Japan’s national government and the Tokyo metropolitan government are at odds about how to treat heat-not-burn (HNB) products as they consider, ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, regulations on public-places smoking and vaping, according to a Mainichi Daily News story.
HNB products are placed in the same category as combustible cigarettes under the Tobacco Business Act; so both were included in the original draft revision of the Health Promotion Act that the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) released in March.
The health ministry has said that it would consider excluding HNB products from legal regulation, but only if their vapor was proven scientifically to be harmless.
Given this, it is likely that HNB products will be treated in the same way as combustible cigarettes in the draft revision of the Health Promotion Act set to be submitted to the regular session of the Diet next year.
Meanwhile, Tokyo is aiming to establish its own ordinance on tobacco-related products, and its draft ordinance released in September explicitly stated that HNB products would be subject to regulation.
However, of the approximately 17,000 comments received from the public about the ordinance, about 2,000 called for HNB products to be excluded from the regulation, and a Tokyo government official has since expressed a more conciliatory stand than in September. “We are still undecided whether to rule out” HNB products from the restrictions, the official said.
Philip Morris Japan says that, compared with combustible cigarettes, its IQOS HNB device reduces, on average, about 90 percent of the toxic substances generated.
And Japan Tobacco says that HNB-device vapor does not affect the indoor environment, and that its risk should not be discussed in the same breath as that of combustible cigarettes.
But the Japanese Respiratory Society released a comment in October saying that as long as there was a possibility that HNB products had a negative impact on health, the use of such products was not recommended.
And Hiroshi Yamato, a professor at the University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Japan, said, “It is a rule of public health to regulate something when in doubt, and unless there is proof that it is harmless”.
The rules governing public housing in the US are changing – to the detriment of smokers and vapers, according to a story by Lindsay Tuman for WRDW News 12, Augusta, Georgia.
The US Department of Housing and Urban Development has declared that all public housing has to be smoke- and vapor-free.
So the consumption of cigarettes, hookah tobacco and even electronic cigarettes will no longer be allowed in units – homes – or within 25 feet of the property.
The new rules are being brought in so as to reduce the cost of building maintenance and the risk of fires, and to assuage health concerns.
If people break the rules they can be fined and, ultimately, they could lose their lease.
The housing authority where Tuman spoke with an ex-smoker resident, is said to be giving people plenty of time and resources to quit.
So far, 29 states and the District of Columbia have legalized cannabis for either medical or recreational use, or both. Those enjoying the benefits of legalization are using many new ways to ingest their marijuana. The old standbys of a joint, pipe and bong are ever-popular, but edibles have increased in popularity and variety. They’ve taken the form of cookies, brownies, chewing gum, gummy bears, coffee, chocolate, and even sodas and juices.
One new method of ingestion has soared in popularity since legalization: vaporizing. Far from being just a tool to
help smokers quit burning tobacco, it’s been a huge boon for cannabis smokers to explore new ways of consuming the product and a potential way for investors to get into the market.
photo: Jeremynathan | Dreamstime
VAPORIZATION
Vaporization of cannabis has many benefits—the first being that it is thought to be healthier than the smoking, or carbonization, of the buds. Carbonization releases carcinogens that are linked to cancer, and vaporization does not release these toxins. Another way that vaporization is more beneficial is that, for some people, they can use less product to achieve the same level of relief because vaping releases more cannabinoids than smoking.
Finally, vaporization produces much less of that telltale smell that screams, “Hey, man. I’m smoking pot!” Legalization of marijuana in the U.S. helped vaporizers go from being tools of ex-smokers and wannabe ex-smokers and hipsters to being firmly mainstream. Just last year, the e-cigarette and vaporizer industries combined were estimated to be worth over $1.7 billion. Some expect that e-cigarettes and vaporizers will overtake analog cigarettes in the next decade.
A NEW MARKET
However, it is cannabis vaporization that is creating an additional lucrative market for vaporizer manufacturers and
innovators to plunge into. Take a look at the numbers projected in the cannabis industry alone. IBISWorld, a market research firm, has made projections about the growth of the cannabis industry. With the industry at $3.6 billion in 2015, it projects that the industry will grow to $13.4 billion in 2020. If all 50 states legalize marijuana, that number could grow to $35 billion by 2020. All those people will need a way to ingest their marijuana, and many places are prohibiting the combustion of marijuana in the way they have prohibited smoking tobacco cigarettes. New York and Michigan already prohibit smoking cannabis, but not vaporization.
