Vapers Digest 22nd April
Wednesday’s News at a glance:
Vaping Has Overtaken Smoking ~ Parliament Matters ~ EU Commission TPD Evaluation Report ~ When Evidence Outpaces Policy: Rethinking the Endgame for Smoking ~ Policy vs Behaviour: The Unintended Consequences of Tobacco Control’s Endgame Strategy ~ The Disinformation That Is Giving People Who Smoke Cancer. ~ The Great Disconnect in Tobacco Control ~ Can Big Tobacco redeem itself? ~ The Petrovic Bill: A ban that won’t ban ~ They want a flavour ban and a Nicotine Free Canada ~ Former WHO Officials to Global Health Community: Harm Reduction Works ~ Why Public Health Hates Consumers | Chris Snowdon on Clearing the Air ~ Dutch flavour ban pushed some vapers into smoking, study suggests ~ Jailing the Smoke-Free: Brussels vs Sweden’s Success ~ Harry’s blog 130: Follow the science not the money ~ “Embarrassing”—Experts Slam EU’s Self-Congratulatory Smoking Report ~ Our Letter to Minister Michel in response to that press conference ~ Imperial calls for enforcement-first approach and fact-based action to address youth vaping ~ Group calls on Ottawa to ban flavoured vapes, despite mixed Quebec results ~ How New York Gov. Hochul’s proposed Zyn tax could encourage smoking, undermine public health ~ Articles Accuse Makary of Putting Reputation Over Science ~ Cyprus Compromise May Solve EU Tobacco Impasse ~ Modern alternatives could sharply cut tobacco harm
Two From Dave Cross, Planet Of The Vapes
Vaping Has Overtaken Smoking
Smoke Free Sweden has welcomed the news that new data shows vaping has overtaken smoking in Great Britain for the first time since records began in 1974. The harm reduction experts call the news a “historic crossover … that vindicates the harm reduction approach pioneered by Sweden”. The UK government is slightly less effusive.
Parliament Matters
In the first of our two trips to Parliament this week, Sir Ashley Fox wants to know more about plans to limit new vape shop applications. James Cleverly would like to know more about how the licensing scheme will apply to new and existing premises, and Lord Foulkes thinks the recent Glasgow fire should inform restrictions on vape shop licensing.
EU Commission TPD Evaluation Report
European Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates
On Thursday 2 April, the European Commission published its much anticipated Evaluation Report (ER) on the legislative framework for tobacco control (TPD).
Not an evaluation. The report notes the small decline in smoking between 2012 and 2023 from 28% to 24% and attributes this decline, without evidence, to the EU tobacco control framework. There is nothing in the ER that shows that any of the policies in the TPD or TAD had any effect, or that some policies worked while others did not, and no comparisons are made with declines in other countries or globally.
Two From Alan Gor
When Evidence Outpaces Policy: Rethinking the Endgame for Smoking
There’s a moment in every long-running policy debate where the evidence stops trickling in and starts converging. Where different strands of research, real-world outcomes, and lived experience begin pointing in the same direction. Not tentatively, but consistently.
That’s where we are now with tobacco harm reduction.
A recent paper published in Nature Medicine doesn’t just add another voice to the conversation. It reframes it entirely.
Policy vs Behaviour: The Unintended Consequences of Tobacco Control’s Endgame Strategy
There is a quiet kind of arrogance embedded in modern public health policy. It is the belief that human behaviour can be engineered from the top down, that if you tighten the screws hard enough, people will eventually comply. If you raise the price high enough, restrict access far enough, and remove alternatives completely, the desired outcome will follow. On paper, it feels neat. Almost mathematical. But the real world has a way of refusing to cooperate.
Two From N.E. Loucas, Wherever You Go, There You Are
The Disinformation That Is Giving People Who Smoke Cancer.
There is a cancer spreading through our public health landscape. It does not show up on a scan. It does not respond to chemotherapy. It spreads through press releases, poorly contextualised headlines, and the well-meaning but profoundly dangerous conflation of two vastly different risks. The cancer is disinformation, specifically the false and demonstrably deadly idea that vaping is as harmful as smoking.
The Great Disconnect in Tobacco Control
When reading and comparing the WHO FCTC COP11 final report with a recent Nature article arguing that smoke-free nicotine products can accelerate the end of the smoking epidemic, on one hand I was not surprised, but on the other I found myself becoming angry at the hubris of the FCTC Secretariat in their attempts to bully member delegates to do their bidding.
