Vapers Digest 20th August

Wednesday’s News at a glance:

Parliament Matters 1 ~ Choose Science Over Dogma ~ UKVIA Examines Flavour Bans ~ expert reaction to umbrella review looking at youth vaping and its links to smoking, marijuana use, alcohol use, and other health outcomes ~ Daily Pouch Money: Does Altria Belong in Your Portfolio? ~ Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates Demand Urgent Change As Australia’s Tobacco Wars Expose Global Policy Failures ~ Ukraine looks to ban production and sale of vapes ~ Illegal vape seizures soar as UK disposable ban risks fuelling black market ~ Indian Doctors Join Call to End the Country’s Vape Ban ~ Panama Doubles Down On Its COP10 Failure ~ WHO’s war on FDA: Science or sour grapes over US cuts? ~ FDA’s double standard: Approves deadly opioids while banning safer smoking alternatives ~ ‘Vaping is safer than cigarettes,’ Kgosi Letlape blasts health department advert ~ One Year Later: Ottawa’s Nicotine Replacement Therapy Strategy Fuels Illicit Market, Underserves Smokers Français ~ Seizures of illegal vapes skyrocketing, BBC finds ~ British American Tobacco is test marketing VUSE ONE disposable vapes in the U.S. ~ Leftist Spanish Ministry Declares War on Vaping ~ Communicating the scientific rationale of tobacco harm reduction in LMICs – Workshop | #GFN25

Three From Dave Cross, Planet of the Vapes

Parliament Matters 1

In the first of three pieces from Westminster, Labour’s Paula Barker wants to know about children buying vapes from their friends in school and how that might upset teachers, the Conservative’s Andrew Snowden is worried about how the police are dealing with the sale of disposables, and Labour MP Charlotte Nichols wonders how re-usable vapes get recycled.

Choose Science Over Dogma

With less than 100 days to go until the World Health Organization’s (WHO) next global tobacco control conference, the Conference of Parties (COP11), the World Vapers’ Alliance is warning that COP11 is on track to become “another disaster for public health”. Instead of embracing progress, the organisation says, the WHO and Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) Secretariat continue their “ideological crusade against harm reduction – ignoring science, silencing consumers, and yielding to billionaire influence”.

UKVIA Examines Flavour Bans

The UK Vaping Industry Association has promoted an article on its website written by Barnaby Page of ECigIntelligence asking if vape flavour bans are positive or a potential problem. Along with the current ban on disposable vapes, MPs and government ministers are now regularly discussing implementing limits or prohibitions on eliquid flavours “to reduce youth vaping”.

expert reaction to umbrella review looking at youth vaping and its links to smoking, marijuana use, alcohol use, and other health outcomes

Prof Kevin McConway, Dr Emma Beard, Prof Ann McNeill, Prof Peter Hajek, Dr Stephen Burgess, Science Media Centre

An umbrella review published in Tobacco Control looks at teen vaping and the risk of smoking and other health outcomes.

Daily Pouch Money: Does Altria Belong in Your Portfolio?

The Daily Pouch

Daily Pouch Money takes a look at different nicotine pouch manufacturers to see if it’s worth finding room for these sin stocks in your portfolio. Previous editions have looked at PMI in March and BAT in June.

Since we recommended getting involved, PMI has gone from $158.48 to $170.18 (+7.3%), while BAT has gained nearly 20% with a rise from $47.79 a share to $57.24.

Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates Demand Urgent Change As Australia’s Tobacco Wars Expose Global Policy Failures

Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA), GlobeNewswire

New Zealand, Aug. 20, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA) believes that as Australia’s tobacco control strategy descends into chaos with over 125 fire bombings, a thriving A$6.3 billion illicit market, and smoking rates stagnating at 11%, leading tobacco harm reduction advocates are calling for an urgent paradigm shift ahead of the groundbreaking Asia Forum on Nicotine (AFN25) conference.

“Australia’s tobacco policy doesn’t pass the pub test,” declared Nancy Loucas, CAPHRA Executive Coordinator. “Sky-high cigarette prices haven’t made people quit – they’ve made criminals rich whilst creating a national security crisis that has transformed a health issue into a war zone”.

Two from Ali Anderson, Clearing The Air

Ukraine looks to ban production and sale of vapes

Ukraine is considering a sweeping ban on the production, import, sale, and distribution of vapes, pods, and e-liquids, in a bid to curb teenage use.

The proposed legislation, Bill No. 13548, would amend existing smoking regulations, introduce fines for violations, and add a provision explicitly banning the distribution of vapes.

According to Generation Without Tobacco, the Bill would halt the production, trade, and registration of vapes in Ukraine, while removing provisions related to the licensing and distribution of e-liquids.

Illegal vape seizures soar as UK disposable ban risks fuelling black market

Seizures of illegal vapes are soaring in the UK, sparking warnings the government’s disposable ban is driving more people into the black market.

BBC analysis of local authority data shows Trading Standards departments in Sussex confiscated around 21,200 illicit vape products in 2024. This compares with zero just four years earlier. In Surrey, seizures rose from around 500 in 2020 to nearly 14,140 last year, a 28-fold increase.

Indian Doctors Join Call to End the Country’s Vape Ban

Helen Redmond, Filter

India’s vape ban has been enforced for six long years, in a country where smoking kills over 1 million people annually. The 2019 Prohibition of Electronic Cigarettes Act banned the sale, storage and manufacture of these safer alternatives. Some influential voices have just added to urgent calls for its repeal.

Doctors Vaibhav Sahni and Abhishek Shankar from the respected All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi have published a much-needed commentary, “Impact of Banning Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems in India.”

