Vapers Digest 17th July
Friday’s News at a glance:
Bates Schools Whitty ~ The Most Convenient Number Came First ~ Blocking the Fire Escape: The Dangers of Treating Tobacco and Nicotine as One Category ~ How New Zealand cut smoking from 40 per cent to Below 7 per cent: Lancet study offers lessons for India ~ The UK Government Says Vaping Is Far Less Harmful Than Smoking, but Its Policies Say the Exact Opposite. ~ Position Letter: The Globe and Mail Editorial Board, “Ottawa should ban flavoured vapes” ~ Fact Sheet: Arguments against “Youth Epidemic” Claims ~ Vape tax to cost millions of Britons £100s a year as HMRC plot ‘permanent’ raid ~ Shopify bans all vape sales worldwide after US crackdown
Bates Schools Whitty
Dave Cross, Planet Of The Vapes
Harm reduction expert Clive Bates has schooled Professor Chris Whitty on Twitter/X about the UK Government’s plans to push forward with dangerous changes to vape laws. As Planet of Vapes has been detailing this week, the Department for Health planes on making vape products only available in black, white or grey, to hide them in shops and to have them in plain white packaging.
The Most Convenient Number Came First
Alan Gor
The latest National Drug Strategy Household Survey should have been an opportunity to give Australians a clear and honest account of what has happened to smoking, vaping and nicotine use since the federal government overturned the legal vaping market and forced lawful supply into participating pharmacies. Instead, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has released a remarkably convenient headline, surrounded it with the language of progress, and postponed much of the information needed to test it.
Blocking the Fire Escape: The Dangers of Treating Tobacco and Nicotine as One Category
Tobacco Harm Reduction.net
Tobacco harm reduction (THR) as a concept can feel novel to those who come across its terminology for the first time. However, harm reduction is a familiar approach that has been utilized for decades – through seatbelts, condoms, helmets, sterilised needles and more. When it comes to THR, an analogy that helps clarify the purpose and potential of this harm reduction is that of a fire escape.
Through this analogy, if the use of tobacco is equated to a building on fire, getting out the front door is the cessation-only strategy that traditional tobacco control highlights. In reality, the majority of the 1.2 billion tobacco-users worldwide struggle to reach or use the front door. Those unable to get out feel trapped without other viable options for escaping the fire. This is what traditional tobacco control can feel like. Its false narrative of a one-size-fits-all formula for cessation has repeatedly proven to not be enough.
How New Zealand cut smoking from 40 per cent to Below 7 per cent: Lancet study offers lessons for India
Ananya Sarma, News9
A new study published in The Lancet Regional Health – Western Pacific suggests New Zealand’s sharpest decline in smoking began only after the country combined traditional tobacco-control measures with regulated lower-risk nicotine alternatives. As India continues to grapple with one of the world’s largest smoking populations, the findings are likely to reignite the debate around tobacco harm reduction.
For decades, New Zealand was considered a global success story in tobacco control. Through high tobacco taxes, plain packaging, graphic health warnings and strict public health campaigns, the country steadily reduced smoking rates. But according to a new 2026 viewpoint published in The Lancet Regional Health – Western Pacific, the country’s most dramatic progress came only after it formally recognised regulated vaping products as smoking cessation aids in 2018-19.
The UK Government Says Vaping Is Far Less Harmful Than Smoking, but Its Policies Say the Exact Opposite.
Martin Cullip, The Daily Pouch
One of the strangest features of modern public health policy is that governments increasingly say one thing while doing another. Nowhere is that contradiction clearer than in the United Kingdom’s latest consultation on vaping.
Throughout the latest documents published by the government about its new ideas for reducing youth vaping, ministers acknowledge that vaping is less harmful than smoking and can play an important role in helping smokers quit. This reflects the overwhelming consensus of the evidence and the advice given for years by Britain’s own health authorities.
Despite these proclamations, almost every proposal contained in the government’s announcement on its proposed policy towards vaping and other reduced risk nicotine products communicates precisely the opposite.
Position Letter: The Globe and Mail Editorial Board, “Ottawa should ban flavoured vapes”
Sam Tam, Canadian Vaping Association
To the Editor in Chief of The Globe and Mail,
The Canadian Vaping Association (CVA) writes in response to the recent editorial “Ottawa should ban flavoured vapes.” While we share the Editorial Board’s commitment to preventing youth nicotine use, the editorial relies on outdated data, mischaracterizes the federal government’s regulatory record, and completely ignores the nearly two million adult Canadians who rely on vaping and on flavours specifically to remain smoke-free.
We will respectfully set the record straight.
Fact Sheet: Arguments against “Youth Epidemic” Claims
Arielle Selya PhD, Selya Behavioral Science Substack
The following is a written version of one of my presentations at the annual Global Forum on Nicotine (GFN) 2026. The theme of this conference was prohibition and this session was titled “Debunking the Science Used to Support Prohibition.” Ian Fearon organized the session and asked the 4 speakers (Ian, Konstantinos Farsalinos, and Libby Clarke) to debunk 2 claims each which are used to justify restrictive policies and provide a useable list of facts and references.
My two claims were “youth epidemic” (the subject of this post) and “gateway to smoking / addiction” (which I’ll link to once that’s up).
Vape tax to cost millions of Britons £100s a year as HMRC plot ‘permanent’ raid
Patrick O’Donnell, GB News
Vapers across the country could find themselves paying considerably more for e-liquids when a new tax on vaping products takes effect this autumn.
The Vaping Products Duty, set to launch later this year, will impose a charge of £2.20 for every 10ml of vaping liquid sold, applying equally to products with or without nicotine.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has called on manufacturers, importers and other businesses in the supply chain to complete their registration before July ends.
Tim Hong, Clearing The Air
Shopify has ordered merchants worldwide to remove all vape products from their online stores, extending a US crackdown on illegal vapes into a blanket global ban.
The Canadian e-commerce company told sellers to remove the products by July 8 or risk having listings suspended or their stores terminated, according to a notice seen by Reuters and confirmed by Shopify.
The policy applies to all vape products, rather than only devices that are illegal or unauthorised in the United States. A spokesperson for California Attorney General Rob Bonta told Reuters that the decision applies globally.
On this day…2017!
A look back at how things have moved on or otherwise…
More bad news in USA and Australia
But reality show gets e-cig delivery
Fergus Mason, Vaping Post
A third US state has brought in an over-21s rule for the purchase of vapor products – Oregon voted through the same restrictive policy as Hawaii and California last week, and it’s likely to be enforced within days. Meanwhile the Australian doctors’ union is stubbornly clinging on to its extreme anti-vaping position despite belated signs of movement from the government. On a lighter note, a British reality TV show famous for its sexual tension has started handing out e-cigs to participants after dozens of viewers complained – about smoking.
Cowardice In The Face Of Bravery
Dick Puddlecote
I have consistently said on these pages – since around 2010 – that e-cigs have the potential to show up the cant and oleaginous hypocrisy of the tobacco control industry. There have been numerous examples of this over the years but a spectacular episode this week in Australia has left all others in the shade.
As Snowdon has remarked, so exasperated are Australia’s tobacco control extremists at the relentless advance of vaping, that they have now taken to slandering ordinary vapers and implying they are – every single of them – nothing but shills for the tobacco industry.
Visit Nicotine Science & Policy for more News from around the World
