Vapers Digest 1st August
Tuesday’s News at a glance:
US plan to cut smoking with non-addictive cigarettes has flaws – FDA embraces sanity with new approach to vaping – There Are Ways To Snuff Out A Smoking Habit, Australia Is Just Slow To Embrace Them – Review of WA Governments E-Cig Submission – Govt likely to stub out ‘toxic’ e-cigarettes – Changes to anti-smoking law come into force from August 1 – Czech Smokers Taking Stock of Heat-Not-Burn – A study measuring the nicotine levels emitted by HnB products – Industry Insiders Welcome FDA’s New Tobacco Plan
US plan to cut smoking with non-addictive cigarettes has flaws
Linda Bauld, New Scientist
“The overwhelming amount of death and disease attributable to tobacco is caused by addiction to cigarettes – the only legal consumer product that, when used as intended, will kill half of all long-term users.”
Those are the words of Scott Gottlieb, commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, unveiling a pioneering proposal to reduce nicotine in cigarettes to non-addictive levels.
These long-awaited plans have international significance, suggesting that the US may be the first country in the world to do this. The FDA is also providing a reprieve for e-cigarette manufacturers, giving them more time to submit documents to get current and future products approved. Many manufacturers were worried they would not meet FDA demands in time and be forced to stop selling e-cigarette products.
The first of these developments is bold but faces some major hurdles to make it effective, while the second is welcome, given evidence that e-cigarettes can help smokers quit tobacco.
FDA embraces sanity with new approach to vaping
Guy Bentley & Brian Fojtik, Washington Examiner
On Friday, the head of the Food and Drug Administration, Scott Gottlieb, took an important first step to reforming the country’s dysfunctional approach to tobacco and nicotine regulation.
The e-cigarette industry was bracing itself for near-destruction next year, when deadlines for prohibitively-expensive product applications were due Aug. 8. According to the FDA’s own economic analysis, 99 percent of vapor products wouldn’t even have had an application put forward, let alone been approved.
This would have led to an unjustifiable state of affairs where cigarettes would still be freely available but almost all e-cigarettes — which are 95 percent safer, use no tobacco and help people quit smoking — would be virtually banned.
There Are Ways To Snuff Out A Smoking Habit, Australia Is Just Slow To Embrace Them
Alex Wodak, HuffPost
Tobacco is still the leading cause of preventable death and illness in Australia. More than 15,000 Australians die from tobacco every year, more than all other drugs combined. Smoking kills up to two out of every three smokers. It is also responsible for huge costs to the Australian economy.
The Lancet, one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world, sponsored a Summit in Perth on 28-29 July. The Summit focused on Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary (Lung) Disease (COPD) and Lung Cancer, which are the two main causes of death from smoking.
Lung Cancer was responsible for 41 percent and COPD for 27 percent of the tobacco-related deaths in Australia in 2003. Prevention of most cases of COPD and Lung Cancer is possible by quitting smoking. However, a large proportion of smokers are unable to quit despite repeated attempts to do so. Others are unwilling to quit.
Review of WA Governments E-Cig Submission
The Flavour Republic
Taking a closer look at WA Government submission to the Federal Inquiry into use & marketing of e-cigs in Australia. The government have made some strong statements supporting the banning of e-cigs, which could have a massive (negative) impact on public health so its worth taking a closer look. Is it misinformation? Is it malpractice? Or is a ban just easier? What do you think?
Govt likely to stub out ‘toxic’ e-cigarettes
Times of India
The Union government is likely to ban e-cigarettes following an expert committee’s conclusion that they have cancer-causing properties, are highly addictive, and do not offer a safer alternative to tobacco based smoking products.
An e-cigarette is a battery-operated device that uses liquid nicotine, propylene glycol, water, glycerin and flavour to give a user the sense of smoking areal cigarette.
The health ministry is considering a ban on electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS), of which e-cigarette is a prototype, after the technical committee evaluated recent research that said e-cigarettes were potentially lethal.
