Vapers Digest 19th February

Monday’s News at a glance:

Vape Protection Alliance: Fundraising To Fight Government – Charles Amos: Sunak’s vaping ban is an outrageous – and ineffective – assault on individual freedom – Illicit cigarettes are taking over thanks to EU COP-out – When Doctors Are the Source of Misinformation – Interview with Robert Richter KC on vaping – Don’t penalize smokers for trying to quit – Puffing cigarettes away becoming passé?

Fundraising To Fight Government

Dave Cross, Planet of the Vapes

Vape businesses are coming together to fundraise £75,000 in order to challenge the government’s threat to vaping and vape flavours. The crowd funding campaign has already raised £30,070 from 30 pledges and has enough money to contract a King’s Counsel Barrister (KC) to provide expert legal advice. There are less than 25 days remaining for businesses to contribute to saving flavours for the sector.

The UK Conservative Government recently announced its intention to create a “smokefree generation” by banning disposables, limiting in-store vape displays, and restricting flavours to just four options of tobacco, menthol, mint, and “fruit”. The Vape Protection Alliance says this “has left the UK Vape Industry in a state of uncertainty.”

Charles Amos: Sunak’s vaping ban…

Is an outrageous – and ineffective – assault on individual freedom

Rishi Sunak’s announcement that he wishes to ban disposable vapes, restrict e-cigarette flavours, require plain packing, and impose a form of display ban on them is yet another blow to individual freedom.

Ensuring children never adopt the bad habit of vaping is the stated aim of these interventions. Accepting the morality behind these interventions is to put Britain on a runaway train to an authoritarian society where free speech is curtailed, the liberty to get publicly drunk is denied, and where the private homes of vapers are invaded by the state. No society with an ounce of respect for liberty could accept this situation. This morality must be rejected, along with the restrictions themselves.

---

---

Illicit cigarettes are taking over …

Thanks to EU COP-out, Nick Powell

The World Health Organisation’s conference on tobacco control has entered its second week in Panama by morphing from a COP (Conference of Parties) into a MOP (Meeting of Parties). In this guise, delegates include clinicians, health ministry representatives and NGO activists but oddly no tax experts or officials from finance ministries, no consumers and no industry representatives. They are discussing how to tackle the illicit trade in tobacco products but are handicapped by an unwillingness to recognise how the problem was caused, writes Political Editor Nick Powell.

The global trade in counterfeit and smuggled cigarettes has increased to unprecedented levels. When confronted with unaffordable prices, smokers are not quitting, instead they’re buying unregulated and untaxed cigarettes that have become a major threat to public health.

---

---

When Doctors Are the Source of ….

Public Health Misinformation – Jonathan H. Adler

Most Americans understand that smoking is harmful. It remains a leading cause of preventable death in the United States. A growing number of Americans do not understand that vaping and non-combustible tobacco products are far less risky. In a recent article, Jacob James Rich and I explored why this might be.

One source of public misunderstanding could be that doctors are often unaware of the extensive research concluding that vaping, while not risk-free, is substantially less risky than smoking (such that were all smokers to switch to vaping, tens of thousands–if not millions–of premature deaths could be averted).

Interview with Robert Richter on vaping

ABC Melbourne Drive, 15 February 2024

Leading criminal barrister Robert Richter KC says “Australia’s prohibitionist stance on vaping is a case study on how not to handle a public health challenge”.

“The prescription-only policy is complete and absolute rubbish”. It has created a thriving black market run by criminals and harms the poorest people most.

He says we should follow the New Zealand model and regulate vapes like cigarettes to reduce youth access and make vapes available for adult smokers.

---

---

Don’t penalize smokers for trying to quit

Amanda Hagerman

A new tobacco product that’s 90% safer or greater than smoking cigarettes can help countless Arizonans quit. But unless Arizona lawmakers pass a crucial bill to ensure this safer alternative isn’t taxed, the same as conventional cigarettes, the very Arizonans who need it the most will bear the brunt of the consequences.

Heated tobacco products — used in more than 60 countries and currently on their way to debuting on the U.S. market — couldn’t be more different than regular cigarettes. This product heats a small amount of tobacco just before combustion (unlike e-cigarettes or vapes, which are combustible and do not use tobacco), providing a similar smoking experience without many of the dangerous toxins, secondhand smoke, and other factors that have been associated with conventional cigarettes.

Puffing cigarettes away becoming passé?

ZYN sparks frenzy as the next smokeless wonder

With social media today becoming a strong barometer of public sentiment, then it can be reliably discerned that cigarette smoking has tumbled out of vogue.

But curiously, a similar fate has not yet befallen nicotine, the active stimulant in cigarettes, vapes, e-cigarettes, and heated tobacco products (HTPs). Though nicotine is widely recognized as addictive, a growing body of scientific evidence has absolved it from any role in the formation of smoking-related diseases.

The operative word is smoke and with the absence of smoke, nicotine consumption has become cleaner and safer than cigarettes.

---

On this Day…2023

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

Proposed restrictions and bans…

On disposable vaping products are short-sighted and counterproductive.

New Nicotine Alliance

In February, Dr Caroline Johnson MP introduced a ten minute rule bill proposal in the House of Commons to ban single use “disposable” vaping devices. It was passed without objection and will now have its second reading on 24 March.

Additionally, on 11 February, the Local Government Association proposed adding vaping products to the tobacco display ban and imposing plain packaging while Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) suggested a tax of £4 per disposable vape to make them more expensive than refillable devices in order to deter youth uptake.

We question whether there is a better way of dealing with the problems that single use devices pose, as some of the measures proposed will almost certainly be damaging to public health.

Nonsense in Norway

ETHRA

The Norwegian government has launched a consultation, through the EU TRIS notification system, on amendments to the tobacco control act which would introduce plain packaging and a flavour ban for all e-liquids. It would also introduce a minimum quantity for snus cans. The consultation ends on 1 May. This is a simple consultation to respond to, and it is important that you do.

There is already a lot of hostility towards vape flavours within EU institutions. One of the measures proposed in the European Commissions’ Beating Cancer plan is to work towards a full ban on flavours for vaping products (page 10). Just last week we reported that a tender to support actions in the field of tobacco control was awarded to contractors which include Bloomberg funded Vital Strategies. One area they will examine is flavours and ingredient listings.

---

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

---