Vapers Digest 11th November
Wednesday’s News at a glance:
When the Narrative Meets an Inconvenient Result ~ Global CoEHAR study: respiratory symptoms among never-smokers who vape remain below the threshold of clinical relevance ~ Former INTERPOL Assistant Director Warns EU Nicotine Crackdown Will Fuel Organised Crime ~ The Evolution of a Skeptic ~ How People Perceive Risks ~ In defence of the Science Media Centre ~ Where is the evidence? ~ ETHRA October news roundup ~ Serious Concerns Regarding the Revision of EU Tobacco and Nicotine Legislation – letter to DGs ~ Lost in the Labyrinth of Nicotine Products ~ FDA Clarifies Age-Gating Rules for Flavored Vapes ~ What Austria got right on pouches, and Spain is about to get wrong ~ Media Watch: Do Drivers Really Have to Worry about £5,000 Fines for Someone Vaping in their Car? ~ No new EU tax on white snus – decision postponed following Swedish-Finnish compromise ~ Awareness Without a Fire Escape: Lung Cancer Month and the People Still Smoking ~ Not a Faustian Bargain: What Britain’s Vaping Data Really Means for India ~ Position vapes as quit-smoking aids, young people urge in UK study ~ Three years after flavour ban, 77 per cent of Quebec vapers still use banned flavours ~ EU Countries reject minimum taxes on nicotine pouches. What actually happened? ~ The Nicotine Cure ~ EU tobacco tax overhaul stalls as ministers fall short of agreement ~ Tobacco Regulation: European Union ~ Hawaii’s Largest Independent Vape Retailer and Wholesaler Volcano to Close All 13 Stores Ahead of 2027 Sales Rules ~ Tobacco Control: Evidence, Risk and Patient Outcomes with Dr. Joe Kosterich | MedSynapse
Alan Gorley
This study begins with a familiar tobacco-control proposition: vaping among young people has increased partly because of pervasive and aggressive advertising. It then examines 729 Victorians aged 15 to 29 who were not currently vaping and asks whether exposure to vape advertising is associated with perceptions of vaping and intentions to use it.
Global CoEHAR study: respiratory symptoms among never-smokers who vape remain below the threshold of clinical relevance
Center of Excellence for the Acceleration of HArm Reduction (CoEHAR)
A large international study involving 1,519 adults from 29 countries has found that people who exclusively use e-cigarettes without an established history of cigarette smoking report slightly more frequent respiratory symptoms than non-users. However, the difference was small and remained below a previously reported threshold for clinical relevance.
Prohibition Does Not Work
As the European Commission considers revisions to the Tobacco Products Directive, Michael Ellis, former INTERPOL Assistant Director and Advisor to Prohibition Does Not Work, has warned that sweeping restrictions on nicotine products risk handing lucrative new markets to organised crime.
Two From Charles A. Gardner, PhD, Medium
The Evolution of a Skeptic
Dr. Nora Volkow, Director of the NIH National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), has been an important voice in controversies surrounding nicotine vapes (“e-cigarettes”). Her September 2025, essay, Toward the Development of E-Cigarettes as Smoking-Cessation Therapeutics, signals an important shift in her public position. This deserves attention.
Paul Slovic’s influential paper examined why people’s perception of risk often differs substantially from scientific assessments of actual danger. His central argument was that risk is not judged solely by statistical probabilities or expected mortality. Psychological, emotional and social factors strongly influence risk perceptions.
In defence of the Science Media Centre
Christopher Snowdon, The Critic
The Science Media Centre (SMC) has been a lifeline for journalists in need of a quote since it was formed in 2002. It emails expert opinion about embargoed studies and publishes a list of expert comments on its website for the public to view. The comments are sometimes positive and sometimes negative. Sometimes the experts disagree with each other, but the SMC provides some useful perspective.
Where is the evidence?
N.E. Loucas,Wherever You Go, There You Are
Two From European Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (ETHRA)
ETHRA October news roundup
ETHRA’s October roundup of news: TPD3 developments – Tobacco Tax Directive negotiations fail – eight EU ministers call for further nicotine restrictions – country updates from across Europe – Ireland’s vaping legislation – new research on smoking cessation and nicotine pouches – and finally, a look at nicotine regulation and public perceptions. Read on for more.
Serious Concerns Regarding the Revision of EU Tobacco and Nicotine Legislation – letter to DGs
Damian Sweeney
On Tuesday 10 October we wrote to the Directorates-General (DGs) of the European Commission to voice our serious concerns about the revision of the EU’s tobacco and nicotine legislation. In the letter we included our submission to the 18 May to 15 June 2026 Call for Evidence and our critique of the Public Consultation questionnaire. The letter is copied below.
Lost in the Labyrinth of Nicotine Products
Ying Zhang, Andy Tan, Meghan Moran, MedPage Today
Americans increasingly navigate a fast-changing marketplace of nicotine and tobacco products. Walk into a convenience store today and you will encounter a dizzying array of products: cigarettes, e-cigarettes, nicotine pouches, smokeless tobacco, snus, and heated tobacco products, often sold in bright packaging and flavors designed to appeal.