The COP11 report and the Nature article do not merely disagree on detail. They represent competing visions of global tobacco control. One vision prioritizes defending the treaty system against perceived industry narratives, even at the risk of narrowing the space for scientific and policy debate.
Can Big Tobacco redeem itself?
Marc Gunther, The Best Laid Plans
In the last decade or so, tens of millions of people have quit cigarettes by switching to safer nicotine products – e-cigarettes like JUUL, pouches like ZYN and devices that heat tobacco without burning it, like those sold under the IQOS brand.
In Sweden, Japan and New Zealand, alternative nicotine products have driven unprecedented declines in cigarette sales. Even in the US, where the government and tobacco-control groups have opposed them, e-cgarettes and pouches now make up about half of the tobacco market, according to Goldman Sachs.
Two From The Nicotine Project
The Petrovic Bill: A ban that won’t ban
We finally got our hands on the bill being put forward by Chelsae Petrovic and let me be clear this isn’t some sweeping, complex piece of legislation. It’s not even really a bill, it’s an amendment, a small one, but loud. The smallest changes tell you the most about where things are heading.
Did you catch the press conference last week held by so-called health advocates? It felt like the same playbook all over again, repackaged data, dressed up as a crisis. What is really concerning is the rhetoric about creating a nicotine free Canada. This is something that we need to be concerned about.
Michael Landl, World Vapers’ Alliance
Three former WHO officials have published a commentary in Nature Health calling on the global health community to formally integrate tobacco harm reduction into international tobacco control policy. The authors, Robert Beaglehole, Ruth Bonita, and Tikki Pang, spent careers building the global tobacco control architecture. When people with that background say the current approach is failing and that less harmful alternatives are part of the solution, that matters.
Two From Clearing The Air
Why Public Health Hates Consumers | Chris Snowdon on Clearing the Air
Peter Beckett
In this episode Peter Beckett sits down with Dr Christopher Snowdon, Head of Lifestyle Economics at the Institute for Economic Affairs, to discuss whether or not nicotine is part of the culture war, or is it something that unites more than it divides.
Peter Beckett: Chris Snowdon, welcome to Clearing the Air. Thanks for joining us. So, you and I don’t agree on anything really. And yet, we do agree on vaping.
Christopher Snowdon: It makes me think I might be wrong about vaping.
Dutch flavour ban pushed some vapers into smoking, study suggests
Ali Anderson
40% of vapers reduced use after the ban, including 22% who quit entirely
6% started smoking cigarettes and linked this to the policy
10.8% reported using alternative products more, “predominantly cigarettes”
Most quitters (73%) did not switch to another product
Jailing the Smoke-Free: Brussels vs Sweden’s Success
Juan Taborcia, Considerate Pouchers
Does the European Commission even believe in its own rules? You’d think the people running Brussels would care about things like the law or human health. They certainly tell you they do. They give long, self-important speeches about the “free movement of people” and the “European way of life.” But then you look at what they’re actually doing, and you realize it’s all a lie.
Harry’s blog 130: Follow the science not the money
Harry Shapiro, Nicotine Science and Policy
For the sake of public health, end virtue signalling about THR funding
I arrived into the world of tobacco harm reduction (THR) from drugs and HIV harm reduction in 2015. I was invited into KAC by two valued colleagues from my previous world who were perfectly up front (and have never hidden the fact) that the funding for the organisation came from the Foundation for a Smoke Free World which in turn was funded by Philip Morris International. And the reason that they were prepared to use this money to further the cause of THR was that no other prospective funders for a harm reduction project were interested. Nobody back in the day was excited by the fact that if you could separate nicotine use from combustion the relative risk was massively reduced and the potential health gains enormous.
“Embarrassing”—Experts Slam EU’s Self-Congratulatory Smoking Report
Kiran Sidhu, Filter
A European Commission report on smoking and nicotine use is being condemned for unjustified self-contragulation, anti-scientific opposition to tobacco harm reduction and biased authorship. Advocates fear for its impact on future EU policy.
The European Commission, the European Union’s executive branch, published the report on April 1, as an evaluation of EU tobacco control under the Tobacco Products Directive.
