Vapers Digest 22nd December
Friday’s News at a glance:
The Great POTV 2023 Round-up Part 1 & 2 – Rapid decline in youth smoking – Mr Butler, your pants are on fire – Juul Submits PMTA for Next Generation Menthol Pod – Stakeholders advocate alternatives for THR – A YEAR FOR CHANGE | With Allison Boughner and Maria Papaioannoy-Duic – What’s Next For New Zealand? | Vaping Unplugged Podcast With Marewa Glover Ep. 37
Two from Dave Cross, Planet of the Vapes:
The Great POTV 2023 Round-up Part 1
2023 has been a monumental one for the world of vape as big business tightened its grip, science supporting vaping became stronger than ever, and disposable companies worked to mess it all up. Advocates have spent most of the year fighting a rear guard action but, as Planet of the Vapes predicted in 2022, this year was going to be one where a war was going to be waged on disposable single-use vapes.
In the beginning: The first story of the year covered how the supermarket Waitrose had delisted all disposable vape products from its stores. Despite having had a miserable financial time of it, executives chose to “do the right thing” over gaining income from selling the fast-moving consumer products.
The Great POTV 2023 Round-up Part 2
Oh yes, January to March was a pretty thrilling ride, but wait, it has nothing on the second quarter. April to June on Planet of the Vapes was a period that experts are now calling late spring to early summer. Our coverage literally had people sitting on the edge of their seats. Maybe they should increase the font size on their screens so they can sit more comfortably? Anyway, let’s look at what happened in the world of vape…
Bad Ads: Elfbar is on a mission. Fresh from embarrassing the industry by supplying illegal vapes to major national supermarket chains, it then got publicly rapped by the Advertising Standards Authority for breaching the advertising code on TikTok – for the second (yet not last) time this year.
Rapid decline in youth smoking
Colin Mendelsohn
The Australian Secondary Students’ Alcohol and Drug Survey (ASSAD) released yesterday found that only 2.1% of 12-17-year-olds smoked in the past week in 2022-23, compared to 4.9% in the previous survey in 2017.
Youth smoking has declined by about 10% per year since the 2017 survey after vaping became popular. In comparison, the decline in smoking was 3.5% per year from 1996 to 2017.
The Minister’s claim was based on a Roy Morgan Survey conducted for the Department of Health and Ageing earlier this year that reported a past-month smoking rate of 12.8% among 14-17-year-olds. The Minister used this result to justify further harsh restrictions on vaping.
In the largest trial of e-cigarettes in the U.S., MUSC researchers show that e-cigarettes have value as a smoking cessation aid, even for participants who entered the trial saying they had no intention of quitting smoking. https://t.co/W5Ce7S0Mo8
— MUSC Research (@ResearchMUSC) December 20, 2023
Mr Butler, your pants are on fire
Colin Mendelsohn
SORRY TO BE BLUNT MR BUTLER, but your pants are on fire. The talking points you keep repeating about youth vaping are simply not evidence-based and are patently wrong.
This blog challenges seven of your most often repeated falsehoods. Previous fact checks on your past porkies are here, here and here.
“What the tobacco industry has done here is tried to find a product that will recruit a whole new generation of nicotine addicts” (link)
FALSE. This is an attempt to discredit vaping by associating it with the hated tobacco industry. However, the tobacco industry has absolutely no role in youth vaping in Australia.
Juul Submits PMTA for Next Gen Menthol
Jim McDonald
Juul Labs has submitted a marketing application to the FDA for a menthol-flavored refill pod designed to be used in Juul’s “next generation” device. In July, Juul submitted a premarket tobacco product application (PMTA) for the device and a tobacco-flavored pod.
The menthol refill pod will only work in the 2G device, which requires age verification to operate, and has a user-controlled lock. The company will limit the number of 2G devices that can be purchased, according to a press release. Juul says it will also limit the number that can be activated by each age-verified user, which will help prevent legal-age buyers from activating the vape and then selling them to minors.
Stakeholders advocate alternatives THR
Johnson Idowu
Stakeholders concerned with the growing harms associated with tobacco smoking have called for the adoption of alternative cigarettes as a way of achieving a smoke-free country in Nigeria.
The stakeholders, which include public health experts, academics, non-governmental organisations, students, and the media, made this call at a roundtable event organised by ValueFrontiea Limited and held in Ikeja, Lagos State.
The keynote speaker, Teslim Shitta-Bay, noted that it is high time for Nigeria to shift attention to alternatives to non-combustible smoking as a way of curbing the health implications associated with smoking.
A YEAR FOR CHANGE
With Allison Boughner and Maria Papaioannoy-Duic | GFN’s NEW YEAR WISHES
What’s Next For New Zealand?
Vaping Unplugged Podcast With Marewa Glover Ep. 37
Welcome to another episode of Vaping Unplugged. We’re thrilled to have Marewa Glover, a distinguished figure in public health and smoking cessation share her invaluable insights.
On this Day…2022
A look back at how things have moved on or otherwise….
Dutch Danger
ETHRA
The Dutch government has launched a consultation on legislation to ban nicotine pouches. The consultation ends on 16 January.
This is a simple consultation to respond to, and it is important that you do.
The European Commission has already signalled that it would like an EU wide ban on nicotine pouches. If individual member states, such as the Netherlands, ban pouches, an EU wide ban becomes far more likely.
Nicotine pouches are becoming increasingly popular with people seeking safer alternatives to smoking. It is morally wrong to deny people who smoke access to products which are less harmful to their health.
Global State of THR:
ecig an unprecedented revolution – CoEHAR
Although the numbers of harm reduction supporters are growing, there are still too many smokers attracted to cigarettes: with over 1.1 billion smokers worldwide and more than 8 million smoke-related deaths each year, the smoking emergency is still a long way off from being in check.
Summing up, the third edition of the Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction outlines a clear framework on electronic nicotine delivery systems scenario: although there are now over 100 million people using these products worldwide, tobacco-related deaths still exceed 8 million a year and the strenuous opposition from governments and several public health authorities appears to be charting an uphill battle for smokers who can’t quit.
Visit Nicotine Science & Policy for more News from around the World
