Vapers Digest 9th June

EU should not copy France’s failed public health strategy

Debora Cartagena, European Interest

France, like many European countries, says it wants to become smoke-free. However, its policy direction is stubbornly ineffective. It insists on raising tobacco taxes, which simply encourages smokers to buy cigarettes illegally. Meanwhile, it attacks quitting devices, such as vapes and nicotine pouches, with new regulations, most recently a ban on nicotine pouches. These are the most effective tools we have for helping smokers quit. If we really want to make Europe smoke-free, we must confront the world as it really is, not as we wish it to be. The fight is against tobacco, not nicotine.

Twenty years later can Ireland Quit like Sweden? A blueprint for a smoke-free Ireland

Terence Cosgrave, Irish Medical Times

Sweden has surpassed us to become a global leader in tobacco control, achieving smoke-free status in 2024 – 16 years ahead of the European Union’s target

Ireland became a world leader when we introduced the smoking ban in 2004, but since then, we have been surpassed by other countries in the fight against deadly tobacco. We still haven’t achieved the status of being ‘smoke-free’ – which is the EU goal for 2040. Are we losing the battle, asks Terence Cosgrave?

System Failure | How “Kidification” Rewired Tobacco Control| RegWatch

Brent Stafford, Regwatch

 The U.S. nicotine market is undergoing a historic upheaval, with safer nicotine products poised to outsell cigarettes for the first time ever.

But instead of celebration, there is only silence. No fanfare from regulators. No cheers from tobacco control. Just business as usual: bans, moral panic, and an ongoing war on vaping. Why?

In this episode of RegWatch, Dr. Derek Yach pulls back the curtain on a decades-old PR playbook that reshaped global tobacco policy. Yach was instrumental in the development of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the first global treaty aimed at reducing tobacco-related disease and death.