Vapers Digest 14th March

Friday’s News at a glance:

Parliament Matters ~ Study Slated for Selection Bias ~ Be More Like Sweden ~ Thousands quit smoking with BCP vaping scheme swap ~ New ‘swap to stop’ offer to help Walsall residents quit smoking ~ The EU Ignores Harm Reduction Success as It Moves to Restrict Vaping and Nicotine Pouches ~ Increased excise duty tax on vaping products is a blow to harm reduction efforts ~ The Puritan Jihad: From Happy Meals to Vaping ~ The Times They Are A-Changin’ ~ New CDC Leadership Highly Unlikely to End Its Nicotine Misinformation ~ UK to consult on vape packaging “as soon as possible” once Bill gains Royal Assent ~ Bulgaria’s proposed vape laws will harm fight against smoking, warns global health body ~ Vaping Hysteria: Dutch Officials’ Misguided Comparison to Crack and Heroin ~ State Legislatures Considering Over 30 Flavor Ban and PMTA Registry Bills ~ Tobacco Harm Reduction: The Right Path for Pakistan’s Smoking Crisis ~ 21,000% spike in MA vape seizures throws cigarette ban into question, ex-ATF official says ~ A Rebuttal to Mark Butler’s Misinformation on Vaping and Tobacco Control ~ Dr B Freeman & Anita Dessaix: Fear, Misinformation, and the War on Nicotine Pouches

Three from Dave Cross, Planet of the Vapes

Parliament Matters

This week’s trip to the House of Commons sees Labour’s Paul Davies worried about funding for smoking cessation programmes and asks what the plans are for 2025. Liberal Democrat Susan Murray expressed her desire for 95% safer vapes to be treated exactly the same as tobacco products and be forced to adopt plain packaging.

Study Slated for Selection Bias

Planet of the Vapes reported on the University of California San Diego study on Monday. It claimed to find that vapes do not help smokers quit. As part of the peer review process, tobacco harm reduction expert Clive Bates has submitted a reply to the publishing journal, stating that the research is flawed due to selection bias.

Be More Like Sweden

Pakistan risks missing a historic opportunity to curb its smoking epidemic that claims 164,000 lives a year, according to a major report released today by international health experts. The landmark study, published by Smoke Free Sweden, Tale of Two Nations: Pakistan vs. Sweden, presents a stark contrast between the two countries’ approaches to smoking cessation and tobacco harm reduction.

Thousands quit smoking with BCP vaping scheme swap

Deb Gayen, Daily Echo

The Swap 2 Stop initiative, launched by Public Health Dorset in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, encourages smokers to switch to vaping.

As part of the government-funded programme to reduce smoking rates, the scheme has provided 14,801 free vape starter kits to adults.

New ‘swap to stop’ offer to help Walsall residents quit smoking

Walsall Council

Walsall residents looking to quit smoking now have access to a ‘swap to stop’ offer, incorporating e-cigarettes (also known as vapes) as an extra tool to aid their journey.

The new offer builds upon Be Well Walsall’s service (funded by Walsall Council’s Public Health team) to help Walsall residents manage their health and wellbeing, which includes stop smoking support.

The EU Ignores Harm Reduction Success as It Moves to Restrict Vaping and Nicotine Pouches

Diane Caruana, Vaping Post

As the European Commission is in the process of revising its tobacco control framework, with key directives such as the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD), Tobacco Advertising Directive (TAD), and Tobacco Excise Directive (TED), the World Vapers’ Alliance (WVA) has released an open letter to the European Commission and EU Member States, voicing strong opposition to proposed restrictions on vaping and nicotine pouches. These measures, driven by the Netherlands and supported by a minority of member states, could significantly hinder tobacco harm reduction (THR) efforts by limiting access to safer alternatives for smokers.

Increased excise duty tax on vaping products is a blow to harm reduction efforts

Kurt Yeo, VSML

Consumer advocacy group Vaping Saved My Life (VSML) strongly condemns the government’s decision to increase excise duties on vaping products, calling it a major setback for harm reduction in South Africa. The 2025 Budget, announced by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana, imposes a 14c per ml excise duty tax on vaping liquids, making safer alternatives less accessible to smokers while fueling the illegal trade of nicotine products.

The Puritan Jihad: From Happy Meals to Vaping

Allison Boughner, The Opinion Pages

The vaping wars might seem recent but the roots go deep. Surely the most puritan strand leads to Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), the grim reapers of gastronomic glee, who’ve turned the American childhood into a battlefield for their ascetic obsessions. A soda in a kid’s hand? Heresy. A toy with a burger? Seduction by Mammon. A bright candy? Poisoned temptation.

The Times They Are A-Changin’

Skip Murray, Skip’s Corner, Let’s Talk!

