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Vapers Digest 2nd October

Kevin CrowleyPosted on Posted in Latest News

Friday’s News at a glance:

Time Is Running Out! ~ EU Considering Premarket Authorisation ~ The Risk from Stopping Kids Vaping ~ Your Postcode Shouldn’t Decide How You Quit Smoking ~ The Prevention Paradox: Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan Targets the Products That Replace Cigarettes ~ The mendacity of ASH ~ Good news: The proportion of young smokers is declining in Switzerland ~ The Government Has No Idea What It Is Doing on Vaping ~ Did India Ban Nicotine Pouches? Not So Fast ~ Small States Should Follow the Science on Nicotine ~ Circular lobbying: the Commission pays the NGOs that push its nicotine agenda ~ Smoking Is Bad for You. Nicotine Isn’t—but Politicians Keep Trying To Ban It. ~ The FDA Promises To Streamline the Dauntingly Complex Rules for Approving Nicotine Products ~ Science Over Stigma: Why Legislators Must Embrace Tobacco Harm Reduction ~ UN leader accused of ‘dangerous misrepresentation of science’ over nicotine claim ~ Safer Solutions: New guidance urges doctors to include tobacco harm reduction in smoking cessation ~ Baptists and Bootleggers and the Fall of Harm Reduction in Canada ~ Spain Reportedly Eases Nicotine Pouch Cap ~ BAT predicts fast growth in smoking alternatives for the next decade ~ Vape tax comes into effect – but prices won’t rise yet ~ How Sweden Has Eradicated Smoking (And Why Brussels Wants To Stop It) | VisualPolitik EN

Three From Dave Cross, Planet Of The Vapes

Time Is Running Out!

Britain’s leading anti-smoking charity Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) is urging the Government to hide vapes away like cigarettes, despite a warning on its own website that doing so could stop smokers from quitting. Together with the National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training (NCSCT), ASH is collecting signatures for an open letter, calling on ministers to push through their crackdown on vape packaging and displays “in full”, just days before the public consultation closes at 11:59pm on Friday.

EU Considering Premarket Authorisation

Brussels is considering a major change to how novel nicotine products are regulated, with a premarket authorisation system among the options being explored for the next EU Tobacco Products Directive. Under the potential new framework, products such as e-cigarettes, heated tobacco and nicotine pouches could need regulatory approval before being placed on the European market, Tim Phillips, founder at ECigIntelligence, tells Planet of the Vapes.

The Risk from Stopping Kids Vaping

Nobody wants to see teens starting a vaping habit, and the government is keen to stamp it out, but what happens when teens are prevented from vaping? One clear answer comes from Dr Chris Lowenstein in the form of an online seminar he gave recently – a finding that is based in the findings of a meta-analysis study released last week.

Your Postcode Shouldn’t Decide How You Quit Smoking

Alan Gor

Two adults wake up in different Melbourne suburbs and make the same decision: they want to stop smoking.

Both have smoked for years. Both understand the risks. Both have tried before. This time, they want to speak to a pharmacist about whether a therapeutic vape might help them leave cigarettes behind.

The Prevention Paradox: Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan Targets the Products That Replace Cigarettes

K. Farsalinos, MD, MPH, PhD, Science & Public Health

On September 28, 2026, the European Parliament’s Public Health Committee gave the go-ahead to a cancer-prevention report that prioritizes tobacco. Yet, its rules regarding nicotine specifically aim to restrict the lower-risk products smokers often use to quit. Sweden achieved the EU’s smoke-free goal 15 years early, and it did so by making exactly these products easily accessible. The irony is stark: its most emphatic message—that “prevention should be at the heart of the plan”—sits right next to proposals designed to make those very alternatives harder to access. That is the core contradiction. This piece lays out the evidence for what seems like a disastrous (mis)application of the precautionary principle.

The mendacity of ASH

Christopher Snowdon, The Snowdon Substack

In recent months, Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) have been lobbying hard for every new regulation of vapes and other safer nicotine products proposed by the British government. Not only has it written an open letter to the health secretary to “express our strong support for the Government’s proposals on the packaging, appearance and display of tobacco, vapes and other nicotine products”, but it has been rallying its small group of supporters (some public sector workers and a few fanatics) to agree with every restriction in the public consultation even when ASH themselves don’t agree with them!

Good news: The proportion of young smokers is declining in Switzerland

Jean-François Etter, Nicotine, tobacco and smoking cessation

Good news on the smoking front, which remains one of the leading causes of illness and death in Switzerland. The latest data from the Health and Lifestyle Survey, published on September 22, show that among young people aged 15 to 24, the proportion of smokers and users of tobacco or nicotine decreased between 2023 and 2025. In this age group, the proportion of monthly smokers was only 13.5% in 2025, down from 17.7% in 2023, a relative decrease of 24%. Among 15 to 24-year-olds, the proportions of monthly users of e-cigarettes (9%) and nicotine pouches (3%) remained stable, and the proportion of users of oral tobacco (snus) decreased from 5% to 3% over this period. However, among adults over the age of 24, the proportion of users of various tobacco or nicotine-containing products remained virtually unchanged between 2023 and 2025 (the data for 2022 are not reported in a comparable way, in particular the % of monthly users is not always reported).