Another thing that has caused the vaporizer industry to climb in popularity among cannabis users is the rise in popularity of concentrates. Dispensaries have seen the demand for concentrate products, often sold in replaceable
cartridges, rise while the demand for raw cannabis flowers has dropped. Cannabis extracts have been claiming a larger proportion of the industry, and the tools—usually devices similar to e-pens—to ingest these extracts have gained popularity along with them.
Dispensaries have seen the demand for concentrate products, often sold in replaceable cartridges, rise while the demand for raw cannabis flowers has dropped. Cannabis extracts have been claiming a larger proportion of the industry, and the tools—usually devices similar to e-pens—to ingest these extracts have gained popularity along with them. Cartridges of cannabis oils have taken away the uncertainty in dosing that can come with flowers and with edibles.
While concentrates can be composed of as high as 80 percent to 90 percent THC, concentrates have brought another ally to medicinal users to the fore: the use of cannabidiol (CBD) oils and other concentrates. CBD is unlike THC in that you get the medical benefits without the psychoactive high. One only needs to look to California, the first state to legalize the medical use of marijuana, to see how legalization has affected the vaporizer industry.
According to Eaze, a marijuana delivery service, nearly a quarter of all orders in 2016 were for cartridges of concentrates. While vaporizers for dry herbs exist, preparation is required. The buds must be finely ground, and the vaporizer must be given time, usually just seconds, to heat up. Desktop vaporizers like the Volcano remain popular for in-home use, but portability is where the growth is. The availability of vape pens gives recreational consumers and patients alike a way to take their cannabis medication on an as-needed basis, and the ease of consumption is a big-time draw.
A BOOM IN CONCENTRATE SALES
It is not just California seeing growth in the use of these cartridges. Similar growth was seen in other legal states as well. BDS Analytics provided the numbers: Concentrates saw a 57 percent growth rate in Colorado, 194 percent in Washington and 105 percent in Oregon. As for the total market, concentrates represented just 6 percent of total sales in the market for 2015. By 2016, that number had grown to 24 percent, making up four times as much of the market in one year. Put into tangible form, we can look at the money side of concentrates. In 2016, they represented $72.54 million in sales in Colorado alone.
In Oregon, that number dropped to $22.65 million, and in Washington, concentrates sales totaled $13.94 million. “Although in its incipient stages, prefilled vaporizers have made it a possibility to consume marijuana within seconds of purchase,” says Roger Volodarsky, CEO of Puffco. “It’s also extremely easy to use the load-your-own vaporizers, giving you the option of choosing concentrates that you trust and prefer. Concentrated marijuana is taking over more and more of the consumption market.” Innovation is another driving factor in the rising popularity of vaporizers in the cannabis industry. Some of the top minds in California’s Silicon Valley are being drawn to the business of creating— and innovating—vaporizer technology.
These trendsetters have put to mind the varying needs of the ever-growing number of cannabis users, some of whom prioritize different things: design, portability, ease-of-use, smart design and cost. Whether the consumer is using a vaporizer for medical marijuana or for recreational, one thing is clear: It is a growth industry that will likely continue to grow in the future. As the popularity of concentrates continues to climb, so will the use of the vape pen to consume these concentrates.
As more and more Americans switch to supporting rather than decrying the legalization of cannabis, the vaporizer industry will be in a prime position to begin claiming more of the market. Simply put, people have more ways to consume cannabis, and vaporization is pulling ahead.
Gone are the days when joints and pipes and bongs were the only way, aside from edibles, to ingest cannabis. The rise of both dry herb and concentrate vaporizers will only continue to soar in the future, many industry experts and market research confirm. Continued innovation and further legalization is going to ensure that vaporizers remain a top contender in the cannabis consumption market.
Michael Jacobs is a marketing and creative content specialist at GotVape.com with a primary focus on customer satisfaction. Technology and fitness, combined with a healthy lifestyle, are his main talking points.
The US Food and Drug Administration is expanding its ‘Real Cost’ propaganda campaign to include attacks on vaping, according to a story by Dr. Carl L. Phillips for the Daily Vaper.
That campaign currently consisted of anti-scientific attacks on smoking and smokeless-tobacco use, targeting teenagers with gory images and misleading claims, Philipps said.
