Category: News This Week

Vape expo organizer Way Joy announced that the first Dubai International Vape Expo has been scheduled for March 18 to 20, 2020, and will be held at Festival Arena By InterContinental, Al Badiya, Dubai Festival City. The Expo will be special for business groups on March 18 and 19, and open to consumers on March 20.

More than 120 brands around the world, including SMOK, HANGSEN, INNOKIN, ASMODUS, IVG, JUST FOG, and local distributors in the Middle East are expected to participant in the Expo. Buyers, exhibitors and professionals of the vaping industry, or any individuals or groups interested in the industry are welcome to participant in the Expo.

The organizer the Expo, Terry Hu, who is also the organizer of the first Vape Expo of China, believes that UAE and other countries in Middle East will witness another golden era for the vaping industry soon, as a new set of standards developed by the Emirates Authority for Standardization and Metrology (ESMA) has come into effect from mid-April for legalizing the sale and use of electronic smoking devices in the region.

“The new regulation issued by ESMA means manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers are now allowed to sell vaping products in the country, as long as they meet the new standards,” Terry said. “We also can see people in the region of Middle East are showing more interest in vaping. I think It is time to embrace this new market.”

During the Expo, a VAPE Summit will be held to encourage more open discussions and communication. Keynote speeches about public safety and health, product development, and market analysis, regulations and policies, leading brand introduction will be given during the Summit.

Malaysia is considering a ban on vapor products using the excuse of an outbreak of THC-vaping-related deaths and illnesses in the United States, reports Reuters.

“A detailed study is required to review the need for enforcing a total ban on the sale of electronic cigarettes and vapes,” Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad told Parliament. The US Center for Disease Control (CDC) has said that THC vapor products are likely responsible for the pulmonary illnesses.

Tobacco products in Malaysia are currently regulated under the Food Act while the sale of vaporizer liquids containing nicotine has been banned since 2015.

The country is finalizing a law that would ban the use of all smoking products, including electronic cigarettes and vaporizers, among minors and prohibit their promotion and advertising.

A volunteer with Surfrider Foundation, a non-profit group that picks up trash as part of its mission to protect marine environments, Mike Castellano, says vaping waste is a problem that has become progressively worse over the last six months, according to a story by Reuters.

“You reach down to pick up what you expect to be a seashell and pull up a little plastic pod with some aluminum and some oil on it,” said Castellano, a 28-year-old building supply manager who lives six blocks from the boardwalk in Asbury Park, according to the story.

While data quantifying the extent of the problem is scant, environmental campaigners are increasingly concerned about the impact of the explosive growth of e-cigarettes in the United States.

In response, groups around the country are beginning to develop measures to track the amount of vape waste found on beaches, in parks and in other public spaces.

The premarket tobacco product application (PMTA) the vapor must submit by May 12, 2020 to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires companies do an environmental assessment study and provide ways to combat e-cigarette waste.

A new study claiming that vaping nicotine causes cancer in mice has former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb crying foul. Gottlieb told CNBC that he isn’t convinced that vaping nicotine is carcinogenic. He then cited a study that pointed toward the opposite conclusion.

“I’m skeptical that nicotine causes cancer,” Gottlieb, a trained physician, said Monday on “Squawk Box.” “It might be a tumor promoter, [researchers] have said that there’s a potential that nicotine is a tumor promoter, but it doesn’t cause cancer.”

Gottlieb was responding to a New York University study released last week that said e-cigarette vapor with nicotine causes lung cancer and possibly bladder cancer in mice, damaging their DNA, according to the CNBC story.

Gottlieb expressed doubt, saying the study was conducted on a small scale and isolated the effects of nicotine, according to the CNBC story. A spokesman for NYU said he didn’t want to comment on Gottlieb’s remarks, and pointed CNBC to the study’s findings.

However, Gottlieb still said he would expect inhaling vapor to cause damage to the lungs.

Reynolds American Inc said on Friday it had filed for a review of its Vuse e-cigarettes by the U.S. Food and Drug administration (FDA), giving it a jump ahead of its main rival Juul Labs.

The FDA has set a May 2020 deadline for e-cigarette makers to submit a formal application to keep their products on the market amid its efforts to curb the use of e-cigarette among teens, according to a story by Reuters.

Reynolds, whose Vuse e-cigarettes deliver nicotine via a cartridge-based vapor system, said it had provided the health regulator with over 150,000 pages of documentation, including information on the composition, design and manufacturing process associated with its product, as well as safety data, according to the story.

The company said it had also worked with a team of more than 100 people to prepare the filing, including multiple regulatory experts and scientists, according to the story.

Montana Governor Steve Bullock has ordered a temporary halt to the sale of flavored e-cigarettes in the state in response to the recent spate of serious lung illnesses reported across the U.S. The emergency rules take effect Oct. 22 and will last 120 days.

On Tuesday, health officials in Gallatin County identified Montana’s second confirmed case of vaping-related lung illness.

“We have an epidemic across the country of youth using these products. And in Montana, our numbers are even higher than the national average,” said Greg Holzman, medical officer with the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services.

According to a 2019 survey of high schoolers, the number of Montana students who say they use e-cigarettes or vapor products frequently has tripled in the last two years.

According to new data from the 2019 National Youth Tobacco Survey, e-cigarette use among high school students nationwide increased to 27.5 percent in 2019 compared with 11.7 percent in 2017 and 20.8 percent in 2018. Altogether, 5 million middle school students and high school students now use e-cigarettes.

