Vaping Digest 13th May
Wednesday’s News at a glance:
The Bizarre Attack on Vaping ~ Group asks Taiwan to accept tobacco harm reduction as a human right ~ WA ‘Nanny State’ Inquiry calls for liberalisation of vaping laws ~ Beyond Smoking Cessation: Investigating Medicinal Nicotine to Prevent and Treat COVID-19 (Corrected Proof) ~ Nova Scotia signs off on stiffest vaping regulations in Canada ~ Public health messaging and e-cigarette risk perception during EVALI ~ Optimism in NZ ~ Tracking Vapers ~ COVID Stress Increases Tobacco Use ~ Colby Cosh: Smoking out the paradox — two contending theories on cigarettes and COVID-19 ~ A holistic approach to pandemic recovery ~ State spending on traditional smoking cures for medical card holders shoots up
The Bizarre Attack on Vaping
Dan Mitchell, International Liberty
Since I’ve never smoked or vaped, I have no personal interest in the the regulatory battle over vaping and e-cigarettes.
That being said, I started writing about this issue back in 2016 because it involves several important principles.
- The libertarian argument that people should be free to do what they want with their own bodies
- Whether the “administrative state” should be able to unilaterally grab more regulatory power.
- The degree to which “harm reduction” or “zero tolerance” should guide government policies.
Group asks Taiwan to accept tobacco harm reduction as a human right
Staff, Manila Standard Business
An Asia-Pacific consumer advocacy group has supported the petition asking the Taiwanese government to recognize tobacco harm reduction as a human right in line with the goal for Smoke-Free Taiwan 2040.
The Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates said it is supporting the initiative of Taiwan Tobacco Harm Reduction Association which filed a petition calling upon the government of Taiwan to allow tobacco harm reduction products as part of the key strategy for tobacco control.
WA ‘Nanny State’ Inquiry calls for liberalisation of vaping laws
Australian Tobacco Harm Reduction Association
The report of the WA ‘Nanny State’ Inquiry by the Select Committee on Personal Choice and Community Safety was tabled in the WA Parliament yesterday and made some important recommendations on vaping. However, unfortunately the Inquiry was constrained by misinformation from anti-vaping advocates.
Nevertheless, Chairman, Aaron Stonehouse MLC was clear about the value of vaping.
Beyond Smoking Cessation: Investigating Medicinal Nicotine to Prevent and Treat COVID-19
In the absence of treatment or a vaccine, the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic challenges the medical community to identify novel containment strategies. Changeux et al.1 have proposed the nicotinic hypothesis—that nicotinic acetylcholine receptors may be a therapeutic target to reduce SARS-CoV-2 infection and mitigate COVID-19 disease. Testing the nicotinic hypothesis has implications to prevent and treat COVID-19 disease among billions of patients and health care providers, including those who smoke cigarettes and those who do not.
.@FDATobacco Director Mitch Zeller spoke to @AMJPublicHealth Podcast on FDA’s approach to strike a careful balance between making flavored tobacco products less accessible to kids, while maintaining potentially less harmful options for adult smokers looking to quit cigarettes.
— FDA Tobacco (@FDATobacco) May 11, 2020
Editor Note:
Link to podcast from the FDA tweet above: AMJ Public Health Podcast
Piss poor methodology. These researchers now only found association between nicotine vaping and #COVID19, they found that obesity REDUCES COVID-19 risk. Both spurious associations that have nothing to do with real world outcomes. https://t.co/kjr39AwWPJ
— Charles A. Gardner, PhD (@ChaunceyGardner) May 13, 2020
Three from Dave Cross, Planet Of The Vapes
Optimism in NZ
Jonathan Devery, spokesperson of the Vaping Trade Association of New Zealand (VTANZ), has contacted Planet of the Vapes to say that the Kiwi government might have finally understood the importance of eliquid flavours to tobacco harm reduction. The Health Select Committee has been hearing submissions on the subject.
Tracking Vapers
A tech team at Cornell University has created a “first-of-its-kind device” that tracks vapers to obtain information about how they vape. They say it can monitor electronic cigarette inhalations unobtrusively, yielding important information for research about when and where people vape, how deeply they inhale and how much nicotine they consume.
COVID Stress Increases Tobacco Use
Stress and anxiety caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a rise in tobacco use, according to a poll conducted by the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (FSFW). It found that social distancing and stay-at-home policies have led to increased dependence on smoking as a coping strategy.
Colby Cosh: Smoking out the paradox — two contending theories on cigarettes and COVID-19
Colby Cosh, National Post
In the wake of my Monday column on the paradoxical effects of smoking on COVID-19 risk, I got a short note from Konstantinos Farsalinos, a physician in Greece who was one of the first to spot the strangely low incidence of current smokers in the Chinese patient data. Readers who are especially interested in the issue might like to consult Farsalinos’s overview of the issue, dated Apr. 23. (Unlike much of what we’re all reading, it has undergone peer review.)
A holistic approach to pandemic recovery
Dr. Derek Yach, The Times Of India
In some ways, Covid-19 has radically altered the world as we know it. Mundane tasks like getting a haircut now seem like distant dreams to a huge portion of the world. Simultaneously, the global economy is in crisis and families are struggling to make ends meet. Yet, amid this chaos and uncertainty, some things remain unchanged: populations most vulnerable to illness before the pandemic remain incredibly vulnerable.
State spending on traditional smoking cures for medical card holders shoots up
Ferghal Blaney, Irish Mirror
STATE spending on traditional smoking cures for medical card holders have shot up by almost 10% to nearly €10million a year.
News of the splurge comes as the increasingly popular, but controversial, vaping alternatives for helping smokers quit show similar results for half the price.
Most of the money goes towards paying for the treatments and therapies for people on medical cards trying to stub out cigs.
On this Day…2019
A look back at how things have moved on or otherwise…
Vaping Harm Reduction
Dave Cross, Planet of the Vapes
Raindrops splatter the windows of the London School of Humbug and Topical Mendacity as Professor Martin McCain-Ovenchips leans back in his chair bellowing: “Vaping is for idiots”. Knocking over a coffee, he thrust a graph across the desk. “See, hundreds of thousands of hundreds of idiots!”
My hard-hitting exposé looking at the dangers posed by electronic cigarettes was getting off to a fantastic start – I was certain that this would produce a brilliant fact-free article, generating loads of clicks online. You won’t believe some of the answers I got, nobody will. That’s because (like a lot of the stuff you read about vaping) I made most of them up.
Potential frivolity of the Juul class actions
Michael McGrady, Vaping Post
For the past few weeks, I have gone over several of the class actions that have been filed against Juul Labs. As I read through these suits, I took issue with how these complaints could become resource-draining fiascos for members of the industry including Juul, the members of any supposed class, and the taxpayers.
Before I go any further, please remember that I am not a lawyer. In preparation for this column, I reached out to a colleague who is a lawyer, Chris Howard of the Vapor Technology Association, to provide his assessment of the potential frivolity of these cases.
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