Vapers Digest 27th March

Monday’s News at a glance:

Expert Reaction to study of teen vaping and persistent smoking in the US – Holiday Problems – Parroting Vaping Opponents – Study Reveals Vaping Can Effectively Help Adults Stop Smoking – COP10 & The Future of Vaping with Martin Cullip – How to regulate nicotine vaping products – Fifth Circuit Slams FDA – The 5th Circuit Rebukes the FDA for Flouting the Law – FDA knows the Importance of Flavors – e-Cigarette and Cigarette Use Among Youth – “NRT or Cold Turkey” – Nicotine Science and Policy Daily Digest

Expert Reaction to study of teen vaping

And persistent smoking in the US

“This paper, using data from several waves of the longitudinal PATH study in the US, attempts to reconcile contradictory findings in the literature which show that while use of e-cigarettes is associated with subsequent cigarette smoking in youth, adolescent smoking rates have continued to decline at the same that e-cigarette use by youth increased dramatically in the US. This helpful analysis replicates the longitudinal association of e-cigarette use with later smoking initiation and continued smoking, suggesting there is a greater likelihood to start and to continue to smoke if youth had been an ever or current e-cigarette user at an earlier wave. Crucially, however, it also shows that, irrespective of e-cigarette use, very few adolescents initiate smoking later on (around 4%) and even fewer continue to smoke (depending on the measure of how established smoking is, this was as low as 0.2% for daily smoking in this sample). ”

Holiday Problems

Dave Cross, Planet of the Vapes

With the holiday season approaching, vapers still run the risk of breaking the law if they take their kit to some popular destinations. While electronic cigarettes have been welcomed by most medical practitioners and politicians in the United Kingdom, the same can’t be said for countries relying on tobacco income or funding from anti harm reduction billionaires. From fines to the risk of prison, here are some of the places UK vapers need to be wary of.

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Parroting Vaping Opponents

FDA is Putting Alarmism Over Science – Lindsey Stroud

In December, an independent review by the Reagan Udall Foundation found the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) is in dire need of reforms. The main concern was that the Center was lacking in transparency and has an underlying conflict between policies over science.

In late February 2023 (in response to the review), FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf released “steps” that the agency is to undergo to better enhance its mission. Some steps include more engagement with stakeholder groups to better address the agency’s lack of transparency, as well as working with more agencies to enforce the agency’s marketing orders (or lack of orders) for newly deemed tobacco products, including electronic cigarettes.

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Study Reveals Vaping Can Effectively…

Help Adults Stop Smoking

There is enough evidence that support the use of electronic cigarettes as an aid for smoking cessation in adults, says Kenneth E. Warner, PhD, professor emeritus of Department of Health Management and Policy, School of Public Health, University of Michigan.

Electronic cigarettes or e-cigarettes are hand-held, battery-operated devices that heat a liquid containing propylene glycol and/or glycerin, flavoring compounds, and typically nicotine to produce an aerosol that users inhale, or vape.

“E-cigarettes are not the magic bullet that will end the devastation wrought by cigarette smoking, but they can contribute to that lofty public health goal,” says Warner. “For adults who want to quit smoking, e-cigarettes serve as an important less-hazardous alternative to continued smoking,” he adds.

COP10 & The Future of Vaping

With Martin Cullip

This week on CASAA Live, special guest Martin Cullip–Tobacco Harm Reduction author and international fellow of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance’s Consumer Center–will be talking to CASAA CEO Alex Clark and VP Logan Evans about FCTC COP10: What it is, how it affects tobacco control policies around the world, and how you can get involved!

“NRT or Cold Turkey”:

Why Finland Won’t Back Tobacco Harm Reduction – Kiran Sidhu

Finland has vaping laws that are about as strict as they can be, short of actually banning it. There’s a ban on all flavors other than tobacco; a total ban on advertising; and if there’s an area where you can’t smoke, that will mean you can’t vape, either. Online and cross-border sales are illegal.

This is despite the fact that around 900,000 people in the far-northern European country of 5.5 million smoke cigarettes. An adult smoking rate of nearly 20 percent, though declining, is substantially higher than in the United States. Over 5,000 people die of smoking-related causes in Finland each year.

How to regulate nicotine vaping products

Interview on 10News First, 24 March 2023 – Colin Mendelsohn

The prescription model has been rejected by consumers and a thriving black market is supplying dodgy products to adults and children. We need a regulated licensed market selling these lifesaving products to help smokers quit.

