Vapers Digest 23rd August
Friday’s News at a glance:
Thai Concern Over Smoking – Pessimism Roles Over US Vape Market – How To Quit Vaping – Vaping and Dry Socket – Attention Consumers! – Smoking rates flatline in EU countries – I (regrettably) tried a nicotine pouch – Free council vapes scheme helps smokers quit – The Majority of Brits Who Quit Smoking Now Do So With Vapes – Everyone I Know on Parole Is Vaping – The Evolution and Challenges of the Nicotine Pouch Market – Kenya: Bill Would Impose Extreme Restrictions – White snus is trending in Australia – Division in public health policy – The truth about vaping: Separating fact from fiction
Four from Dave Cross, Planet of the Vapes:
Thai Concern Over Smoking
Thai officials are concerned about smoking related illnesses and death, but they still won’t accept that vaping offers a reduced harm approach by means of a solution. Last week, another official sent out a statement regarding smoking-related dangers. Meanwhile, the national tobacco industry continues to pump out cigarettes and the nonsensical ban on vaping leads to corruption and a booming black market.
Last week, the government warned about the dangers of secondhand smoke: “A recent report by the Office of the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC) has raised a grave concern in Thailand, where over 9,000 deaths annually are attributed to secondhand smoke, exceeding the figures reported in the United States.
Pessimism Roles Over US Vape Market
Vape stores in the United States are pessimistic over the impact of consumers moving to disposable vapes, according to market analyst expert ECigIntelligence, but increased enforcement against rogue retailers could help them. A survey conducted by ECigIntelligence reveals that 84% of the stores reported a decrease in average monthly revenue, with those whose revenue was already small being the most likely to lose even more.
Leading market analysts ECigIntelligence say, “increased competition, changing consumer tastes and the ascendance of disposable vapes – which are available from many other outlets, such as gas stations and convenience stores – were cited as the biggest reasons for declines in revenue. Misinformation about vaping was also seen as a major factor, as in other recent years. ECigIntelligence has been surveying US vape stores annually since 2016.”
How To Quit Vaping
Just as another research paper demonstrates how vaping works to help smokers quit and keep them tobacco-free, Doctor Bonnie Halpern-Felsher takes to the airwaves to attack ecigs. Halpern-Felsher has featured on this website many times and is well known for her unscientific opposition to vaping, views she has just shared WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show while purporting to be concerned about helping vapers quit vaping.
Bonnie Halpern-Felsher has appeared in Planet of the Vapes’ news articles many times. She produced a literature review that ignored positive studies and relied on exceptionally flawed pieces of work by the likes of Jessica Barrington-Trimis [link], manufactured findings about teen attitudes [link], and claimed adults don’t need flavoured eliquids in order to quit smoking [link].
Vaping and Dry Socket
Dentists are telling vapers to avoid vaping following dental surgery – but does the evidence support this position or has it been extrapolated from knowledge about smoking? There is a variety of information, the majority of it originating from American websites, but it runs slightly at odds with the information given out by the NHS.
Following oral surgery where a tooth has been extracted, the NHS says dry socket (alveolar osteitis) is a possible complication: “Dry Socket is a common complication following tooth removal. Normally, a blood clot forms in the socket, this protects the socket as it heals and forms the foundation for new bone and soft tissue growth. A dry socket occurs when a blood clot fails to develop in the tooth socket, or if the blood clot becomes dislodged or disappears. This usually happens 3 to 5 days after the extraction procedure.”
Attention Consumers!
Kim “Skip” Murray
GTNF has offered to do something extraordinary! If a consumer can’t attend the conference in person and wants to view it virtually, please contact Nancy Loucas or me to be added to the consumer advocate list for special virtual accommodations.
NTSC welcomes consumer attendance. For consumer rates (In-person or virtual), please get in touch with Mike Cummings or Gal Cohen. If you don’t know Mike or Gal, let me know, and I’ll introduce you.
Conference organizers: Please let me know if your event offers reduced or free rates for consumers (virtual and/or in-person). I would be thrilled to give you a shout-out for including their voices.
Here is the 2023 @CDCTobaccoFree survey:https://t.co/8BRxM48lxP
It says:
7.7% of teens use e-cigarettes at least once in the past month (current use). And among current users, 35% use e-cigarettes frequently (20 or more days per month). And among current users, 25% use…— Charles A. Gardner, PhD (@ChaunceyGardner) August 21, 2024
— Consumer Choice Center (@ConsumerChoiceC) August 23, 2024
Smoking rates flatline in EU countries …
Not promoting nicotine alternatives – Ali Anderson
Smoking rates have stagnated in European Union countries where less harmful nicotine alternatives are not readily available, new data reveals.
Research from survey site Eurobarometer shows smoking prevalence across the 27 EU Member States has fallen by only a single percentage point – from 25 per cent to 24 per cent – since 2020.
Global health advocacy group Smoke Free Sweden warns that if smoking levels continue on the same trajectory, the EU will fail to achieve its goal of reducing the smoking rate to less than 5 per cent by 2040.
I (regrettably) tried a nicotine pouch.
It made me question what I think about addiction – Imogen West-Knights
Vaping in the toilet cubicle on a train is beneath me. This is a line I have drawn. First, it’s not allowed, but second – and much more importantly – the idea of savouring an intake of breath in a train toilet feels like a degradation too far. Worse still, I have always been plagued by images of a smoke detector going off and the arcane mechanism of the train toilet door somehow opening to reveal me there to my fellow passengers, wreathed in a cloud of my own shame.
