Vampire Vape has sent its best-selling flavor into space. The U.K.-based e-liquid manufacturer sent its Heisenberg e-liquid into orbit on Sept. 18. A hydrogen filled balloon was launched, with a bottle of the liquid attached to it and eventual soaring up to 121,000 feet, before it popped and the deflated balloon and e-liquid returned to Earth.
Hydrogen was chosen due to its renewable energy properties, according to a press release.
The balloon’s journey was captured by a camera that was attached to the balloon, which recorded footage as it ascended into space and then descended back to Earth, where it reached an incredible speed of 250 miles per hour, the release states.
As the balloon came down, a parachute was deployed, ensuring a safe landing. The e-liquid bottle’s journey was monitored by a live radio tracking system and a satellite internet locator, and landed at a secret location. Vampire Vape worked with Sent into Space, leading experts in space-based marketing campaigns and stunts, to ensure safety and correct following of procedure.
The balloon expanded to the size of a double-decker bus as it made its journey through the stratosphere, the release states. The idea of sending the first ever e-liquid into space was devised by Vampire Vape founder Phil Boyle.
“In these testing times, the news is full of doom, gloom and negative stories – we wanted to create something unusual, creative and memorable, in the hope that it will make people smile. We also wanted to do something wacky and fun that our employees would love being part of,” said Boyle. “We’re always looking for ways to be innovative, forward thinking and different from our competitors, and are keen to reach new heights – what better way to do this than literally?! We’re thrilled that we’ve been able to pull this off and send our award-winning Heisenberg to new heights! I feel we have set the bar pretty high for whatever is next for Vampire Vape in the future. “
Philter Labs launched its Phreedom filtration device that allows users to inhale and exhale into the same mouthpiece, eliminating up to 97 percent of secondhand vapor and smell.
The filter is designed to work with 80 percent of the existing cartridges on the market, and it attaches to all 510 cannabis and CBD cartridges.
“The Phreedom represents a massive step toward a vaping culture free of exhaled vapor, pollutants and best of all, its associated shame,” said Philter Labs’ chief technology officer and inventor, John Grimm, in a statement.
“We wanted to provide a product that respects a person’s right to vape. The Phreedom is exactly that, with seamless integration for the majority of vape cartridges on the market and an enhanced experience focused on protecting people’s health, the health of the environment and the quality of the consumer experience.”
The Phreedom uses Philter’s patented Zero-5 technology to help eliminate secondhand vapor.
Philter offers other filtration devices, but the Phreedom is the first to allow users to inhale and exhale through the device.
With clearer information, more smokers would switch to lower-risk products.
By VV Staff
There are several reasons why people use nicotine. According to Neal Benowitz, professor of medicine, biopharmaceutical sciences, psychiatry and clinical pharmacy at the University of California San Francisco, those reasons include pleasure, stimulation and mood modulation. However, many users don’t understand the adverse effects and risks associated with different delivery mechanisms.
“Clearly, the decision involving long-term use of the drug for individuals or society depends, at least in part, on adverse health effects. For example, the casual use of cocaine or heroin are discouraged by society because they are hazardous to health,” explains Benowitz. “We know nicotine, per se, is much less hazardous than cigarette smoking, regardless of potential health concerns. That’s a successful argument for electronic nicotine-delivery systems [ENDS].”
Speaking at a panel titled, “The Future of Nicotine,” during the 2020 Global Tobacco & Nicotine Forum (GTNF) in September, Benowitz said that one of the major questions surrounding tobacco control is whether society can accept nicotine use if the harms were reduced. He says that possibility exists. “The FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] can be a big part of making this happen … there is a misconception surrounding the harm of nicotine compared to combustible products,” which are more deadly than ENDS.
While acknowledging the validity of Benowitz’ point, Michael Cummings, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina, cautioned against the unintended consequences of regulation. Banning a specific delivery mechanism for nicotine, he said, presents a risk. Cummings referred to the FDA’s vision, formulated in 2017, of a world where cigarettes would no longer create and sustain addiction and where adults who need or want nicotine could get it from less-harmful alternative sources.
“But it seems like we’re going the wrong direction … If we adopt regulations to ban the sale of vaping products as some states and many countries around the world have done, what would be the effect? Well, the effect is that cigarette sales will go up,” said Cummings. “That’s a bad thing. Regulating vaping products like they’re cigarettes—which they’re not—banning flavors, banning internet sales … [these actions] would have a detrimental effect of actually driving up cigarette sales to the detriment of the lower-risk products.”