FDA Clarifies Age-Gating Rules for Flavored Vapes
Timothy S. Donahue, Nicotine Insider
The FDA says flavored vapes don’t necessarily need a digital bouncer at the door.
In a letter dated October 26 to Glas Inc., Bret Koplow, director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products (CTP), clarified that device access restrictions (DAR), including age-verification technology, are not required for flavored electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) to obtain marketing authorization.
What Austria got right on pouches, and Spain is about to get wrong
Considerate Pouchers
Two EU countries. One question. How much nicotine should a pouch be allowed to contain?
Austria says up to 26.6 mg. Spain’s draft decree reportedly says 4.
Austria keeps pouches legal and regulates them. Since August, they’ve been covered by the country’s main tobacco law. Nobody under 18 can buy them, anywhere in Austria. There are no limits on flavours. But advertising will be banned from March 2028. And since April, pouches can only be sold in licensed tobacconists, where staff check ID at the counter.
Media Watch: Do Drivers Really Have to Worry about £5,000 Fines for Someone Vaping in their Car?
The Daily Pouch
An article posted in both Cambridge News and The Chronicle comes hurdling off the press to declare that “Letting someone vape inside your car could cost ‘up to £5,000.’” While it’s ostensibly a helpful public service announcement, when as much as 75% of news is shared on social media without clicking on the actual article, this article stands to do more harm than good.
No new EU tax on white snus – decision postponed following Swedish-Finnish compromise
Stefan Mathisson, Vejpkollen
The level of the EU tax on white snus has been postponed. This follows Sweden and Finland fighting to the very end to lower and raise the tax respectively during tough negotiations in Brussels. The outcome was a compromise with no fixed common tax rate for nicotine pouches at all.
Awareness Without a Fire Escape: Lung Cancer Month and the People Still Smoking
Tobacco Harm Reduction
Lung Cancer Awareness Month, marked in November, does something genuinely valuable. It funds research, it pushes for earlier screening, and it chips away at the stigma that patients brought a disease on themselves. It also tells millions of people that their building is on fire without always telling them where the exits are.
Not a Faustian Bargain: What Britain’s Vaping Data Really Means for India
Association of Vapers India (AVI)
This is a detailed review of an essay, The Faustian Bargain of Vaping: What the UK’s ONS Report Means for India, by Oommen C. Kurian, head of the Health Initiative at the Observer Research Foundation, published on 5 November 2026. ORF is one of India’s most influential think tanks and its health research is read closely in government, so what it publishes carries weight. The essay reads Britain’s latest smoking statistics as a warning for India. We see the same numbers as the strongest case yet for regulating safer nicotine products instead of banning them, and for building policy that protects young people and adult smokers together.
Three From Clearing The Air
Position vapes as quit-smoking aids, young people urge in UK study
Ali Anderson
Young people in a UK study have called for vapes to be positioned as quit-smoking aids, while warning against flavour restrictions that could remove options for adults trying to give up cigarettes.
The participants wanted stronger action on underage sales and youth-oriented marketing. But they also recognised a role for vaping in helping adults stop smoking, proposing that products be supplied through healthcare settings.
Three years after flavour ban, 77 per cent of Quebec vapers still use banned flavours
Ali Anderson
Three years after Quebec banned the sale of flavoured vapes, more than three-quarters (77 per cent) of people who vape are still using flavours covered by the restrictions.
The 77 per cent figure was highlighted by the Coalition québécoise pour le contrôle du tabac, a supporter of the ban, using new provincial statistics. Its warning puts the gap between the rules and what people actually vape back in the spotlight.
EU Countries reject minimum taxes on nicotine pouches. What actually happened?
Peter Beckett
Yesterday was one of those “high drama” days in the EU Council, where Member States tried and ultimately failed to unanimously agree on a nicotine tax directive (and unanimously they must). Magdalena Kersey at Rapporteur called it “thrilling”. Not a word one often associates with meetings of EU finance ministers, but she wasn’t wrong.
Using e-cigarette while working from home could land you in court
People who work from home could soon be breaking the law if they use an e-cigarette while in their own house.
‘Vaping’ while working in your lounge or bedroom outside of nine-to-five hours could result in a fine if a radical bill is passed – and it will also apply to priests and vicars in their official residences.
FDA’s snus PMTA approval – what it seems to mean
Carl V. Phillips – Anti-THR Lies
FDA issued its first ever approval of “new” tobacco products under the PMTA process that I have discussed before (most recently a few days ago in the context of their proposed ban of all existing e-cigarettes). If you were to read the FDA’s press release about it or the news stories — which basically amounts to the same thing, given the quality of health science reporting — you might come away thinking that this was something major. And it kind of is, just not for the reasons FDA wants people to believe….
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