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The Government Has No Idea What It Is Doing on Vaping

Martin Cullip, Martin on THR

The UK has just implemented an eye-watering vaping products duty of £2.20 per 10ml on vaping liquids, with or without nicotine.

The Government’s spokesman, James Murray, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, has laughably said that “our new measures will help get illicit vapes off high streets across the country. We’re backing all those retailers who play by the rules by making it easier for law enforcement agencies to take action against those who don’t.”

Did India Ban Nicotine Pouches? Not So Fast

Samrat Chowdhery, LinkedIn

The Indian government is attempting a backdoor ban on nicotine pouches using outdated drug laws. This regulatory overreach is legally fragile and relies on the same tactics courts halted for e-cigarettes in 2019. If stakeholders mount a swift challenge, this untenable prohibition can be overturned. Banning a safer alternative while 200 million Indians consume deadly oral tobacco is a public health disaster.

Two From World Vapers’ Alliance

Small States Should Follow the Science on Nicotine

Liza Katsiashvili

In the world of tobacco harm reduction, smaller states often follow the examples of bigger countries or institutions. While they have smaller populations, the public health decisions those states make are no less important.

The problem is essentially the same everywhere – what is the best way to reduce smoking rates and how can consumers be assisted on their journey to quit?

Circular lobbying: the Commission pays the NGOs that push its nicotine agenda

Nine Brussels organisations received more than €12.8 million in EU funding in the period covered by a new Free Market Foundation report. Three of them spent much of the past year arguing for higher nicotine taxes, restrictions on flavours, and rules that put alternative nicotine products in the same category as cigarettes. The course the Commission is already on.

Two From Reason

Smoking Is Bad for You. Nicotine Isn’t—but Politicians Keep Trying To Ban It.

Jeffrey A. Singer

Easthampton just became the 25th Massachusetts municipality to adopt a “nicotine-free generation” policy. Anyone born after January 1, 2006, will never be old enough to legally buy nicotine products there. The ban doesn’t just apply to cigarettes. It also applies to noncombustible nicotine products that can help smokers reduce their risk.

The FDA Promises To Streamline the Dauntingly Complex Rules for Approving Nicotine Products

Jacob Sullum

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this week announced that it is reevaluating its approach to approving nicotine products such as vapes and pouches. The Wall Street Journal reports that FDA officials want to “smooth the way for more tobacco products such as flavored vapes to legally enter the market by changing the rules to speed up the authorization process.”

Science Over Stigma: Why Legislators Must Embrace Tobacco Harm Reduction

Christina Smith, Taxpayers Protection Alliance

For years, the conversation around e-cigarettes and tobacco harm reduction (THR) products has been clouded by fearmongering and persistent regulatory pushback. While millions of adult smokers have successfully used e-cigarettes and other THR products—including nicotine pouches and heat-not-burn devices—to stop smoking cigarettes, the medical community has often remained hesitant to recommend them, and policymakers have leaned toward prohibition instead.

UN leader accused of ‘dangerous misrepresentation of science’ over nicotine claim

Smoke Free Sweden

International health experts have condemned a United Nations speech by Palau’s head of state as “grossly misleading” and a “dangerous misrepresentation of science”.

President Surangel Whipps Jr told the UN General Assembly that “nicotine claims over 7 million lives annually” as he promoted Palau’s campaign for a World Health Organization (WHO) review of nicotine as a psychotropic substance. But WHO’s own figures say something very different.

Spain Reportedly Eases Nicotine Pouch Cap

Nicotine Insider, Timothy S. Donahue

Spain may be giving nicotine pouches a little more room, but not much.

Spain has reportedly increased its proposed nicotine limit for nicotine pouches from 0.99 mg to 4 mg per pouch as the government moves closer to finalizing sweeping new restrictions on tobacco and nicotine products.

BAT predicts fast growth in smoking alternatives for the next decade

Emma Rumney, Reuters

 British American Tobacco (BATS.L), opens new tab said ​on Tuesday it expects annual revenue from selling smoking alternatives to ‌grow by a mid-teens percentage until 2030, driven by nicotine pouches.

Vape tax comes into effect – but prices won’t rise yet

Emer Moreau, BBC

The price of vapes is set to rise as a new tax comes into effect, with the aim of making vaping less attractive to children and young people.

The Vaping Product Duty will be imposed at a rate of £2.20 per 10ml of e-liquid. However, many customers will not see a jump in prices immediately, as sellers have six months to sell old stock at the pre-duty price.

How Sweden Has Eradicated Smoking (And Why Brussels Wants To Stop It) | VisualPolitik EN

VisualPolitik EN

On this day…2020!

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

European Commission SCHEER

Scientific opinion on e-cigarettes – a guide for policymakers
Clive Bates, The Counterfactual

On 23 September 2020, the European Commissions’ Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks (SCHEER) provided its Preliminary Opinion on Electronic Cigarettes (context & abstract, preliminary report PDF).  This opinion is important because it is one input to the report on the implementation of the EU Tobacco Products Directive 2014/40/EC, under Article 28 of the Directive.

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