Also speaking during the GTNF panel, Clifford E. Douglas, director of the Tobacco Research Network and an adjunct professor of Health Management and Policy at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, said that consumers clearly need a much better understanding of the true nature, including the relative risk, of different tobacco and nicotine products.
“This includes the fact that nicotine is the root cause of the epidemic of tobacco-related illness and death because it hooks in smokers and keeps many smoking who otherwise would quit,” he explained. “While complete information on all the potential risks and benefits of [vapor products] is not yet available, there is sufficient information … to end deadly combustible tobacco use [which is] responsible for approximately half a million deaths a year and 30 percent of all cancer deaths in the United States.”
Asked by moderator Clive Bates, director of Counterfactual Consulting, whether there was a regulatory environment possible that incorporated the relative risk of the different types of nicotine-delivery systems, Stefanie Miller, managing director of FiscalNote Markets, said “no.”
“[There is] no trust among the general public for companies that produce a product containing nicotine, and that is largely based on a misconception around the difference between nicotine and combustible tobacco use. After predatory behavior and negligence of tobacco companies in the 20th Century, most people see this as very black and white. Tobacco companies are bad, and anti-tobacco efforts are purely good,” said Miller. “I think [everyone] who’s tuned in right now knows that the situation is far more nuanced and … the regulations are not accommodative of that nuance.”
Benowitz says that another major problem with the message on less-risky nicotine products is that there is very little science on the long-term effects of ENDS products. “We have an array of new products, any of which are inhalable,” he said. “We have a lot of short-term data that is promising in terms of reduced exposure in the short term, but we really don’t know about the future long-term consequences.”
Miller added that cigarette manufacturers could help change the misconceptions surrounding nicotine. It’s the large manufacturers who could make it a goal to end combustible nicotine-delivery systems. “If you’re really clear about setting a strategic goal, and then you do everything possible to accomplish it, you’re more likely than not to win,” she said. “I think that this is [an] important enough [goal] to try.”
Benowitz said that regulators need to help consumers better understand that the regulators support a shift to less-risky products. He says that only then can the goal of getting rid of combustible products be accomplished.
“We’re not doing this because nicotine is bad,” he said. “We’re doing this because nicotine sustains harmful cigarette smoking … there are other products that [can deliver] nicotine that are much less harmful.”
One of China’s most adamantly anti-smoking cities has vowed to stop selling e-cigarettes near schools and reduce children’s exposure to secondhand smoke at home as part of a new “smoke-free communities” campaign.
In a more focused update to its “smoke-free city” campaign launched in 2018, the southern metropolis of Shenzhen pledged Saturday to strictly prohibit the sale of not only tobacco products but also e-cigarettes within 50 meters of primary and middle schools, according to Sixth Tone’s sister publication The Paper.
The city is also aiming to reduce primary and middle schoolers’ exposure to secondhand smoke at home to below 20% while raising the proportion of “smoke-free families” to at least 50% in three years — though it’s unclear how the success rates will be measured. Some doctors believe that, because secondhand smoke can cause a variety of diseases in children, from asthma and pneumonia to lung cancer and sudden infant death syndrome, it is equivalent to child abuse.
The smoke-free communities campaign, jointly announced by Shenzhen’s civilization and tobacco control offices, will be enforced alongside the city’s official smoking control regulation, last updated in July 2019. While other Chinese cities have also taken steps to curb smoking and vaping, Shenzhen’s are widely regarded as the most comprehensive in the country.
Encourage smokers to switch to vapor products by taxing them lower than traditional cigarettes.
By George Gay
Recently, I was intrigued by the following heading that appeared above the abstract of a scientific paper: “Flavors enhance nicotine vapor self-administration in male mice.” I guess that, as a nonscientist used to reading general stories, I was drawn to the fact that there seems to be no human agency in the activities described. The flavors seem to operate of their own accord and the male mice “self-administer” those flavors.
Notice, too, how the flavors not only increase the uptake of nicotine vapor in male mice, they also “enhance” that uptake, presumably introducing some sort of measurable qualitative increase to the process. And what about this self-administering business? It seems to suggest that the male mice in question have personalities or egos, which I would be happy to accept but which raises the question of whether it was morally acceptable that these mice should have been used as a means to an end. I would say no.
