

With over 40 percent of votes counted, California voters appear to be on the way to overwhelmingly approve Proposition 31, which bans sale in stores of vaping and tobacco products containing non-tobacco flavors. So far, 62 percent of voters have supported the flavor ban.

Financial support for the ballot initiative came almost exclusively from billionaire anti-vaping activist Michael Bloomberg.

Prop 31 allowed voting residents to approve or reject a bill passed in 2020 by a huge majority of the California Assembly. The law was put on hold for two years after tobacco companies bankrolled a signature-collection campaign to put the legislation to the voters.

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Two from Lindsey Stroud:

Most Americans Get Combustion….

Is Harmful for the Environment, But Not for Lungs

Voters in California were in a unique position this election cycle as they have (tentatively) determined adults aged 21 years or older should not be able to legally purchase flavored tobacco and vapor products. This has been one of the most expensive ballot propositions this year with over $60.1 million in expenditures for “Yes on Proposition 31,” with nanny-state supporter Michael Bloomberg pumping in $58 million, or 95 percent of the campaign’s funding. Just two days after the election, less than half of the votes are counted (46 percent), but those that have voted on the prohibitionist measure overwhelmingly (62.3 percent to 37.7 percent) agreed to join four other states that already ban flavored vapor products, as well as Massachusetts, in banning all flavored tobacco and vape products.

Policy Focus: E-Cigs and Public Health

Cigarette smoking has killed millions of Americans, yet, in recent years, novel tobacco harm reduction products, e-cigarettes and vapor products, have shaken up the marketplace, leading to significant declines in combustible cigarette use. Despite this, lawmakers and regulators are being influenced by billionaires that will stop at nothing to see the end of e-cigarettes in America, regardless of their significantly reduced harm. Public health should be promoting the use of tobacco harm reduction products, not stunting adult access to these innovations.

Click here for the PDF

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How to Read the CDC’s Confusingly …

Presented Youth Vaping Data – Danielle Jones

I don’t think I’d ever heard of the annual National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS), conducted annually by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). But in 2018 it crashed into my life, as someone who had finally been able to quit smoking after 10 years, through the use of nicotine vapes.

That was the year that Scott Gottlieb, then commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), responded to the NYTS data by announcing that youth vaping was an “epidemic.” This pronouncement threw vaping into the headlines, making it Public Enemy Number One as panic over youth use exploded. A rash of restrictions and bans have followed.

Four from Dave Cross, Planet of the Vapes:

A Spanish Declaration

170 Spanish and international experts have signed a joint declaration supporting vaping for a smoke-free Spain. The country holds outspoken and well-funded tobacco control bodies that actively oppose vaping and tobacco harm reduction, but the experts say the data demonstrates they are failing the nation.

The headline figure is that despite the efforts of the tobacco control lobby, around one third of adults still use tobacco on a daily basis. This fact means that Spain runs with a far higher smoking rate than the European Union average and has a low adoption rate of safer alternatives to tobacco.

ASH Retailer Survey

An All-Party Group on Smoking and Health today heard the results of a survey today showing that the majority of tobacco retailers support existing tobacco laws and also tougher regulations in future including a levy on tobacco manufacturers to pay for measures to help smokers quit and raising the age of sale to 21. Conservative Chairman of the APPG, Bob Blackman, has secured the first backbench debate under the new government on Thursday 3rd November and plans to raise the findings of the survey in the debate.

Bob Blackman MP, Chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Smoking and Health, said: “The main argument used by tobacco manufacturers’ against tobacco laws with politicians like me is that they harm small shops. What this survey of nearly 1,000 shopkeepers published today shows is that shopkeepers don’t think that’s true.

Kiwi Regulators Get Tough

Regulators in New Zealand are getting tough, with Te Whatu Ora National Public Health Service recently running controlled purchase operations on 39 retailers in Canterbury in recent months. It is a move that has been welcomed by the local consumer advocacy group. The need for enforcement highlights the failure of restricting the sale of flavoured products, which is believed to lie behind the growth of disreputable vendors prepared to break the law.

“It’s great news that ratbag retailers are getting slapped with fines for selling vapes to minors. We just need to see more of it. Enforcement and parental responsibility are key to attacking youth vaping,” says Nancy Loucas, co-founder of Aotearoa Vapers Community Advocacy (AVCA).

Backbencher Debate

The government has been urged to investigate the potential that vapes are being marketed to teens despite legislation being in place to prevent such sales. The call came during a backbench debate about Smokefree 2030 led by Conservative Bob Blackman, the MP for Harrow East.

Bob Blackman opened by saying: “This House has considered the recommendations of the Khan review: Making smoking obsolete, the independent review into smokefree 2030 policies, by Dr Javed Khan, published on 9 June 2022; and calls upon His Majesty’s Government to publish a new Tobacco Control Plan by the end of 2022, in order to deliver the smokefree 2030 ambition.”

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Australia’s vaping rules:

The policy so bad it never even made it to a first review

The revelation that promised reviews of Australia’s prohibition-style vaping regulations never happened underscore the complete failure of the policy, Legalise Vaping Australia said today.

In an extraordinary Senate Estimates hearing yesterday the Head of the Therapeutic Goods Administration, Deputy Secretary Adjunct Professor Dr John Skerritt, disclosed that reviews of the TGA’s regulations on vaping, which force adults to get a prescription to legally purchase nicotine vaping products, have not proceeded.

Instead they have been replaced by various roundtables and closed consultations, including a meeting of “vaping experts” in September that nobody has heard anything about.

Juul Secures Finance to Avoid Bankruptcy

Jennifer Maloney

Juul Labs Inc. has secured a cash infusion from some of its early investors to stave off bankruptcy and plans to lay off about a third of its global staff, company officials said.

The embattled e-cigarette maker had been preparing for a possible chapter 11 filing amid a dispute with federal regulators over whether its products can remain on the U.S. market.

With the new infusion, Juul told employees Thursday that it has stopped its bankruptcy preparations and is working on a cost-cutting program. Juul plans to lay off about 400 people and reduce its operating budget by 30% to 40%, company officials said.

Alternative PDF

‘Positive disruption’ could end smoking

And shape future of public health

New research indicates that ‘positive disruption’ could accelerate the end of smoking, according to an international survey on innovation in the public health sector.

‘Disruption’ in this sense refers to major developments, technological or otherwise, that have changed society in a lasting manner. An example of positive disruption would be the advent of refrigeration, and an example of a recent negative disruption is the coronavirus pandemic.

One multinational planning on being at the forefront of positive disruption in regards to mitigating the harmful effects of smoking, is tobacco company Philip Morris International (PMI).

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On this Day…2021

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