Vapers Digest 5th August
Friday’s News at a glance:
U.S. Public Health Messaging is Guiding Consumers Toward Smoking – The FDA’s deadly menthol miscalculation – Letter to Gabriel – Warning Letters Can’t Paper Over FDA’s Terrible Month – Philippines Law Enacted – Gregory Conley Joins the AVM – Australia’s Vaping Witch Hunt – A Decade Of News – A Decade of Change with PotV – An FDA Scientist Jumps Ship to Help Smokers Quit – Vape law expected to reduce smoking prevalence – Ex-Smokers May Pick Cigarettes Back Up If Juul Is Banned – Could Japan be leading the way – Khairy okays recommendations for amendments – Nicotine Science and Policy Daily Digest
U.S. Public Health Messaging …
Is Guiding Consumers Toward Smoking – Martin Cullip
A new American Cancer Society study suggests that the public health community should be more careful about the messaging it delivers on the differences in harm between combustible tobacco and vaping products.
The research found that the public perception among American adults of e-cigarettes being “more harmful” than cigarettes more than doubled during 2019 and 2020, and the perceptions that they are “less harmful” declined between 2018 and 2020. Of those surveyed, 28.3 percent believed vaping was more harmful than smoking in 2020, up from 12.8 percent in 2019 and 6.8 percent in 2018.
Meanwhile, those correctly believing vapes are less harmful than smoking dropped from 17.6 percent in 2018 to 11.4 percent in 2020.
The FDA’s deadly menthol miscalculation
Michelle Minton
America is headed in the right direction, if only when it comes to smoking. After decades of decline, cigarette use among adults is lower than ever and practically nonexistent among youth. But that is not good enough for some government officials who are pushing a series of radical policies aimed at forcing the public to hasten its march toward a smoke-free (and now also nicotine-free) society. The closest of these efforts to becoming reality is a proposed rule from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that would outlaw menthol cigarettes nationwide by 2024.
Based on its own number crunching, the FDA claims the move will save around half a million lives over the next 40 years and reduce health disparities. Supporters of the ban argue that this can be accomplished without triggering the devastating consequences caused by every other drug prohibition in history. The problem, however, is that the FDA’s math is wrong.
Letter to Gabriel
Charles A. Gardner, INNCO
No one is “addicted” to nicotine. This is because almost all technical definitions of addiction require both dependence and harm. Addiction harm may include actual health harms (e.g., liver damage from alcohol), or external harms such as risky behaviours, job loss, violence, broken families, etc.
Nicotine does not cause physical or external harms. It does not cause cancer, heart or lung disease (though, thanks to four decades of tobacco control messaging, many people including 80% of US physicians now believe — incorrectly — that it does).
In May @Snusforumet revealed that the European Commission exaggerated claims that a majority of member states were in favour of banning nicotine pouches.https://t.co/Frmlqc6UhQ
— European Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (@europethra) August 4, 2022
Warning Letters Can’t Paper Over …
FDA’s Terrible Month, Jim McDonald
With its regulatory processes in chaos and its reputation in freefall, the FDA Center for Tobacco Products is doing what it always does in challenging times: bragging about enforcement actions against small businesses.
Today, new CTP Director Brian King issued an update on the review process for synthetic nicotine products and the agency’s actions against manufacturers and sellers.
Five from Dave Cross, Planet of the Vapes:
Philippines Law Enacted
On Monday, July 25th, the Philippines’ so-called Vape Bill was enacted into law, a measure aiming to regulate the importation, manufacture, sale, packaging, distribution, use, and communication of vapour and heated tobacco products. It has been welcomed as being the right path to embrace vaping
Importantly, the Philippine bill focuses on imposing age restrictions over 18 years, ensuring that adult smokers can access non-combustible alternatives to smoking.
Gregory Conley Joins the AVM
Long-time vaping advocate and attorney Gregory Conley is joining the American Vapor Manufacturers Association (AVM) as Director of Legislative & External Affairs to advance public policy supporting the American vaping product industry in its fight for survival. Conley led the American Vaping Association as its president since 2014, will focus his efforts on government and media relations under the direction of AVM President Amanda Wheeler.
“Gregory is a critical voice for vaping and understands adult smokers and ex-smokers face dire circumstances because of the FDA,” said Amanda Wheeler. “One single billionaire is pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into campaigns designed to end the vaping industry. The stakes have never been greater, and I am thrilled to have him aboard to work towards a unified industry.”
Australia’s Vaping Witch Hunt
Australia’s vaping witch hunt is only killing smokers, according to the Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA). CAPHRA is a regional alliance of consumer tobacco harm reduction advocacy organisations. Its mission is to educate, advocate and represent the right of adult alternative nicotine consumers to access and use of products that reduce harm from tobacco use.