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Fifth Circuit Slams FDA

Stays Vuse Vibe Menthol Denial – Jim McDonald

A federal court has granted a stay of the marketing denial order (MDO) issued by the FDA in January for Vuse Vibe menthol vape refills. The manufacturer, R.J. Reynolds Vapor Company, will be able to continue selling the products until the company’s petition for review of the MDO is decided by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Reynolds had received a temporary stay of the MDO immediately after the denial was issued, so sales of the products have so far not been interrupted. The MDO applied to menthol refills for the Vuse Ciro and Vuse Vibe devices. The Ciro and Vibe, and their tobacco-flavored refills, received marketing authorization from the FDA in May 2022. R.J. Reynolds no longer sells the Vuse Ciro, so has abandoned its appeal of the Ciro menthol MDO.

Reynolds Likely to Prevail in PMTA Lawsuit

Fifth Circuit Again Stays FDA Denial of E-Cigarette Product Application

The 5th Circuit Rebukes the FDA

For Flouting the Law While Imposing a De Facto Ban on Flavored E-Cigarettes

Jacob Sullum – Reason

Since 2020, when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began considering millions of applications from companies seeking permission to keep selling their nicotine vaping products, it has rejected almost all of them. All of the products it has approved are tobacco-flavored, reflecting the agency’s conviction that other flavors, which are the ones that former smokers overwhelmingly prefer, are dangerously appealing to teenagers. Yesterday a federal appeals court said that pattern and the shifting regulatory criteria underlying it amount to an unacknowledged and probably illegal policy change: The FDA moved the goal posts for applicants without admitting it was doing that, let alone justifying its decision.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit was responding to a lawsuit by R.J. Reynolds Vapor Company (RJRV), which challenged the FDA’s decision to reject an application for the company’s menthol-flavored e-cigarettes while allowing tobacco-flavored versions to remain on the market.

FDA knows the Importance of Flavors

And AVM has the Proof – WVA

In a FOIA discovery done by American Vapor Manufacturers an internal report marked “confidential” clearly shows that the FDA not only knew but acknowledged the facts about this lifesaving technology. These facts (see picture below) clearly show that Flavored ENDS use is common in ADULTS, not just common but 75% of users were using flavors other than tobacco!

These results that the FDA is and has been aware of show that the decision making coming from the agency is NOT based on science or what is best for adults smokers who are actually using these products.

e-Cigarette & Cigarette Use Among Youth:

Gateway or Common Liability?

In 2018, the National Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine’s report on electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) concluded that youths use of e-cigarettes is associated with increased risk of ever cigarette smoking.1 Ever since, the public health community has been preoccupied with e-cigarettes as a gateway to cigarette smoking among young people. While numerous studies have reported an increased risk of cigarette experimentation among youth e-cigarette users, to my knowledge, no research has demonstrated whether or not e-cigarette use is associated with sustained cigarette smoking. Given that cigarettes are overwhelmingly responsible for most tobacco-caused morbidity and mortality, addressing this research gap seems paramount. In this study, Sun and colleagues explore this important question and considered a variety of cigarette smoking patterns, as well as differences in absolute risk.

Terrified tobacconist in the crosshairs

Daily Mail Australia

Illicit vape dealers are allegedly intimidating small shop owners into selling them their businesses – and threatening violence if they do not comply.

The tactic – believed to be used by groups with links to organised crime – offers them a legitimate shopfront to sell their nicotine-filled vapes, which are often illegally imported from China.

One cigarette-shop owner even told Daily Mail Australia that her car tyres had been let down and her wheel nuts removed after she challenged one of the alleged gangs.

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On this Day…2022

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

CoEHAR exposes for the first time…

That most e-cigarette research is flawed and in need of urgent critical reform

Errors are very common in e-cigarette research, resulting in misinformation and distortion of scientific truth. What are the most common flaws in e-cigarette research?

Under the leadership of CoEHAR, a team of international researchers, examined the 24 most frequently cited vaping studies published in medical journals. The findings are shocking: almost all of these studies were found to be methodologically flawed; they lacked a clear hypothesis, used inadequate methodology, failed to collect data relevant to the study objectives, and did not correct for obvious confounding factors.

LINK: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11739-022-02967-1.pdf

Study: Most E-Cigarette Research Flawed – Tobacco Reporter

Dutch flavour ban on e-cigarettes

Postponed for six months – ESIGBOND

The Dutch cabinet has postponed the introduction of a flavour ban in e-cigarettes by six months. In the run-up to the ban, the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) has drawn up a list of ingredients with which only tobacco flavours can be made. The trade association for e-cigarette shops, Esigbond, warned the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport that this list includes carcinogenic substances. The RIVM is now investigating the list of ingredients again. According to the Esigbond, the government has too little knowledge of vapour liquids, a ban would be difficult to implement and it would result in more smokers.

Dutch Flavor Ban Postponed Until Next Year – Jim McDonald

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Visit Nicotine Science & Policy for more News from around the World

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