Of course, if the mice did display signs of selfhood, I hope the researchers took care in interpreting their reactions. There is a danger of significant error in drawing human-centric conclusions about the behaviors of nonhuman animals being made to take part in human-designed experiments since those behaviors might be driven by the ways in which nonhuman animals uniquely experience their lives and that we do not understand.
Such experiments on nonhuman animals seem to me to be simply preposterous. Professor Sir George Pickering was apparently once quoted in the British Medical Journal as saying, “The idea, as I understand it, is that fundamental truths are revealed in laboratory experiments on lower animals and are then applied to the problem of a sick patient … It is plain nonsense.”
In the abstract, the researchers sidestep this problem by dropping any mention of the male mice from their “Conclusions and Implications.” The final sentence of the implications states, “This suggests that flavors in electronic nicotine-delivery systems significantly increase the risk of addiction-related behaviors among users of vaping products.” Obviously, the researchers have moved from male mice to humans because mice cannot be seen to be “users of vaping products.” And this move cannot, to my mind, be justified.
I have two other gripes with this research as it was described in the abstract. One is that it cannot be morally acceptable to conduct experiments on nonhuman animals so that human animals can pretend to learn a little more about the silly—pleasurable, but nevertheless silly—habit they have invented called vaping. If they want to learn about the effects of vaping on themselves, they should gird up their loins and carry out the experiments on themselves. And, of course, ditto all the other silly things that humans like to get up to.
The second gripe is that the research is pointless. Basically, it ends up suggesting that flavors are attractive—at least to some, I presume. I mean, doh! And despite this, the researchers have the cheek to mention as part of their conclusion “the need [my emphasis] to continue investigating the role electronic nicotine-delivery system (ENDS) flavors play in vaping-related behaviors.” I don’t think so. I think the researchers are confusing “desire” with “need,” which is a little worrying if the object of the exercise is to study addiction.
But let’s leave the scientific world behind because, while I was intrigued by the heading quoted at the start of the abstract, I was astonished by one introducing a recent general story: “Illicit cigarette smuggling could be key to fighting PPE fraud.”The heading seems to imply there is a form of cigarette smuggling that is not illicit, that is licit, an idea I firstly dismissed as daft. But the heading kept nagging at my brain and I started to wonder whether the headline writer had a point.
My confusion arose, I think, because I realized that whereas licit can mean lawful, it can have a softer meaning—something like “allowable.” So, if I were entering a country with 1,000 cigarettes on which I had no intention of paying duty even though the country in question required local duty to be paid on personal imports of cigarettes greater than 100, I would be smuggling or attempting to smuggle 900 cigarettes.
I would be committing an unlawful act and liable to the penalties imposed by that country for such breaches of the law. But, as I understand things, I would be in the clear if I were a diplomat from another country and those cigarettes were in my bags, and in this case, I think that it would be arguable that I was smuggling in a licit or allowable way.
And perhaps we could take this further. It might be stretching a point, but let’s extend the meaning of “licit” through “allowable” to “reasonable.” In fact, it’s not that much of a stretch; after all, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration uses the word “adulterated” as a synonym for illicit, and therefore, I presume, uses the word “unadulterated” as a synonym for licit, so, as I understand it, a cigarette is licit if it is unadulterated—if it contains nothing not declared in its list of ingredients—even though consumption of that cigarette will have you inhaling no end of toxins—unadulterated toxins presumably.
In any case, let’s say my status has fallen on hard times and I’m no longer a diplomat but a gig worker being paid starvation wages so as to keep the multibillionaire owner of the company I work for in the luxury to which she has become accustomed. And let’s say that despite my lowly financial status, the government—with the help of the World Health Organization and its track-and-trace system (property, not people)—requires that I pay the same taxes on a pack of cigarettes as does the owner of the company. Might it be reasonable or licit in these circumstances for me to say, “you can stick your tax-paid cigarettes where the sun doesn’t shine” and take advantage of the services of my local smuggler?
After all, it cannot be reasonable—dare I say licit—that each of us pays the same level of tax on our cigarettes, and here’s why. Cigarette taxes are there, we are told, to discourage people from smoking, but it would be absurd to suggest that the same level of taxes would discourage me, the gig worker picking up $10,000 a year, and the multibillionaire, picking up $100 million a year.