“Much needed health resources should be directed towards providing Australians more urgent healthcare and elective surgeries, not on a pointless vaping witch hunt,” says Nancy Loucas, Executive Co-ordinator of CAPHRA.
A Decade Of News
Planet of the Vapes began as a forum for the disenfranchised following the temporary closure of UK Vapers. Following demands from our new members, PotV remained – and grew into being the largest online vape forum in Europe. Over time we expanded services to our members and introduced the first, dedicated, award-winning vape news service and newsletter.
The news section kicked off in 2014 with a warning from a new study by Dr Konstantinos Farsalinos that indicated anti-smoker and anti-vaper activists were doing a good job at spreading misinformation – a refrain that has been repeated many times over the intervening 8 years. Through his diligence and desire to expand our knowledge of vaping, Dr Farsalinos’ work has been frequently discussed by PotV News.
A Decade of Change with PotV
Planet of the Vapes is ten years old and we’ve had a blast. With a decade of vaping chat, laughs and social gatherings, we asked our forum members what the experience has been like and what they remember…but clearly nobody can remember the pub-based meets for one reason or another.
Willo3092 told us: “I remember starting with an eGo pen and some godawful flavours and the threads constantly wearing out on the USB chargers. Then I worked my way up to an Aspire kit with removeable 18650 and Atlantis atty with 5ml tank and some better flavours from Hangsen. (You could buy 100ml tubs of 24mg).
An FDA Scientist Jumps Ship
To Help Smokers Quit – Martin Cullip
On July 26 it was announced that Matthew Holman, director of the Office of Science (OS) in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Tobacco Products (CTP), was leaving the agency to work for Philip Morris International (PMI).
There have been valid concerns that this is an example of a political revolving door. But, Holman’s contributions to the tobacco and nicotine debate in recent years seems to suggest he was increasingly a square peg in a round hole at the FDA during his 20 years at the agency.
Vape law expected to reduce smoking
Dennis Gutierrez
The implementation of the landmark “anti-smoking” vape law will significantly cut down the high smoking rate in the Philippines and help reduce the health risks faced by more than 16 million Filipino smokers, according to top medical specialists.
Dr. Rafael Castillo, past president of the Philippine Heart Association (PHA) and the only Filipino doctor who sits in the board of trustee of the UK-based International Society of Hypertension, said the enactment of Republic Act No. 11900, or the Vaporized Nicotine and Non-Nicotine Products Regulation Act, will address the country’s smoking problem.
Adult Ex-Smokers Say…
They May Pick Cigarettes Back Up If Juul Is Banned
Rachel Lloyd was an avid cigarette smoker until she picked up her first Juul — the high-nicotine vape that skyrocketed in popularity after it hit the market in 2015, mostly among teens due to targeted marketing and flavors like fruit medley and creme brulee.
“I wasn’t even someone who wanted to quit smoking. I wanted to want to quit smoking, but I was so hopelessly addicted I honestly believed that the only motivating factor to quitting completely would have to be something like getting pregnant,” Lloyd, a 29-year-old in New Jersey, told BuzzFeed News. “For a somewhat unexplainable reason, I just eventually didn’t really care to smoke cigarettes anymore if I was always using my Juul.”
Could Japan be leading the way
Towards the end of the combustible cigarette? – Aidan Semmens
Unless you’re an investor, or potential investor, the city pages can make pretty dry, uninteresting reading. But the financial results may often hide more significant information about changes and trends in the real world than can be found in the sports results, however absorbing they may be.
Take this week’s second quarter report from Japan Tobacco International, where the figures tell a tale that should make bedroom and boardroom reading for government officials, public health departments, regulators – maybe even agricultural and industrial planners – everywhere.
Khairy okays recommendations
For amendments to GEG bill
KUALA LUMPUR: Those born in 2007 and onwards will not be punished for having tobacco and vape products under the Control of Tobacco Product and Smoking Bill.
This was among the four amendments that Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin has agreed to make to the tobacco generational endgame (GEG) bill.
Khairy made the announcement after meeting the Parliamentary Special Select Committee (PSSC) on Women, Children and Social Development as well as the PSSC of Health, Science and Innovation chairman Dr Kelvin Yii today.
On this Day…2021
A look back at how things have moved on or otherwise….
Never mistake the finger for the moon:
Catania Conversation
The global war against nicotine-based alternative products, such as e-cigarettes, continues unabated with further restrictions, bans, taxes on products that contain nicotine.
Scientific evidence says cigarettes kill. A statement as irrefutable as the efforts governments and international institutions put every day in order to eradicate this terrible scourge.
E-cig industry association sues Spanish government over anti-vaping campaign
ECigIntelligence
Spain’s e-cigarette industry has launched legal action against the central government, claiming a long-running anti-vaping campaign is against the law on several counts.
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