Vapers Digest 14th May

Wednesday’s News at a glance:

Industry Gears Up For Ban ~ Fresh Says Be Prepared ~ VPZ Alarmed at NHS Cutbacks ~ Scottish Pouch Ban Pledge ~ Briefing: Nicotine for Policymakers ~ Study finds vaping, nicotine pouches most effective quit smoking tools ~ World Vape Day 2025: 20 Years of Facts and Life-Changing Innovation ~ Cameroons Opportunity to advance public health through Tobacco harm reduction ~ New England Journal of Medicine E-Cigarette Meta-Analysis is a Mega-Disaster ~ Honouring Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocacy in Australia: Why This Matters More Than Ever ~ White Lotus star Aimee Lou Wood takes vape break from filming ~ EXCLUSIVE: EU vape and pouch tax by Summer, Commissioner tells Parliament. ~ Swedish Gov Fights Back on Nicotine Pouch ban ~ PRICE: More Education, Less Misinformation on Smoke-Free Products ~ JTI takes controlling stake in UK’s biggest independent vape company Flavour Warehouse ~ A NEW CHAPTER FOR THR EDUCATION | Chimwemwe Ngoma highlights KAC’s brand new THR course!

Four from Dave Cross, Planet of the Vapes

Industry Gears Up For Ban

UK government is implementing updates in the way of a disposable vape ban, which is a key moment for vape users and the vape industry as they try to adapt and regulations become tighter. Recent regulatory changes in the vaping industry aim to address the growing concerns around public health, product safety and youth access

Fresh Says Be Prepared

Fresh is urging anyone using disposable vapes as a tool to quit smoking to be prepared ahead of a ban on single use vapes from Sunday, June 1. The upcoming ban on disposable vapes will prohibit the sale and supply of single use vapes in England, Scotland, and Wales.

VPZ Alarmed at NHS Cutbacks

NHS trusts are determined to protect patient safety as a new survey by NHS Providers reveals services are being scaled back and jobs cut as the demands of the NHS financial ‘reset’ become clear. The cutbacks threaten many smoking cessation services – provisions that vaping industry giant VPZ calls “vital”.

Scottish Pouch Ban Pledge

The Scottish Health, Social Care and Sport Committee met to discuss the UK’s Tobacco and Vapes Bill – with a minister pledging that pouches would be included under the ‘smokefree generation’ legislation. The Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health, Jenni Minto, says the aim is to reduce access to tobacco harm reduction products to both young AND older consumers.

Briefing: Nicotine for Policymakers

Clive Bates, The Counterfactual

I have added a new briefing to my set of Evidence Briefings aimed at policymakers working on nicotine and tobacco policy.

Please see Evidence Briefing 5: Nicotine for Policymakers, a narrative discussion with 100+ supporting citations. It is also available as an MS Word download.

World Vape Day 2025: 20 Years of Facts and Life-Changing Innovation

Joseph Magero, Policy Watch Africa

World Vape Day 2025, on 30 May, spotlights one of the most significant shifts in public health: the rapid decline in smoking rates wherever harm reduction and vaping are embraced. As countries like Sweden near smoke-free status and New Zealand records historic drops in smoking, this year’s theme—“20 Years of Facts”—highlights the science and lived experiences behind vaping’s impact.

Cameroons Opportunity to advance public health through Tobacco harm reduction

Dr. Tatah Eunice Kisifen, Cameroons News Agency

Cameroon stands at a critical crossroads in its public health journey. 4532 people die yearly in Cameroon (1.74%) due to tobacco smoking. With tobacco-related illnesses continuing to claim thousands of lives each year, the time has come to embrace a modern, evidence-based approach to tackling the smoking epidemic. Tobacco Harm Reduction (THR) offers a pragmatic solution—one that complements existing tobacco control strategies while providing adult smokers with significantly less harmful alternatives to combustible tobacco products.

New England Journal of Medicine E-Cigarette Meta-Analysis is a Mega-Disaster

Dr. Brad Rodu, Tobacco Truth

The scientific publishing community is in love with meta-analyses. Metas apply statistical techniques to combine results from multiple studies with the aim of producing more precise estimates of specific effects.