While vaping was a tougher target for such propaganda, it was expected that the FDA would continue with this approach.
Phillips reported that the FDA had disclosed one preview of the anti-vaping campaign.
The introduction inaccurately described the ‘Real Cost’ campaign as ‘educational’ and announced that, ‘The campaign is now expanding its focus on [sic] the dangers of vaping’.
It appeared that the FDA would, predictably, be focusing on nicotine. The introduction went on to assert, ‘We will show teens how nicotine can reprogram their brains, causing them to crave more and more’.
“The dishonesty would be astonishing to anyone not already familiar with US government anti-tobacco propaganda,” Phillips said.
The US Food and Drug Administration says that as part of its efforts to inform young people about, and help protect them from, the dangers of using tobacco products, it is expanding its ‘The Real Cost’ public-education campaign to include what it calls ‘advertising’ about e-cigarettes and other electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS).
‘New messages focus specifically on how nicotine can rewire the developing brain to crave more nicotine,’ it said in a note delivered through the Center for Tobacco Products Connect forum.
‘This is the first time FDA will explicitly address youth use of e-cigarettes through campaign advertising.
‘“The Real Cost” campaign, launched in February 2014, initially focused on reaching millions of 12-to-17-year-olds open to trying smoking or already experimenting with cigarettes.
‘An FDA-supported study by an independent research firm has indicated that exposure to this award-winning campaign between 2014 and 2016 prevented an estimated 350,000 youth ages 11 to 18 from smoking.
‘In light of this success, and considering that more than two million US teens currently use e-cigarettes, FDA is expanding “The Real Cost” to explicitly address youth vaping.’
“Expanding our highly successful public education efforts to include messaging about the dangers of youth use of these products is a critical part of our work to keep all tobacco products out of the hands of kids,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D, was quoted as saying.
See also yesterday’s story: Real Cost campaign unreal.
Proposals to ban flavored tobacco products—and, by extension, vaping liquids—have been spreading in popularity across California Bay Area cities. But a new policy paper by R Street Institute Harm Reduction Policy Director Carrie Wade and Western Region Director Steven Greenhut questions the wisdom of these ordinances on grounds that lawmakers in key jurisdictions—San Francisco, Oakland, Contra Costa County, Novato and San Leandro—have been giving short shrift to arguments about tobacco harm reduction.
“Harm reduction, or the idea that instead of promoting abstinence from certain dangerous or risky behaviors, officials should instead promote ‘a set of practical strategies and ideas aimed at reducing negative consequences’ associated with them, is nothing new to the historically progressive—and innovative—approach Bay area legislators take to health policy problems,” notes Greenhut. “Why they won’t apply the same proven method in the case of tobacco use is morally obtuse.”
Flavors play a vital role in a person’s decision to use e-cigarettes and thus are a crucial component of strategies to encourage people to switch from combustible cigarettes. Crucially, when used as a harm-reduction tool, the flavors of e-cigarettes can distance a smoker from traditional cigarettes—and ultimately nicotine—by cutting the association between the flavor of tobacco and the delivery of the chemical.
Policies that reflect the reduced harm of e-cigarettes—including those that allow flavors to be available for current smokers who see them as an attractive feature—can significantly reduce the enormous burden of disease that combustible cigarettes impose on society. Thus, the authors recommend that the Bay Area localities in question remove e-cigarettes and other vapor products from the umbrella of tobacco products in their bans and recognize their potential as a much safer alternative to combustible cigarettes. Doing so, they argue, would epitomize the harm-reduction approach.
“If Bay Area cities take a more honest, clear-sighted approach to tobacco use – one in keeping with the region’s long-standing approach to other forms of harm reduction—they could help achieve their stated goal to reduce cigarette smoking and all of its ill effects,” notes Wade. “Doing nothing, or worse yet, cutting off avenues of harm reduction, ensures Bay area residents who might otherwise quit stay puffing.”
A group of UK health bodies and charities has called for more to be done to help smokers with mental health conditions quit, including providing them with access to electronic cigarettes and other treatments, according to a story on cancerresearchuk.org.
In its statement on e-cigarettes, the Mental Health & Smoking Partnership said that smoking remained ‘part of the culture in too many mental health settings’, and that vaping and nicotine replacement therapies should be
made an easier choice than smoking.
Professor Ann McNeill, co-chair of the partnership, said that people with a mental health condition were more than twice as likely to smoke as were others.
