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Vapers Digest 4th May

Kevin CrowleyPosted on Posted in Latest News

Monday’s News at a glance:

The Delusions of Grandeur in Tobacco Control ~ CAPHRA Urges Policymakers to Expand the Tobacco Cessation Toolkit ~ Taxes & Organized Crime: The Hidden Cost of EU Nicotine Policy ~ Smoke-free by 2040 within reach – but only with wider access to safer nicotine alternatives ~ OCSA Presses The Provincial Government to “Bring Pouches Back” (to Convenience Stores) ~ B.I.G. Part One: Big Business — When the Past Screams at the Future ~ B.I.G. Part Two: Big Tobacco, Big Vape, Big Nicotine — and the People Erased by Big Language ~ Belgium Bans Flavoured Vapes, Ignores the Evidence and Abandons Smokers ~ THR Global Launch: A New Platform for the Harm Reduction Community ft. Kurt Yeo | Ep. 93 ~ Tobacco Control or Criminal Control? Why Australia is Losing the War on Nicotine?

The Delusions of Grandeur in Tobacco Control

Alan Gor

There’s a particular kind of certainty that creeps into institutions that believe they’ve already won.

Tobacco control, in many parts of the world, is no longer just a public health effort. It has become a moral crusade wrapped in the language of science. And like all crusades that outlive their original battlefield, it risks drifting into something far less grounded: a belief in its own infallibility.

At its best, tobacco control was one of the greatest public health successes of the modern era. Smoking rates fell, awareness grew, and the harms of combustible tobacco became undeniable.

CAPHRA Urges Policymakers to Expand the Tobacco Cessation Toolkit

Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates

CAPHRA is calling for a more comprehensive, evidence-based approach to tobacco cessation and harm reduction — one that acknowledges the full range of risks faced by smokers and oral tobacco users worldwide, and the diverse ways adults successfully move away from deadly products that includes safer nicotine options for adults.

What Are Safer Nicotine Options for Adults Who Smoke?

Safer nicotine options are regulated products that do not involve burning tobacco and are manufactured under clear safety and quality standards. They include NRT (nicotine replacement treatments) as well as regulated nicotine products.

Two From Clearing The Air

Taxes & Organized Crime: The Hidden Cost of EU Nicotine Policy

Peter Beckett

When it comes to taxing reduced-harm products, is the EU prioritizing public health, or just ignoring its own rules?

We recently sat down with former EU tax official Donato Raponi, at the inaugural World Nicotine Congress, to unpack the complex and often contradictory process behind European taxation. Right now, the ongoing revision of the EU Tobacco Excise Directive is exposing a fundamental tension in Brussels: a clear departure from the original “internal market” rationale mandated by Treaty Article 113, in favour of a primary justification based on public health policy, a pivot risking both legal scrutiny and practical failure.

Smoke-free by 2040 within reach – but only with wider access to safer nicotine alternatives

Ali Anderson

A global smoking rate below 5% by 2040 is described as “a realistic, measurable and equitable target”

Current tobacco control measures alone are unlikely to reduce smoking fast enough

Wider access to “regulated smoke-free nicotine alternatives” could accelerate declines significantly

Evidence from countries using these alternatives shows faster reductions in smoking alongside youth protection

A major new analysis published in Nature Health suggests the world could come close to ending the smoking epidemic within the next 15 years – but only if safer nicotine alternatives are more widely embraced alongside existing tobacco control policies.

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Two From Skip Murray, Skip’s Corner – Let’s Talk!

B.I.G. Part One: Big Business — When the Past Screams at the Future

I have always had a big enthusiasm for trains. So I was delighted, in the nerdy way only a train lover can be, to discover that one of the earliest American examples of “Big” industry language leads back to the railroads.

Long before we talked about Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Food, or Big Tech, historians were describing railroads as America’s first “big business.” Alfred Chandler’s 1965 book was titled The Railroads: The Nation’s First Big Business, and Harvard Business School’s Baker Library describes railroads as “The First Big Business.”

B.I.G. Part Two: Big Tobacco, Big Vape, Big Nicotine — and the People Erased by Big Language

It feels a little strange to continue this story by moving from railroads to tobacco.

Railroads helped build the country. Cigarettes helped fill cemeteries. I do not want to blur that difference or pretend the comparison is cleaner than it is. Part One was not an argument that railroads and cigarettes are the same. They are not. While we didn’t need cigarettes to build a nation, the regulatory lesson is the same: when we focus only on the “Big” industry, we often lose sight of modern technology’s real impact on the people who use it.

Belgium Bans Flavoured Vapes, Ignores the Evidence and Abandons Smokers

World Vapers’ Alliance

Belgium’s federal government has approved a ban on flavoured e-cigarettes, leaving only tobacco-flavoured and unflavoured products on the market from September 2028. The decision ignores a substantial body of evidence showing that flavours are a key reason adult smokers switch away from cigarettes.

Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke called vaping “an invention of a criminal industry” that hides harmful substances behind flavours like mint, apple, or raspberry. This is not public health policy. It is scaremongering dressed up as child protection.

Global Forum on Nicotine
In a years-long campaign to eradicate smoking, Australia’s tobacco control establishment has lost all control of the nicotine market. Former law enforcement officer Rohan Pike says 70–80% of the tobacco market is now illicit, while roughly 95% of vaping has been pushed into criminal hands. The founder of Australia’s first Tobacco Strike Team explains how excessive taxes, vape prohibition, and policy denial empowered organized crime.

Fighting The Wrong War

Clive Bates, Tobacco Reporter

Yes, the tobacco companies worked hard to acquire a terrible reputation over many decades. With the publication of authoritative reports on smoking and health in the early 1960s, the tobacco companies entered a prolonged existential battle with reality. Emerging science threatened one of the most lucrative cash cows ever milked.

White Coats, Fuzzy Facts?

Cheryl K. Olson, Tobacco Reporter

In an earlier edition of Tobacco Reporter, I described the globally widespread, misplaced fears about the health risks of nicotine—and the critical need for credible messengers to counter those fears (see “Watch Your Mouth,” Tobacco Reporter, March 2022). People generally trust their doctors for health information. Smokers do too.1 The limited data available suggest smokers trust their doctors over other sources of information on e-cigarettes2 and that most patients using e-cigarettes would appreciate at least a brief discussion or handout.3

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

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