Vapers Digest 18th March

Monday’s News at a glance:

NNA Launches Blistering Attack – Part 1 – IBVTA and the ACS Comment – Prohibition, problem gambling and playing with words – Tangible Benefits of Social Drugs? – Medscape on Tobacco Harm Reduction: Part 1 – Nicotine – One in five vapers would return to smoking habit if flavours banned – Snus Has Saved Many Lives in Sweden – And Can Save Many More – Consumer Reaction to Flavour Ban | RegWatch (Live) – Vermont House Passes Flavored Vape/Tobacco Ban – ‘Historic decisions’ on e-cigarettes – DeSantis Steps In and Holds Off Big Tobacco

Two from Dave Cross, Planet of the Vapes:

NNA Launches Blistering Attack – Part 1

With the dust settling following the Budget statement, the New Nicotine Alliance says the Chancellor’s vape tax is wrong in principle and naïve in application. The charity says the budget proposals undermine the government’s swap to stop campaign, making the Smokefree 2030 aspiration now unattainable, punishes vaping more than smoking (costing lives), and relies on Government documents that are “childlike and embarrassingly misunderstand science”.

The New Nicotine Alliance says that it finds it difficult to know where to start when it comes to describing the fundamental flaws behind the new vape tax proposal announced in last week’s budget. Despite this, the charity systematically pulls apart the flaws in the chancellor’s scheme.

IBVTA and the ACS Comment

Jeremy Hunt MP, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, made his Budget statement last week where he announced his intention to tax eliquid from October 2026. The duty on liquids is claimed to discourage non-smokers from taking up vaping, but others say it will discourage switching and boost the black market. The Government has published a consultation on the design of the new tax, running for 12 weeks to the 29th of May.

The rates being proposed will be £1.00 per 10ml for nicotine free liquids, £2.00 per 10ml on liquids that contain 0.1-10.9 mg of nicotine per ml, and £3.00 per 10ml on liquids that contain 11mg of nicotine or more per ml. It is proposed that the duty will be chargeable at the point of their manufacture in, or importation into, the UK.

---

---

Prohibition, problem gambling …

And playing with words – Christopher Snowdon

Australia’s umpteenth attempt to ban e-cigarettes has been warmly applauded by the renowned wowser and imbecile Simon Chapman. Nicotine-containing vapes have always been illegal in Australia. Importation of these products for personal use was banned a few years ago and now the government is banning all e-cigarettes regardless of whether they contain nicotine or not.

As dozens of tobacconists are being literally firebombed, the devastating yet predictable consequences of prohibition (for vapes) and neo-prohibitionist sin taxes (on cigarettes) could not be more obvious to Australians. (There’s an excellent article by two criminologists in The Conversation that is well worth reading.)

Tangible Benefits of Social Drugs?

Alan Beard

A simplistic and relatively shallow series of muses here, prompted by repeated commentary from naysayers, particularly in reference to nicotine.

Social Drugs I shall confine to just three varieties, although many more exist. I shall discuss Caffeine, Alcohol, Nicotine but not include another very popular Social Drug :-Cannabis, for whatever reasoning.

---

---

Medscape on Tobacco Harm Reduction:

Part 1 – Nicotine – Brad Rodu

Most health professionals are familiar with Medscape, a free resource that describes itself as “the leading online global destination for physicians and healthcare professionals worldwide, offering the latest medical news and expert perspectives; essential point-of-care drug and disease information; and relevant professional education and [continuing medical education, CME].”

Recently, Medscape invited me to assist in developing a series of short CME programs on tobacco harm reduction, which evolved into an examination of nicotine and the differential risks of combusted versus smoke-free tobacco/nicotine products, among others.

One in five vapers would return to smoking

If flavours banned – Maeve McTaggart

More than 75pc of vapers say a ban of flavouring could lead to more young people smoking, with one in five ex-smokers saying they would also pick the habit back up if flavours were banned.

It has been an offence to sell a nicotine-inhaling product to someone under the age of 18 since December, with Government plans for a restriction on the use of flavouring set to follow.