That song from the mid-1960s was still popular among my teenage friends in the late 1970s. We gathered around a campfire, guitars blazing, beer flowing, singing enthusiastically. The air was filled with smoke from the fire, our cigarettes, and anything else the kids might have been smoking.

Click to visit Danish Vapers Association

Two from Ali Anderson, Clearing The Air

UK to consult on vape packaging “as soon as possible” once Bill gains Royal Assent

The UK government will open consultations to regulate vape packaging “as soon as possible after the Bill gains Royal Assent”, it has confirmed.

Minister for Public Health and Prevention Ashley Dalton said the bright colours and “child-friendly features” of most vape packaging is too appealing to children.

However, she added that it is important to consider the needs of adult smokers looking to switch to a safer alternative.

Bulgaria’s proposed vape laws will harm fight against smoking, warns global health body

Bulgaria’s proposed regulations on vapes and other nicotine alternatives are a “significant backward step” in Europe’s fight against smoking, a global health body has warned.

Smoke-Free Sweden says that if made law, the “short-sighted measures” will deprive adult smokers of crucial tools to help them quit the deadly habit, which kills eight million people every year.

“These proposed restrictions in Bulgaria represent a significant step backward in tobacco harm reduction efforts across Europe,” said harm reduction expert Dr. Delon Human.

Vaping Hysteria: Dutch Officials’ Misguided Comparison to Crack and Heroin

World Vapers’ Alliance

The Hague – The World Vapers’ Alliance (WVA) strongly condemns State Secretary Vincent Karremans’ recent statements on vaping, which are not only inaccurate but also harmful to public health efforts. Karremans’ claim that “nicotine is the most addictive drug in existence after heroin and crack” is a blatant misrepresentation of scientific evidence and contributes to the growing pandemic of misinformation surrounding vaping in the Netherlands.

State Legislatures Considering Over 30 Flavor Ban and PMTA Registry Bills

Jim McDonald, Vaping 360

Until about four years ago, the primary type of legislation to restrict access to quality vaping products has been flavor bans—either prohibiting all flavors except tobacco, or all except tobacco and menthol. Flavor bans are the laws preferred by tobacco control groups and anti-vaping public health organizations.

Tobacco Harm Reduction: The Right Path for Pakistan’s Smoking Crisis

ProPakistani

Pakistan is facing an alarming smoking crisis, with 31 million smokers nationwide and one of the highest smoking-related death rates in South Asia – 91.1 per 100,000 people. This far exceeds the regional average (78.1) and the global average (72.6), underscoring the severe public health burden. The economic impact is just as staggering, costing the country Rs615.07 billion every year – around 1.6% of its GDP.

21,000% spike in MA vape seizures throws cigarette ban into question, ex-ATF official says

Charles Creitz, Fox News

After Massachusetts authorities released a report showing a sharp rise in flavored cigarette and vape seizures under a recent bipartisan statewide ban, a former ATF official and a network of law enforcement veterans specializing in contraband called into question why the ban remains.

Two from 09algor, Australia, Let’s Improve Vaping Education, A.L.I.V.E.

A Rebuttal to Mark Butler’s Misinformation on Vaping and Tobacco Control

Mark Butler’s latest statements on vaping and illegal tobacco demonstrate once again that the Australian government is more committed to ideological crusades than evidence-based public health policy. His approach of banning vapes while waging an unwinnable war against illegal cigarettes ignores both global evidence and basic principles of harm reduction. Worse, it actively harms Australian smokers by making safer alternatives harder to access while allowing criminal syndicates to flourish.

Dr B Freeman & Anita Dessaix: Fear, Misinformation, and the War on Nicotine Pouches

This article in the Sydney Morning Herald is a textbook example of fear-mongering and misinformation designed to push an ideological anti-nicotine agenda rather than genuinely inform or help young people. The Mainstream media (MSM) only ever publish the negative when it comes to nicotine alternatives, deliberately ignoring harm reduction perspectives and real-world evidence.

On this Day…2022

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

VBI Addresses Potential Bans

Dave Cross, Planet of the Vapes

On behalf of Vape Business Ireland, John Dunne addressed The All-Party Committee on Health about vaping, tobacco harm reduction, and legislation in Ireland. He spoke eloquently on the evidence supporting the use of electronic cigarettes and the need for a responsible evidence-based approach.

10 things you need to know

About Tobacco, Vaping & Next Generation

Factory Made Cigarette (FMC) sales declined by over £46m year on year, (IRI 12 Weeks to 26/12/21), according to Juul Labs UK. “Volume-wise 14 million less units of FMCs and RYO were sold compared to the same period last year [ibid],” says sales director John Patterson. “E-cigarettes and oral nicotine offset this with a sales increase of £48m. E-cigarettes contributed over 92% of this growth (£44.5m) with 6.6m additional e-cigarette units sold [ibid].”

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