If the powers that be reckon that taxes of $5 per pack of cigarettes are going to deter me, they should make the multibillionaire pay $50,000 per pack in taxes. Anything less would not be fair on the multibillionaire because she would not be discouraged from smoking and her health would be endangered. And I care deeply about the well-being of multibillionaires.
To my mind, not only is the heading odd, but the story is too. At one point, we are told that the same networks developed to smuggle cigarettes and tobacco are now being used to perpetuate medical and personal protective equipment (PPE) fraud. This seems to imply that existing cigarette smuggling networks reach into the places where PPE is used: hospitals and care homes, for instance, and, frankly, I find this implausible. Surely, the networks that would be used, at least those at the sharp end of the supply chain, would be those that reach naturally into those facilities—perhaps those providing counterfeit drugs.
Once again, we seem to have a story that attempts to blame smokers for the evils of the world. And to me, this makes no sense because it allows us to ignore, and therefore not address, the real causes of PPE fraud: the inappropriate and often cruel interactions of human animals with nonhuman animals that give rise to zoonotic diseases; globalization and the free flow of goods and people from centers of such interactions to the rest of the world, which ensures the “efficient” spread of these diseases; the overreliance on the market economy that in the case of the current coronavirus pandemic meant that not enough PPE was available or obtainable at quick notice; and the poor or nonexistent due diligence performed by governments left exposed, by their own policies, to such shortages.
Address these issues and you are on your way to preventing PPE fraud. Approach the problem by trying to eliminate tobacco smuggling and you are at best going to put a dent in such trade, but you will leave yourself open to PPE fraud—and much else.
What has this got to do with you, a reader interested in issues about vaping? Well, the story seems to imply that not only are some smokers indirectly responsible for PPE fraud but that their actions could lead to a spike in the U.S. in the illegal trade in electronic and heat-not-burn cigarettes. I’m not sure, but I think the argument goes something like this: Tobacco regulation is causing more people to quit smoking, and some of these quitters are turning to vaping, which is the subject of a crackdown in the U.S. that will make licit vapor devices harder to obtain. Hence the predicted spike in the illegal trade in such devices.
Overall, the message seems to be that smokers should keep smoking but only tax-paid cigarettes because the illegal tobacco trade funds groups such as ISIS, the Irish Republican Army, Hezbollah and al-Qaeda. Once again, the smoker gets it in the neck for events that are so far out of her control that she might as well be blamed for sunspots.
There is not even an aside to suggest that the actions of ISIS, the Irish Republican Army, Hezbollah and al-Qaeda might be down to politics, ideology and the desire by governments, companies and shareholders to promote the sale of arms. There is no question raised about how much of the tax paid on a pack of cigarettes goes toward governments promoting arms sales. And there’s not even a whisper that religions might be playing a part in the activities of these groups. It’s all down to smokers who buy illicit cigarettes.
Is it? Of course not. Smokers are the victims. Many smokers are paid starvation wages in the gig economy and, we are told, are addicted to tobacco, so they are forced into the arms of smugglers when they can no longer afford the unreasonable tax and increased pricing demands made of them by governments and manufacturers. It is deeply unfair, or illicit, for manufacturers making billion-dollar annual profits to introduce several cigarette price increases in a year and then blame impoverished, addicted smokers for turning to the illegal trade and thereby supporting ISIS, or whatever. They need to examine their own actions.
In a fair or licit world, the solution would be clear. We don’t have to drag ISIS and the Irish Republican Army into the fight. And we don’t have to send researchers out with a brief to prove that sunspot activity is particularly prevalent directly above where smokers congregate outside pubs. We just have to charge a fair, or licit, price for cigarettes.
Of course, if your moral compass is able to lead you around experiments on nonhuman animals but runs you into a brick wall when it comes to allowing others to enjoy a cigarette, there is another answer—apart from trying to reset your moral compass, that is.
Encourage smokers to switch to vaping and other low-risk nicotine consumption, and definitely don’t discourage them from making the switch. And don’t get into the same fix with vaping as you did with smoking by piling on high levels of tax and creating a highly monopolized industry that is able to increase prices without due regard for the consequences of such actions.
What are the chances that things will change? Poor, I would say. I go along with whoever said that the one thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.