Panama Doubles Down On Its COP10 Failure

loremipsumdolor, COPWatch

COPWatch has written about Dr Reina Roa on a number of occasions in the past. We reported on how the Director General of Public Health at the Ministry of Health (MINSA) was being investigated by Panamanian authorities for “administrative irregularities”. About how there had been many discrepancies in her book-keeping for transport services in her capacity as National Coordinator of Tobacco Control of the Ministry of Health. And about how her nonsensical determination to ban the sale of all vaping products was ruled unconstitutional by The Supreme Court of Justice in Panama.

We owe our readers an apology. It is clear that we over-estimated her competence by a significant degree.

WHO’s war on FDA: Science or sour grapes over US cuts?

In a brazen slap to both American science and American sovereignty, Dr. Reina Roa — Panama’s top health bureaucrat and the incoming head of the World Health Organization’s anti-tobacco treaty summit — is openly attacking the credibility of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

In an official July 8 communication, Roa dismissed the FDA’s evidence-based reviews of reduced-risk nicotine products such as e-cigarettes and pouches, arrogantly questioning the agency’s independence simply because its conclusions don’t align with the WHO’s ideological agenda.

FDA’s double standard: Approves deadly opioids while banning safer smoking alternatives

Lindsey Stroud, Washington Times

The Food and Drug Administration likes to present itself as the nation’s gatekeeper against dangerous products, but history tells a different story: one in which the agency’s decisions have helped fuel the deadliest drug crisis in American history while stifling far safer alternatives to cigarettes.

The FDA-approved opioid epidemic has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans since 2000. Yet the agency applies an entirely different standard to tobacco harm reduction by cracking down on products that could save lives while protecting the market share of the very companies it claims to restrain.

‘Vaping is safer than cigarettes,’ Kgosi Letlape blasts health department advert

Boitumelo Kgobotlo, Sunday World

ActionSA member of parliament Dr Kgosi Letlape has defended vaping against the Department of Health’s claims that it is as harmful as smoking cigarettes. Letlape condemned the department for authorising radio adverts that say “vaping is just as bad as smoking cigarettes”.

He said this message was false and dangerous because science shows vaping is less harmful than traditional smoking. “While vaping is not without risk, the available scientific evidence is clear that it is not equivalent to the harms of combustible cigarettes. By insisting otherwise, the department is spreading propaganda rather than facts,” said Letlape.

One Year Later: Ottawa’s Nicotine Replacement Therapy Strategy Fuels Illicit Market, Underserves Smokers Français

Imperial Tobacco Canada, Cision

One year ago this week, the former federal government issued a Ministerial Order banning ZONNIC—the only nicotine pouch approved by Health Canada as a smoking cessation product—from convenience store shelves nationwide, restricting its sale to behind pharmacy counters.

The policy, presented as a public health measure, has clearly backfired. Overnight, access of ZONNIC immediately dropped. While sales of ZONNIC dropped, the purchase of cigarettes jumped by 2.8% and over the last year, more than 500 million illegal and unregulated pouches have been sold on the black market.

Seizures of illegal vapes skyrocketing, BBC finds

Joshua Askew, Alex Bish, BBC News

Seizures of illegal vapes by local authorities in the South East have skyrocketed, BBC analysis has revealed.

Figures show Trading Standards departments in Sussex confiscated around 21,200 illicit vape products in 2024 – up from none in 2020.

In Surrey, seizures rose from around 500 in 2020 to nearly 14,140 last year – a 28-fold increase.

British American Tobacco is test marketing VUSE ONE disposable vapes in the U.S.

Tobacco Insider

British American Tobacco (BAT) started to test-market the disposable vape products acquired from Charlie’s Holdings (formerly known as PACHA vapes) under the VUSE ONE brand name in the U.S. to assess the consumer appeal. As Charlie’s Holdings had filed PMTAs (accepted by the U.S. FDA) for these products, they can be legally marketed in the U.S. while waiting for the PMTA review outcome.

Leftist Spanish Ministry Declares War on Vaping

Zolta Győri, The European Conservative

Spain’s Ministry of Health, led by the far-left Sumar party, has triggered a storm in Brussels with a draft bill that would impose sweeping restrictions on vaping products and nicotine pouches, measures that several EU member states argue breach the fundamental principle of free movement of goods.

The proposal includes a flavor ban, allowing only tobacco-flavored vapes, along with strict limits on nicotine content that would effectively outlaw nicotine pouches by capping them at 0.99 mg per pouch. Nicotine pouches currently exist in a regulatory gray zone not explicitly covered by the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive (TPD), which gives member states broad discretion on the matter—which of course leads to tensions among those who’d rather not let sovereign states make their own decisions.

Communicating the scientific rationale of tobacco harm reduction in LMICs – Workshop | #GFN25

Global Forum on Nicotine

Examining available evidence on the net public health impact of incorporating tobacco harm reduction principles in policymaking, participants discussed the challenges and opportunities to leverage tobacco harm reduction approaches to achieve LMIC public health goals. The aim was to identify the top three priorities as a takeaway for key stakeholders in the audience.

On this day…2018

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

British politicians push for more vaping

Fergus Mason, Vaping Post

In a landmark report issued last week a prominent UK parliament committee urged their government to do more to help smokers switch to vaping. In a strongly worded set of conclusions they condemned vaping bans and suggested the elimination of anti-vaping laws imposed by the EU. There was also movement in Australia, where a state branch of the ruling Liberal Party called for an end to the country’s ban on nicotine liquids.

Let’s give the vapers a break

Marianne Taylor

Until recently, walking past groups of folk puffing away outside big office blocks and shopping centres invariably meant being engulfed by a thoroughly unpleasant fug of cigarette smoke.

These days it’s just as likely to be the scent of peach melba cheesecake, toasted caramel, mango tango or some other overly-sweet scent you can’t quite put your finger on that immerses you for a brief second then instantly disappears into the ether.

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