I am pathetically addicted to my vape. I am not proud of this, but it is what it is. Or more accurately, it dawned on me as I walked into WH Smith at Euston station a few weeks ago, I am pathetically addicted to nicotine.
Free council vapes scheme
Helps smokers quit – BBC
Almost a quarter of people who sought help from a city stop-smoking service used a vape to quit, organisers said. SmokeFree Hull said the figures, from between April 2023 and March 2024, “demonstrate the difference seeking help can make when stopping smoking”.
The Hull City Council-run organisation offers free vapes to over-18s who want to give up the habit, as well as one-to-one help and advice. The city has one of the UK’s highest smoking rates with 20.9% of people smoking, compared with the national average of 12.9%, according to government data.
The Majority of Brits Who Quit Smoking
Now Do So With Vapes – Kiran Sidhu
Just over half of British adults who quit smoking in the last five years used vapes to help them do so, according to a new national survey. An estimated 2.7 million people have quit cigarettes in this way since 2019.
Other headline findings include that 5.6 million adults in Great Britain currently vape—the highest total recorded, at about 11 percent of the population. And 53 percent of those people formerly smoked, but no longer do.
Everyone I Know on Parole Is Vaping
C Dreams
Nobody ever really talked about cigarette alternatives in prison. Tobacco is abundantly available to anyone in Georgia Department of Corrections custody who can afford it, and even in prison systems where that isn’t the case, there’s just no market for things like vapes. Since being released in 2023, I’ve noticed a stark difference: Almost every single person I know on parole or probation is furiously vaping.
The Evolution and Challenges
Of the Nicotine Pouch Market – Richard Crosby
The nicotine pouch market has seen quite a change since I started using pouches myself back in 2020. At that time, you might get lucky and find a display pack that had found its way into a convenience store so you could buy the product in person. However, an initially fledgling online marketplace rapidly grew to meet consumer demand. We’re now (finally) starting to see nicotine pouches not only sold online but also in high street stores and supermarkets. Nicotine pouches, whilst still not as visible as I might like, are far more known by the general public, and newspapers have certainly got wind of the rising trend!
Kenya: Bill Would Impose …
Extreme Vape and Pouch Restrictions – Jim McDonald
A bill introduced in Kenya’s parliament would impose serious restrictions on vaping products and nicotine pouches, making them less attractive and less available to ordinary Kenyans. The Kenyan Senate is accepting public comment on the bill until Aug. 26.
The legislation, Senate Bill 35, is supported by Kenyan tobacco control and public health groups, some of which accept funding from the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and other Bloomberg Philanthropies-supported anti-vaping groups.
White snus is trending in Australia
Christian Egefur
Australia seems to be waging a full-frontal war against all forms of nicotine use – at least those that are not cigarette smoking. But alternative products are emerging anyway. The latest trend, in the wake of the vejp ban, is white snus. Or ‘nicotine pouches’ as they are known down under.
Vejpkollen has on several occasions drawn attention to Australia’s strict rules against nicotine in general and vejpning in particular. At the beginning of the summer, the country passed a new law that was in many ways a death blow to the entire domestic vejp industry and also for users.
Division in public health policy
Halts smoking rate decline in some countries – Antonio Iñares
A widening divide among public health policymakers is preventing millions of smokers from switching to less harmful alternatives, according to tobacco harm reduction (THR) advocates.
Dr. Marewa Glover, a leading public health researcher from New Zealand, said a “culture war” between prohibitionist groups and THR advocates who promote less harmful options is hindering progress in public health efforts to combat smoking.
The truth about vaping:
Separating fact from fiction – Akinwande Puddicombe
Vaping is often met with a knee-jerk reaction by most people and is often treated like an infectious disease designed to kill. This is rather unfortunate particularly when considering nicotine vaping’s life-saving potential for people that would otherwise remain with combustible cigarettes. Vaping is frequently misunderstood and misrepresented. It’s imperative to correct these misconceptions and present nicotine vaping, when viewed from the perspective of Tobacco Harm reduction principles, as a pivotal tool in the fight against tobacco.
On this Day…2023
A look back at how things have moved on or otherwise….
Barnet London Borough
Barnet Council supports the recent statements released by Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) and London Tobacco Alliance, who are tackling misinformation about vaping by calling for responsible media coverage and sharing clinically proven and accurate information.
Dr Tamara Djuretic, Joint Director of Public Health and Prevention, Barnet Council and The Royal Free London Group, and Cllr Alison Moore, Chair of the Health & Wellbeing Board at Barnet Council, say: “We support the use of nicotine vapes that meet UK regulatory standards as an aid for adults to stop smoking.
How safe and effective is vaping nicotine?
Colin Mendelsohn, ColinMendelsohn.com.au
Is vaping effective?
The latest Cochrane review of 6 randomised controlled trials (November 2022) found that vaping was 63% more effective than nicotine replacement therapy. (Hartmann-Boyce 2022) Cochrane studies are the highest level of evidence that a treatment is effective. It found that if 100 smokers use NRT, 6 will quit. With vaping, 8-12 will quit. The quality of evidence for this conclusion was high, the highest level of certainty.
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