A ban is also being considered as e-cigarettes could weaken the public campaign to highlight the health hazards of smoking.
Changes to anti-smoking law come into force from August 1
Luremburger Wort
From August 1 new anti-smoking regulations in Luxembourg will come into force which will see e-cigarettes banned from public spaces in the same way as conventional smoking and tighter restrictions on smoking around children.
Cigarettes will be prohibited in playgrounds or in a car when a child under the age of 12 is in the vehicle.
Using electronic cigarettes, known as vaping, will also be forbidden in all places where smoking is banned and selling cigarettes and e-cigarettes to anyone under 18 will be illegal under the regulations.
The aim of the changes, under the 13 June 2017 law, is to develop the anti-smoking law in place since 2006 in a bid to protect non-smokers’ health and in particular children.
According to the health ministry, teenagers are first introduced to smoking at 13 or 14 years old and 70 per cent of smokers start before they turn 18.
Plain packaging flatters the egos of technocrats. Vaping arose out of strip malls. Hence much enthusiasm for one, disdain for the other.
— Jacob Grier (@jacobgrier) August 1, 2017
Czech Smokers Taking Stock of Heat-Not-Burn
Radio Praha
Just two months after a strict smoking ban came into effect in pubs and restaurants around the Czech Republic smokers are getting acquainted with a novel product on the market –heat-not-burn tobacco products which are said to be less detrimental to health and which might allow them to “smoke” in public places once again. The Czech authorities have yet to set the norms for these products which are something between a classic and electronic cigarette.
A heat-not-burn tobacco product (known widely as HNB) employs heating, rather than burning, of tobacco generating an aerosol that contains nicotine. Manufacturers claim that unlike their combustible counterparts, HNB cigarettes are less detrimental to health while delivering the required doze of nicotine to a user. A tobacco stick along with a heating element will provide the user with a choice across the different heat-not-burn tobacco products available. Klára Jirovcová Pospíšilová from Philip Morris explains the benefits:
“What is important is that the tobacco does not burn –it is merely heated to 300 degrees Celsius which means that there is no smoke and no ash, and you cannot smell it as much as normal cigarettes.”
A study measuring the nicotine levels emitted by HnB products
Diane Caruana, VapingPost
A study from Greece was carried out to measure the nicotine levels found in the aerosol of heat-not-burn (HnB) products, in comparison to the amounts found in e-cigarette vapor and cigarette smoke.
Nicotine delivery plays a crucial role in harm reduction to smokers who are trying to curb their habit by substituting deadly cigarettes for safer alternatives. The study whose lead author was renowned Dr. Konstantinos Farsalinos, a research fellow at the National School of Public Health in Athens, was titled Nicotine delivery to the aerosol of a heat-not-burn tobacco product: comparison with a tobacco cigarette and e-cigarettes. It was carried out by using a smoking machine and Health Canada’s intense puffing regime.
The e-cigarette and HnB aerosols were tested at two different puff durations, with the longer puff duration lasting up to 4 seconds. However while e-cigarettes were found to deliver more nicotine at a longer puff, no change was observed in HnB nicotine delivery at a prolonged puff.
Industry Insiders Welcome FDA’s New Tobacco Plan
Convenience Store News
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has laid out a new roadmap for tobacco regulation, which on one hand could be bad news for traditional cigarettes, but on the other hand, could be good news for innovative products like vapor and heat-not-burn.
The new approach places nicotine — and the issue of addiction — at the center of the FDA’s efforts. Part of the plan calls for pushing back the timelines for newly deemed tobacco products, including cigars, electronic cigarettes and hookah.
Under expected revised timelines, applications for newly regulated combustible products, such as cigars, pipe tobacco and hookah tobacco, would be submitted by Aug. 8, 2021, and applications for non-combustible products such as ENDS or e-cigarettes would be submitted by Aug. 8, 2022, as Convenience Store News previously reported.
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