“This is a great inequality leading to early death and years of chronic illness for many,” she said. “E-cigarettes provide a new opportunity for people to move away from smoking and avoid the terrible burden of death and disease it causes.”
A major international study into electronic cigarettes has prompted healthcare professionals to encourage Australian smokers to switch to vaping, according to a story by Troy Nankervis for Triple M radio.
“For those smokers who won’t or can’t quit, the next best thing would be to switch to vaping,” said Hayden McRobbie, professor of public health interventions at Queen Mary University of London, UK.
McRobbie is a co-author of the Cochrane Review into e-cigarettes, which found that using these devices could help people quit smoking but which conceded the evidence was weak due to limited data.
“I think Australia is missing a huge public health opportunity in its opposition to e-cigarettes,” McRobbie said.
“While the long-term risks are not entirely clear, there is broad consensus now that they are much less harmful than tobacco cigarettes.”
And unlike second-hand smoke, second-hand vapor posed no identified health risks to by-standers, he added.
After consulting with McRobbie, the New Zealand Ministry of Health is set to legalize and regulate the sale of nicotine-containing e-cigarettes from mid-2018.
And now, associate professor Colin Mendelsohn of the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of NSW has urged the Australian medical community to follow suit.
“It [is] good to see New Zealand following the scientific evidence and the lead of the UK, where e-cigarettes have now helped over two million smokers quit,” he said.
“The sooner these products are legalized in Australia, the more lives will be saved.”
Switching from cigarettes to vaping products saves US users an average of about $1,500 a year, according to a story by Laura Kelly for the Washington Times, citing the results of an online poll of daily electronic-cigarette users.
Packs of cigarettes range in price from around $6 to $14 depending on the state and their taxes, and ‘heavy smokers’ were said to consume a pack a day.
Users who switched to e-cigarettes reported saving an average of $1,416.60 a year, according to the online poll conducted by LendEDU, an online marketplace that helps students refinance their loans.
The poll surveyed 1,000 vapers and asked them to gauge how much money they spent on their vaping products and if they saved money by making the switch.
At least 71 percent responded that switching to vaping had helped them save money, while 19.6 percent said it hadn’t helped them save money and 9.4 percent said they didn’t use traditional tobacco products previously.
Respondents said they typically spent $80 on a one-time purchase of a vape device and around $60 on vaping consumables per month. On top of these purchases, between $6 and $9 was spent each month on unspecified things related to vaping.
Vapers and vaping advocates from Asian countries last week gathered in Jakarta, Indonesia, to call on their governments to allow and regulate the use of electronic cigarettes and heat-not-burn (HNB) devices, according to a story by Roderick T. dela Cruz in the Manila Standard.
The 1st Asia Harm Reduction Forum was held at the Shangri-La Hotel, Jakarta, on November 8-9.
Professor Achmad Syawqie Yazid, chief of the Yayasan Pemerhati Kesehatan Publik (Public Health Observer Foundation, YPKP) of Indonesia, which organized the forum, said that almost half of the world’s 1.1 billion smokers lived in Asia, with India and Indonesia having among the biggest populations of smokers globally.
Thousands died each day in these countries due to complications related to smoking, such as heart disease and cancer.
One of the major health problems in Indonesia was caused by its extremely high cigarette consumption. In fact, the smoking rate in Indonesia, where more than 57 million people smoked, was one of the highest in the world.
Despite the best efforts of public health officials in fighting the cigarette smoking epidemic in the region, smoking rates had stopped declining, Yazid says.
“This condition motivates us, public health observers in Asia, to immediately seek for the most efficient solutions to mitigate the risks of burning tobacco,” he said. “Countries in Asia need to take actions.”
Yazid said one of the most efficient solutions was to introduce alternative tobacco products with lower health risks such as nicotine patches, Swedish snus, e-cigarettes and HNB devices.
“In countries that promote the use of electronic cigarettes and heat-not-burn tobacco products such as Japan and the UK, smoking prevalence has been declining at a record speed,” he said.
“In the UK for example, 2.2 million smokers have quit smoking within five years.
“Japan has the world’s fastest decline in cigarette use, since two years ago.
“The US FDA [Food and Drug Administration] just announced this year that its anti-tobacco regulation will be fully geared towards harm reduction while New Zealand Ministry of Health just endorsed this month the use of electronic cigarettes,” said Yazid.