The Irish Heart Foundation (IHF) wants the Irish government to impose an excise tax of $.06 per millilitre of e-liquid. It is expected to add a possible 10-25 percent to the consumer’s price.
The IHF is also asking that the budget increase the price of the most popular price category of cigarettes from €13.70 to €20 through a series of annual tax increases. Chris Macey, head of advocacy at the IHF, said that a larger tax increase on tobacco would help deter vapers from switching back to smoking.
Macey argued that branding that features cartoon characters, flavors such as cotton candy and bubblegum, paired with aggressive marketing tactics on social media platforms used by teenagers, show this claim is “preposterous.”
Macey added that studies showed that tax increases on e-cigarettes had proven to be effective in reducing youth use.
The Humble Juice Co. is moving on to the scientific review stage of its premarket tobacco product application (PMTA). The leading e-liquid company with a humble beginning, announced that it had received a filing letter from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The letter indicates the FDA has completed its preliminary review of Humble’s PMTA, advancing the brand’s application forward in the review process.
“We were excited to receive a filing letter from the FDA just days after being notified of our PMTA’s acceptance,” said Humble CEO Daniel Clark. “To my knowledge, there are a limited number of e-liquid companies that have moved forward to this phase of the PMTA process thus far. We hope our application continues to advance in a timely manner and we remain committed to working with the FDA in order to achieve this.”
A filing letter from the FDA is a result of a preliminary scientific review of a PMTA. This review ensures an application includes the necessary components and scientific analyses. FDA will now conduct a Substantive Review of Humble’s application to evaluate the scientific information and data submitted within its PMTA. If successful, this phase will result in the FDA granting marketing orders, authorizing the continued marketing and sale of Humble’s products.”
The legal e-liquid market continues to grow. Bantam Vape announced yesterday that it had received an acceptance letter for its premarket tobacco product application (PMTA) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The brand’s application now moves to the next step in the PMTA process—a preliminary scientific review to ensure the application contains all required items to permit a substantive review by the FDA.
Bantam submitted its application to the FDA on Sept. 2.
“Bantam has been anticipating and planning for these regulations since entering the e-liquids category,” said Bantam spokesperson Anthony Dillon. “The receipt of this acceptance letter is a significant milestone for Bantam. It reiterates a commitment to providing adult-use consumers with high-quality, science-based and compliant e-liquid products that can be enjoyed for years to come.”
In preparation for its submission, Bantam worked with highly-qualified labs to conduct the in-depth product-specific and non-product specific testing needed for its PMTA, including: storage and stability testing; toxicity testing; and pharmacokinetic and topography studies. Bantam also submitted an extensive review of available literature on electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) products.
“Bantam has always supported the need for science-based regulation for the e-liquids industry. And while the PMTA process is complex and resource intensive, it is necessary to establish much needed standards and oversight across the board,” said Dillon. “Bantam is confident in the content and quality of materials prepared by its hardworking team of experts, and remains committed to working with the FDA throughout the PMTA process.”
E-cigarette use among young people has fallen for the first time in Wales, according to research by Cardiff University.
But the decline in 11 to 16-year-olds smoking has stalled, the study found.
The 2019 Student Health and Wellbeing Survey asked more than 100,000 pupils from 198 secondary schools across Wales about their smoking habits. The findings show 22 percent of young people had tried an e-cigarette, down from 25 percent in 2017, according to the BBC.
Those vaping weekly or more often had also declined from 3.3 percent to 2.5 percent over the same period. Experimenting with vaping is still more popular than trying tobacco (11 percent), according to the data.
But the long-term decline in those regularly smoking had stalled, with 4 percent of those surveyed smoking at least weekly in 2019, the same level as in 2013. Young people from poorer backgrounds were still more likely to start smoking than those from richer families, according to the findings.
MEPs in Bulgaria have banned the sale of hookahs, e-cigarettes and other non-tobacco products for people under 18 years of age.
The amendments to the Child Protection Act, introduced by the VOLIA party, were supported at first reading by 98 votes to 2, with 1 abstention, according to Novinite.com.
According to the petitioners, the legislative initiative meets the need to protect the health of children under 18 years of age.
The Republic of Bulgaria is a country in Southeast Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, and the Black Sea to the east. The capital and largest city is Sofia; other major cities are Plovdiv, Varna and Burgas, according to wikipedia.