Ninety-seven percent of youth e-cigarette users report using a flavored product in the past month and 70 percent cite flavors as the reason for their use.

U.S. Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi is introducing a bill that would limit the amount of nicotine in e-cigarettes to 20 mg per ml.  

 While other countries around the world regulate the amount of nicotine in e-cigarettes, the U.S. does not currently have any restrictions. Krishnamoorthi said nicotine caps enacted in the European Union, United Kingdom and Israel have limited use among young people in those countries.

 A standard Juul pod sold in the U.S. contains 50 mg of nicotine per ml.  

 The proposed law would allow the Food and Drug Administration to lower the cap even more to make e-cigarettes minimally addictive or not addictive at all. 

Supporters say the punch that Juul pods packs helps smokers transition from combustible cigarettes. Critics say it makes Juul extremely addictive, especially for teenagers. 

The U.S. vapor market will shrink by 13 percent as vapers return to smoking, despite government warnings not to do so, according to ECigIntelligence.

The recent outbreak of lung disease linked to vaping in the United States will sharply slow the growth of the world’s e-cigarette industry over the coming year.

The U.S. will suffer the business consequences most heavily, with the market expected to shrink by 13 percent, according to specialist researchers at ECigIntelligence.

This will largely be the result of “dual users”—individuals who both vape e-cigarettes and smoke tobacco products—reverting to the use of conventional tobacco products alone.

Both the lung outbreak itself, and the bans on vaping products imposed by some U.S. states as a result, are major factors in this change.

“Consumers abandoning vapor and returning to smoking will not only be a blow to the sector, but also threatens to reverse many of the public-health benefits that e-cigarettes have conferred,” said Barnaby Page, editorial director of ECigIntelligence.

“Although it seems increasingly unlikely that legitimate nicotine vapour products are the cause of the problem, and although both the CDC and FDA are advising that vapers who use these products should not return to smoking, the damage in terms of public perceptions may already have been done.”

In 2020 the global vaping market will be valued at $14.4 billion. This means growth of the global market between 2019 and 2020 will be flat—but before the emergence of these issues affecting the industry, ECigIntelligence had forecast 14 percent year-on-year growth.

The consequences of the high-profile events in the U.S. will be felt less acutely in other countries, but both Canada and Britain will be affected, ECigIntelligence predicts.

In both countries, the 2019-2020 growth rate for the e-cigarette market will be roughly halved to 10 percent.

However, other major European markets are not expected to be impacted, ECigIntelligence says.

Altria formally launched Philip Morris International’s (PMI) IQOS heat-not-burn device in the United States on Friday.

The product debuted in Atlanta, Georgia, where Altria has opened an IQOS store with tall glass windows and light wood.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized the product’s sale in the U.S. in April, setting strict marketing guidelines aimed at ensuring only adult smokers use IQOS.

Access to the IQOS store is strictly controlled. Customers have to show identification and declare whether they currently smoke cigarettes. Nonsmokers and those under 21 are turned away, according to Altria.

People can test the IQOS in a “guided trial room.” A bundle containing the holder and 200 “heatstick” consumables retails for $80.

The IQOS marketing authorization requires Altria to keep detailed records and send the FDA quarterly reports on its sales, including details like demographic data on its customers and how many have switched to IQOS from cigarettes or use both products.

The company must also send an annual report with more granular information, including any reports of adverse experiences.

Wells Fargo Securities said IQOS holds a distinct competitive advantage in the U.S. given that it’s the only reduced-risk product authorized by the FDA that will also be allowed to sell mint/menthol flavors in the event the FDA clears the market of nontobacco flavor variants.

Mint and menthol flavors are believed to be instrumental in helping smokers switch from cigarettes to reduced-risk products.

The president of the largest flight attendant union wants the FAA to ban electronic nicotine-delivery systems from planes due to the potential problem of lithium-ion batteries being a fire hazard.

Lithium-ion batteries power virtually every mobile device we have — but the concern about vaping devices stems from the fact they often use cheaper batteries to power them, raising fears they’re more likely to fail and create a fire, according to a story on CBSnews.com.

In February, spare lithium-ion batteries sparked a fire aboard a Delta flight while it sat at the gate. Those batteries are in e-cigarettes – like the one that caught fire in the TSA line in Charleston, West Virginia. And in Savannah, Georgia, the battery for a vape pen was blamed after a bag started smoking at security.

Most battery failures in vapor products are caused by consumer error, such as improper storage or buying black market batteries, according to experts.

An FAA test video shows why lithium-ion batteries have been banned in checked luggage. If a battery fails and enters what’s called thermal runaway, it can burn so hot that the plane’s fire suppression system can’t put it out. In 2016, the FAA banned the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphone due to its lithium batteries starting fires, the story states.

“A lithium ion battery fire on a plane can be catastrophic,” Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, told CBS News transportation correspondent Kris Van Cleave. Nelson added that flight attendants have become firefighters on planes, and the FAA needs to do more.

Flight attendants are trained to handle battery fires. That can involve putting the smoldering or flaming device in fire-resistant bags, which are now carried on board many planes.

“How about we just not have these e-cigarettes on the plane at all?” Nelson said, according to the story.

But Mark Millam of the Flight Safety Foundation said while batteries from e-cigarettes are a great concern on planes, more information is needed before an outright ban makes sense.

“A ban could happen when there is the right information that’s understood about it,” he said.

The administration added that “because of the wide variety of battery issues that can occur, it is important that airlines have the flexibility to assess and address the risks involved in each individual situation,” the story states.