A new survey from Red C Research and Marketing shows 90pc of vapers surveyed believe an overall ban could lead to a black market for flavoured vapes.

Snus Has Saved Many Lives in Sweden –

And Can Save Many More – Lars Ramström

In Sweden, there has been a massive transition from cigarette smoking to snus, the Swedish kind of low toxicity oral tobacco. This product poses very little health risk compared to cigarettes, as illustrated by the fact that Sweden has Europe’s lowest level of mortality attributable to tobacco. The current study tries to estimate how much higher the Swedish mortality would have been if there had been no snus in Sweden. Actual Swedish data are compared with two scenarios without snus – a group of comparable countries, and a hypothetical Sweden with no snus use. Both scenarios suggest that around 4,000 lives per year have been saved by the use of snus.

---

---

Consumer Reaction to Flavour Ban

RegWatch (Live)

In the rush to implement a nationwide flavour ban, Health Canada provided just one opportunity to hear from those most affected: consumers of nicotine vaping products. The chance arose during a concise 45-minute webinar held today on Zoom, featuring a fervent presentation by consumer vaping advocate and Rights 4 Vapers founder, Maria Papaioannoy-Duic.

Today on RegWatch (Live), join Maria and consumer vaping advocates Marion Burt and Dave Ball as we review key clips from the presentation and address concerns surrounding the impending flavour ban.

Vermont House Passes Flavor Ban

Jim McDonald

The Vermont House of Representatives today passed a bill that would ban flavored vape and tobacco products, and prohibit online sales of all nicotine products. The bill, Senate bill 18 (S 18), has already passed the state Senate.

The bill will now go back to the Senate, where differences between the two versions will be ironed out. The bill will likely soon head to the desk of Governor Phil Scott to be signed into law or vetoed. If it becomes law, the flavor ban will take effect on Jan. 1, 2026.

‘Historic decisions’ on e-cigarettes …

And heated tobacco products absent at COP10

The tenth Conference of the Parties (COP10) to the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) was to be the conference where countries finally got to grips with emerging alternative tobacco products, leading many involved with harm reduction to worry that severe restrictions would be recommended.

The WHO FCTC touted the adoption of “historic decisions” that would impact the global industry at the COP10 conference held in Panama last month.

DeSantis Steps In …

And Holds Off Big Tobacco

The Florida Legislature is poised to send a legislative measure concerning the regulation of single-use (disposable) vape products to Governor Ron DeSantis’ (R-FL) desk.

HB 1007 – Nicotine Products and Dispensing Devices – passed both chambers significantly different than the legislation’s original language, but it could be argued that the end goal was still reached: keeping vapes out of the hands of children.

Initially, the bill was set to ban any vape devices that were not Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved. Only 23 products – all owned by Big Tobacco – were deemed legal by the bill.

---

On this Day…2023

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

CALL TO ACTION:

The World Health Organization is planning a global assault on vaping

New Nicotine Alliance

Today, we are calling on our supporters, consumers of reduced risk nicotine products, and others who understand the benefits of harm reduction to act on significant threats planned by the World Health Organization (WHO) later this year.

We have listed the threats in more detail in this file along with accompanying quotations from WHO documents which will be the basis for discussion at a global conference to be held in November. We have also produced a playlist of animations explaining the threats.

Although that seems a long way off, we must ACT NOW to get our voices heard. Plans for the meeting are already in progress and by the time the agenda is published in September it will be too late.

Shoddy Research Reinforces Narrative

Jacob Sullum

In 2019, The Journal of the American Heart Association published a study suggesting that nicotine vaping doubles the risk of a heart attack. The authors claimed e-cigarette use is “independently” associated with a heightened risk of myocardial infarction, which is “similar” to the risk among cigarette smokers.

Three years later, the World Journal of Oncology published a study that claimed vapers face about the same cancer risk as smokers. The authors said “prospective studies should be planned to mitigate the risk.”

Both studies were later retracted, largely because they shared the same glaring weakness:

---

Visit Nicotine Science & Policy for more News from around the World

---