Vaping electronic cigarettes is definitely less harmful than is smoking tobacco, health bodies in Scotland have stated for the first time, according to a bbc.co story.
NHS [National Health Service] Health Scotland said it wanted to ‘clarify’ confusion around the harms and benefits of vaping devices.
More than 20 organizations have signed up to the consensus, which was led by NHS Health Scotland.
Health chiefs said, however, that using e-cigarettes while still smoking did not provide any health benefits.
The consensus statement, published by Scotland’s national health education and promotion agency, was agreed by the Scottish government, health boards, academia and charities such as the British Lung Foundation and Cancer Research UK.
There are estimated to be about 2.9 million people in the UK who use e-cigarettes, and more than half of them have given up smoking tobacco, a recent study has suggested.
However, despite the rise in e-cigarette use since 2012, about nine million people still smoke in the UK.
In embracing electronic cigarettes for the first time, England’s ‘Stoptober’ campaign is signaling that vaping is the key to getting people to quit smoking, according to a story by Nick Triggle for BBC Online.
Launched in 2012 and held during October annually ever since, Stoptober is a 28-day stop-smoking campaign by Public Health England (PHE) that encourages and supports smokers across England to quit their habit.
This year, for the first time, the government’s Stoptober campaign will feature vaping in its television information slots.
The decision to feature vaping was made after e-cigarettes proved to be the most popular tool for quitting during last year’s campaign.
Some 53 percent of people used them, helping push the numbers of people taking part in Stoptober since its launch to more than 1.5 million.
In welcoming the campaign development, a spokesperson for the UK Vaping Industry Association said in a written statement that PHE’s commitment to encourage smokers to switch to vaping in Stoptober was hugely significant to the nation’s health.
‘The government’s Tobacco Control Plan set out their intentions to promote vaping as a viable alternative to smoking and it is encouraging to see that this was more than just warm words,’ the spokesperson said.
‘It feels that at last the tide is beginning to turn; the UK is leading the way on vaping as an effective tool to reduce and stop smoking related disease.
‘As an industry, we have consistently called for recognition of the public health potential of vaping on the back of mounting evidence from respected organisations such as Public Health England, Cancer Research UK, the Royal College of Physicians.
‘The Scottish health authorities also seem to be following the same logic. We call on the Welsh Government to make the same commitment, which was notably absent from their recent Tobacco Control Strategy.’
Meanwhile, Triggle reported that whereas e-cigarettes were not yet officially prescribed on the National Health Service, doctors and other health professionals were being encouraged to advise smokers who wanted to use them that they were a ‘better alternative to smoking’.
Government experts behind the Stoptober campaign had been encouraged by newly released research suggesting record numbers of quit attempts were proving successful.
University College London researchers had found 20 percent of attempts were successful in the first six months of 2017, compared with an average of 16 percent during the previous 10 years.
Vapor products are banned in Singapore. This has led to numerous smokers being forced into the black market in an attempt to save themselves from the dangers of smoking traditional cigarettes.
Recently, a bill was submitted to the Parliament requesting changes in the current Tobacco (Control of Advertisements and Sale) Act. If the bill gets materialized, then a person who sells, smuggles or uses e-cigarettes will get a fine of $2000, according to a story in The International Business Times.
Statistics from Singapore’s Health Sciences Authority (HSA) show that 15,000 e-cigarette cases, including smuggling and illegal sale, have been investigated from April 2014 to March 2017.
E-liquid manufacturer Johnson Creek Enterprises (JCE) will close its operations effective Oct. 11. CEO Heidi Braun told Vapor Voice that the company is “going out of business.”
Founded in 2008 and based in Hartland, Wisconsin, USA, Johnson Creek was the first e-liquid manufacturer on U.S. soil. The company grew into one of the country’s largest independent producers of e-liquid, employing more than 60 people and occupying a 52,000-square foot facility.
“Johnson Creek will no longer be in business,” said Brown. “I’m so very sorry that we’ve failed you.”
A new bill introduced by the Speaker of the Guam Legislature, Benjamin Cruz, seeks to expand the US territory’s ban on smoking in public places to include vaping, according to a story in The Guam Daily Post.
“Vaping is a choice,” Cruz was quoted as saying. “Breathing isn’t. No one who visits a public place should be forced to inhale potentially dangerous chemicals as the price of admission.”
Guam’s amended Natasha Protection Act prohibits smoking in places such as restaurants and bars, outdoor recreation spaces, elevators, public restrooms, transit stops, service lines, within 20 feet of entrances to business and government establishments, and other public areas.
Smoking, as currently defined by the statute, means ‘inhaling, exhaling, or burning any lighted cigar, cigarette, pipe, weed, plant, tobacco product or related substance’; so the statute does not include electronic smoking devices.
Bill No. 198-34 seeks to amend the Natasha Act’s current definition of smoking to include ‘the use of an electronic smoking device’ or ESD.
The speaker’s bill would establish also a definition of ESDs to include ‘any electronic product that can be used to aerosolize and/or deliver nicotine or other substances to the person inhaling from the device’.
The bill says these devices include ‘electronic cigarette, electronic cigar, electronic cigarillo, electronic pipe, hookah pipe, or hookah pen, and any cartridge or other component of the device or related product, whether or not sold separately’.