Our Letter to Minister Michel in response to that press conference
Maria Papaioannoy, Rights 4 Vapers
Dear Minister Michel,
I am writing to you today to address the theatrical performance that was held in the West Block on Friday, by government-funded tobacco control leaders where they made claims that 50,000 high school students have started vaping since you took office and uses that figure to call for a national ban on flavours. In addition, I was particularly worried about the loud and forceful language about creating a ‘nicotine free Canada’. This kind of rhetoric is especially dangerous as it stigmatizes safer-nicotine products (like pouches and vapour products) and threatens our ability to help Canadians who smoke reduce their cigarette consumption and/or quit entirely.
Imperial calls for enforcement-first approach and fact-based action to address youth vaping
Imperial Tobacco Canada
Imperial Tobacco Canada (Imperial) is responding to the April 17 press conference from anti-smoking groups, calling for a more focused, fact-based approach to youth vaping that targets the real source of the problem: the illicit market.
There is unanimous agreement on the core issue. Youth should not be using nicotine products. Imperial supports strong measures to prevent youth access and stresses that enforcement of existing laws must be the priority.
However, the discussion failed to clearly distinguish, and at times blurred the line between the regulated market and the growing illicit market driving youth access.
Group calls on Ottawa to ban flavoured vapes, despite mixed Quebec results
Rahim Mohamed, National Post
A taxpayer-funded advocacy group is calling on Ottawa to follow Quebec’s contentious ban on flavoured vaping products.”
Cynthia Callard, executive director of Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, was in Ottawa to implore federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel to restrict access to flavoured vapes, which she said is make vaping more attractive to minors.
How New York Gov. Hochul’s proposed Zyn tax could encourage smoking, undermine public health
Guy Bentley, Reason
Gov. Kathy Hochul has proposed extending New York’s 75 percent wholesale tax on tobacco products to include nicotine pouches. For example, a can of Zyn, which currently runs $8 to $11 at a New York City bodega, would likely cost $12 to $15.50 after tax, in some cases more expensive than a legal pack of cigarettes and certainly more expensive than the untaxed cigarettes that litter the city’s black market.
Two From Tobacco Reporter
Articles Accuse Makary of Putting Reputation Over Science
Over the weekend, multiple sources criticized FDA Commissioner Marty Makary for being influenced by reputational considerations rather than evolving evidence on risk and consumer behavior in the regulation of reduced-harm nicotine products. According to The Wall Street Journal, tensions have emerged between the White House and the FDA, with the administration pushing to expand access to flavored vaping products while Makary has blocked authorizations despite internal scientific support.
Cyprus Compromise May Solve EU Tobacco Impasse
International Policy Digest is reporting that a new compromise proposal from Cyprus may help break the long-standing deadlock among EU member states over revising the Tobacco Excise Directive, which has not been updated since 2011. The European Commission’s 2025 proposal sought to raise minimum excise duties and extend taxation to newer products such as heated tobacco and nicotine pouches, but faced strong opposition from several countries concerned about market disruption and illicit trade.
The Financial Express
Safer alternatives to smoking could substantially reduce the harm caused by tobacco use, subject matter experts have mentioned. They argued that products such as vaping devices, nicotine pouches, and snus have helped millions of smokers around the world to quit. Countries that adopted harm reduction strategies have seen rapid declines in smoking, while those that banned these products including India, Brazil Australia have witnessed the rise of black markets and unregulated goods – often accompanied by little or no improvement in public health outcomes.
A look back at how things have moved on or otherwise…
Risk And Reason: Australia, England, And The US E-Cigarette Crisis Of 2019
Ronald Bayer, Amy Fairchild, Virginia Berridge, Wayne Hall, Coral Gartner, Health Affairs
The summer of 2019 witnessed a dramatic amplification of the controversy in the United States over the potential threat to the nation’s youth posed by e-cigarettes. After years of festering debate, a summer outbreak of vaping-related injuries imperiled the idea that e-cigarettes could serve to advance the role of harm reduction for cigarette smoking.
It’s Official! PMTA Submission Deadline Will Move to Sept. 9th
Jim McDonald, Vaping 360
The FDA will postpone the PMTA deadline for manufacturers of vaping products until Sept. 9, 2020. The previous deadline was May 12. The four-month delay is needed because of challenges created by the coronavirus pandemic that is affecting industries and governments around the world, according to the agency.
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