Vapers Digest 13th September
Wednesday’s News at a glance:
How effective are medications and e-cigarettes for quitting smoking, and what works best? ~ How e-cigarette or nicotine replacement therapy influences smoking cessation later in pregnancy ~ How dangerous is vaping – and why the concern over young vapers? ~ Hey Doc: Do You Really Want to Stop Your Patients From Smoking? ~ Is the DC Department of Health Embarking on a Disinformation Campaign to Snuff Out Tobacco Harm Reduction? ~ Is tobacco control the new Big Tobacco? ~ Youth Suicide Prevention and Zero-Tolerance School Policies ~ Australian authorities lying about the effectiveness of vaping ~ GFN News #68 | UK SMOKING RATE AT ALL-TIME LOW | Martin Cullip discusses the latest UK smoking data ~ Calls upon President von der Leyen to Tackle smoking ~ Disposables Waste Quadruples ~ The Death of Disposables ~ Disposable vape ban could cost lives ~ Ban on disposable vapes to stop children becoming addicted ~ British Government Could Ban Disposable Vapes Soon ~ Could EU institutional bias sabotage efforts to stop cigarette smoking? ~ AGs Should Be Urging State Lawmakers to Address (Declining) Youth Vape Use
How effective are medications and e-cigarettes for quitting smoking, and what works best?
Cochrane
Key messages
Some medicines and e-cigarettes (handheld devices that work by heating liquid that usually contains nicotine and flavourings) can help people to quit smoking for six months or longer.
E-cigarettes, and the medicines cytisine (otherwise known as Tabex) and varenicline (otherwise known as Chantix and Champix), appear to help the most people to quit smoking, followed by using two types of nicotine replacement therapy at once (nicotine patch and another type, such as gum or lozenge).
We need more evidence on possible long-term harms of e-cigarettes and medicines to help people quit smoking, but there were very low numbers of serious harms found.
How e-cigarette or nicotine replacement therapy influences smoking cessation later in pregnancy
University at Buffalo
The risks of smoking during pregnancy for both maternal and fetal health are well documented, but only about half of pregnant people quit smoking on their own. To learn more about how e-cigarette or nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) influences smoking cessation later in pregnancy, University at Buffalo researchers compared abstinence rates in the two groups. They found that those using e-cigarettes before pregnancy were more likely to abstain from smoking later in pregnancy.
How dangerous is vaping – and why the concern over young vapers?
John Hand, BBC News
Calls for bans on cheaper disposable vapes have been growing as more young people take up the habit.
The Welsh government has called on the UK government to prohibit the single-use vapes, saying it needs to be “part of a suite of measures to address youth vaping”.
Officials in Westminster are actively looking for ways to reduce the numbers of young people buying and using vapes.
But why is there rising concern about vaping levels, particularly among young people?
Hey Doc: Do You Really Want to Stop Your Patients From Smoking?
Physicians Research Institute
For patients who can’t quit smoking there are several reduced-harm alternatives.
None of these alternative nicotine products are safe. They should not be used except as substitutes by patients who can’t quit.
There is an urgent need to get patients to quit combustible tobacco. This is especially true for longtime smokers, at risk of immediate harm. Quit rates for Americans over 65 have been stagnant since the turn of the century.[1]
Is the DC Department of Health Embarking on a Disinformation Campaign to Snuff Out Tobacco Harm Reduction?
Jeffrey A. Singer, Cato Institute
The District of Columbia Department of Health recently posted a message on “X” to get residents to abandon nicotine e‑cigarettes. The message stated,
1 Vape = 20 cigarettes. #dontbe1 #staysafe #vapefree
One #vape pod contains 20 cigarettes worth of nicotine. Call 800-QUITNOW (800–784-8669) to get help quitting. #dontbe1 #staysafe #vapefree
The people over at the DC Department of Health should have read the results of comprehensive research and analysis published by the UK Government Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, released one year ago, which came to the following conclusions:
Is tobacco control the new Big Tobacco?
Clive Bates, The Counterfactual
How should we understand the widespread hostility to tobacco harm reduction in the mainstream tobacco control community and much of the public health community?
I don’t think we can ignore it any more… the symmetries and parallels with the worst excesses of “Big Tobacco” of the 1970s can no longer be ignored. The methods, ethics and consequences are all too similar, and becoming increasingly common.
Let us consider ten examples of parallels and symmetries:
Youth Suicide Prevention and Zero-Tolerance School Policies
Kim “Skip” Murray, Filter
Aphone call from an old friend saved my life. When he asked if I was ok, I told him I was fine. It took him just three more words to flip the switch that changed everything: “Are you sure?”
Suddenly, I realized I wasn’t ok. I wanted to die.
It feels like death by suicide has been holding my hand for a long time, leading me to an end that is irreversible and hard for anyone to understand. Three years after that phone call, I still contend with it regularly.
World Vapers’ Alliance (WVA)
Ahead of this year’s State of the Union address on Wednesday in Strasbourg, the World Vapers’ Alliance strongly urges President Ursula von der Leyen to tackle the devastating impact of smoking-related diseases in the European Union. The association proposes the EU Commission’s President to embrace a coherent EU-wide harm reduction strategy that includes evidence-based approaches to vaping and nicotine pouches, which have been shown to significantly reduce harm compared to smoking.
Disposable vape ban could cost lives
Christopher Snowdon, IEA
Commenting on reports that the government will propose banning disposable e-cigarettes, Christopher Snowdon, Head of Lifestyle Economics at the free market Institute of Economic Affairs, said:
“A ban on disposable vapes will restrict the choices of millions of adult smokers who could benefit from switching to them.
Could EU institutional bias sabotage efforts to stop cigarette smoking?
Nick Powell, Eureporter
Consultations with pre-determined outcomes or only with like-minded stakeholders are invariably a terrible idea. They are used to provide justification for actions that authorities have already decided to take. It should be obvious that when the European Commission consults stakeholders and the wider public there should be no hint of bias in favour of only wanting to hear the ‘correct’ view. Yet the Commission’s recent consultation on tobacco control suggests that it thinks it already knows the ‘right’ answer to a crucial question, writes Political Editor Nick Powell.
Recently, more than 30 state, territory, and Washington D.C. attorneys general (AGs) penned a letter to the Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) urging the agency to essentially eliminate the majority of e-cigarettes from the U.S. marketplace.
Inauspiciously, these AGs are ignoring the massive declines in youth e-cigarette use and disregard why American youth are vaping and demanding a regulatory agency use limited funding to enforce draconian regulations and prohibitions. Rather than rely on federal regulatory agencies, these AGs ought to demand state lawmakers invest more of existing tobacco monies to combat youth e-cigarette use.
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