A Medline search reveals almost 215,000 metas in the medical literature, with 75% of them published since 2015. Of the 9,488 Medline studies involving e-cigarettes, 104 are metas.

Honouring Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocacy in Australia: Why This Matters More Than Ever

Diane Caruana, Vaping Post

Australia has become renowned for failing to adopt evidence-based tobacco harm reduction (THR) strategies. While countries like the UK and Sweden embrace vaping as a safer alternative to smoking, Australia continues to enforce some of the harshest restrictions on nicotine vaping products globally. In this difficult landscape, advocacy isn’t just important—it’s essential. And now, thanks to the ALIVE Advocacy Movement, that advocacy is finally being recognised in a groundbreaking new way.

Two from Clearing The Air

White Lotus star Aimee Lou Wood takes vape break from filming

Ali Anderson

White Lotus star Aimee Lou Wood has been spotted vaping during a break from filming a new project with fellow actor Patrick Schwarzenegger.

The pair, who shot several scenes together in the hit HBO series set in luxury hotels, reunited in New York to film an advert for digital bank Revolut.

During her short break, 31-year-old Aimee puffed on a ‘Triple Mango’ flavoured vape while talking animatedly to a crew member on the set of the advert.

EXCLUSIVE: EU vape and pouch tax by Summer, Commissioner tells Parliament.

Alastair Cohen

Wopke Hoekstra, the European Commissioner responsible for tax policy, has told a closed door meeting of Members of the European Parliament that the Commission is aiming to propose higher taxes on safer nicotine products by the summer, according to sources who discussed the meeting with Clearing the Air.

The discussion is supposed to have taken place between the Commissioner and senior members of the Parliament’s Tax Committee over breakfast in Strasbourg. Clearing the Air understands that the proposal being circulated at the Commission is largely unchanged from the one leaked to the Financial TImes in 2022.

Swedish Gov Fights Back on Nicotine Pouch ban

Pouch Forum

A wave of disproportionate nicotine pouch regulations is sweeping across Europe — but Sweden is no longer standing by silently. The government is now using its strongest legal tool to defend nicotine pouches against a proposed Spanish crackdown.

As reported by Expressen on April 26, 2025, Minister for Foreign Trade Benjamin Dousa (Moderate Party) states: “We see that white snus (nicotine pouches) is under attack,”

PRICE: More Education, Less Misinformation on Smoke-Free Products

Dr. Tom Price, NH Journal

Significant steps have been taken to embrace smoke-free alternatives to cigarettes. Milestone moments, such as the Food and Drug Administration’s marketing authorization of nicotine pouch products, have been celebrated as public health achievements that will help legal-age adult nicotine consumers make the switch from cigarettes.

Unfortunately, there has been much misinformation about nicotine pouches and heated tobacco products that, although addictive and not risk-free, are two of the most promising paths for eliminating cigarettes in America. This does a disservice to the 28 million legal-age Americans who want a better choice than sticking with cigarettes.

JTI takes controlling stake in UK’s biggest independent vape company Flavour Warehouse

George Nott, The Grocer

JTI confirmed the deal, saying it was ‘in line with our exploratory approach for reduced-risk products beyond heated tobacco sticks’

Benson & Hedges maker JTI has taken a controlling stake in the UK’s largest independent vape company Flavour Warehouse.

A NEW CHAPTER FOR THR EDUCATION | Chimwemwe Ngoma highlights KAC’s brand new THR course!

On this Day…2021

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

ETHRA’s view on the SCHEER Opinion

European Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates

On 29 April, the Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks (SCHEER) published its Final Opinion on e-cigarettes. The Preliminary Opinion, published in September 2020, had attracted significant criticism and 691 submissions to the public consultation. We hoped that the SCHEER committee had listened, and that the final Opinion would take our submissions into account, but we find ourselves greatly disappointed!

Why Japan’s Huge Drop in Smoking…

Is a Story Prohibitionists Ignore – Alex Norcia

Nowhere on Earth has cigarette consumption dropped as rapidly as it has in Japan over the past few years.

Just look at the numbers: In the first quarter of 2021—January, February and March of this year—domestic cigarette sales in Japan totaled about 25 billion sticks. In 2016, that same period saw around 43.6 billion domestic cigarette sales in the country. There has been close to a 43 percent decline in half a decade.

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