Nothing new was really said. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an updated guidance to its rules for sampling vapor products. It’s is the same as the rules were originally announced, although the language is more clear.
First, customers are prohibited from receiving free products from manufacturers or retailers, unless a transaction for a vapor product takes place. It’s perfectly legal to offer “buy one, get one free” promotions. It is illegal, however, to offer a free vapor product for the purchase of non-vapor (or tobacco) product.
Much needed clarity came in the legality of rewards programs, such as stamp promotions—where a consumer would receive a “stamp” for every vapor product purchase and then receives a free vapor product after the 10th stamp.
Business to business transactions of free product sampling are legal, this includes products received by the media for product reviews. While isn’t specifically mentioned in the new guidance, this was clarified to Vapor Voice last year by the FDA.
The FDA also acknowledged that contests and giveaways of vapor products were legal, so long as the purchase of a vapor product was required to enter. Numerous state and local governments require this type of contest to be a “no purchase necessary” promotion, meaning in those localities a contest that gives away a vapor product would be illegal.
The updated guidance can be found here: https://www.fda.gov/downloads/TobaccoProducts/Labeling/RulesRegulationsGuidance/UCM579648.pdf
Cyprus’ House Plenum on Friday passed a bill imposing a tax on e-liquids and heat-not-burn sticks, according to a story in The Cyprus Mail.
The law introduces a new category called ‘liquid for electronic cigarette use’ that carries a consumption tax of €0.12 per ml of liquid.
Additionally, the bill provides for heat-not-burn products, which are expected soon to be imported to Cyprus, to carry a consumption tax of €150 per kg.
The bill was tabled by the ruling Disy party [the Democratic Rally] and passed by 26 votes to 17.
Akel MP Aristos Damianou criticized the government for introducing more taxes, saying that it was only on Monday [September 18] that the finance minister had said no new taxes would be imposed, and yet a bill to do just that was before parliament.
Damianou said that though there had been a steady increase in the consumption of cigars, there had been no increase in their consumption tax.
Rather, taxes were being imposed on electronic cigarettes that, despite their containing products that were bad for people’s health, could potentially help people quit smoking.
The Green MP Giorgos Perdikis said that the revenue from the new taxes should be put towards a special fund to campaign against smoking.
Up to 6.6 million US cigarette smokers will live substantially longer than they otherwise would if cigarette smoking is replaced by vaping over a 10-year period, according to a Medical Xpress story citing research published in the journal Tobacco Control.
The study, by a research team led by investigators from the Georgetown Lombardi Cancer Center, Washington, DC, looked at a strategy of switching cigarette smokers to e-cigarette use in the US to accelerate tobacco control progress.
The team considered an optimistic and a pessimistic scenario, ‘differing in terms of the relative harms of e-cigarettes compared with cigarettes and the impact on overall initiation, cessation and switching’.
It found that, compared with the Status Quo, replacement of cigarette by e-cigarette use over a 10-year period yielded 6.6 million fewer premature deaths with 86.7 million fewer life years lost under the optimistic scenario. ‘Under the pessimistic scenario, 1.6 million premature deaths are averted with 20.8 million fewer life years lost,’ the team found. ‘The largest gains are among younger cohorts, with a 0.5 gain in average life expectancy projected for the age 15 years cohort in 2016.’
The team said that the tobacco control community had been divided regarding the role of e-cigarettes in tobacco control.
‘Our projections show that a strategy of replacing cigarette smoking with vaping would yield substantial life year gains, even under pessimistic assumptions regarding cessation, initiation and relative harm.’
A document circulating the vapor industry called “Vaporization Nicotine Replacement Therapy Working Document 14375” that is purportedly created by U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb is NOT authentic, according to the FDA.
Michael Felberbaum, press officer for the FDA, told Vapor Voice in an email that “this is not an FDA document and thus does not reflect comments from the Commissioner.”
The document falsely claims to be Gottlieb’s personal thoughts on “Guidance for Industry Standards for Safety and Securing of Vaporization Nicotine Replacement Therapy Products.” Vapor Voice has chosen to not publish the document.
Nicopure Labs and R2B Smoke-Free Coalition are appealing the July 21 court ruling that rejected their challenge to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s deeming rule.
“We believe in helping millions of adult smokers battle tobacco addiction through vaping products,” said Jeff Stamler, CEO and co-founder of Nicopure Labs.
“We believe the FDA is doing a massive disservice to public health and we will keep fighting for the vaping industry to ensure these products will continue to help a growing number of people quit tobacco and start a new, smoke-free life.”
The FDA deeming rule subjects vaping products to more onerous restrictions than combustible cigarettes. Nicopure Labs believes the deeming rule violates the administrative procedure act and the first amendment of the U.S. constitution.
With the deeming rule in place, vaping companies must submit a pre-market tobacco application without any guarantee of approval or timeline of when it may be approved for every product that wasn’t on the market prior to Feb. 15, 2007, which many believe will effectively destroy the industry.
Since it took effect on August 8, 2016, companies haven’t been able to introduce new products, distribute samples, make truthful statements about ingredients not present in the products, or improve their products for consumers.
The appeal has been filed at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
