Category: News This Week

There are  1 million vapers in Malaysia, according to an article in Gulf News.

“The business is growing very fast because there are many people trying to convert from tobacco smoking to vaping,” according to the region’s largest retailer’s, Vape Empire, co-founder Muhammad Sharifuddin Esa, adding that his business has expanded to 57 locations since it opened just two years ago.

“Vaping” is soaring in popularity in Malaysia, the largest e-cigarette market in the Asia-Pacific region, but authorities are threatening to ban the habit for health reasons – a move that has sparked anger from growing legions of aficionados.

Backing a ban, Malaysian religious leaders this month declared a fatwa on the “un-Islamic” habit, but it remains to be seen whether the decree will dampen enthusiasm.

Another growing concern for the region’s vapers is the influx of do-it-yourself e-liquids into the market. A growing number of amateur merchants have emerged across the country, where about a million people smoke e-cigarettes, a five-fold surge since last year, according to the Malaysia E-Vaporizers and Tobacco Alternative Association (MEVTA) activist group.

In a joint petition submitted to the Malaysian government, six trade groups urged lawmakers to reconsider a proposal that would require retailers to obtain a license to sell e-cigarettes, according to a report in Rakyat Post.

The petition was signed by the Malaysia Singapore Coffee Shop Proprietors General Association, the Malaysian Indian Restaurant Owners Association, the Malaysian Muslim Restaurant Owners Association, the Federation of Sundry Goods Merchants Association of Malaysia, the Malaysian Muslim Wholesalers and Retailers Association, and Gabungan Persatuan Penjaja-Penjaja Dan Peniaga-Peniaga Kecil Malaysia –

After a state senator in Nebraska’s legislature proposed increasing the tax on cigarettes to $1.50 per pack, some local businesses see it as a way to expand their business.

Though many smokers are upset with the proposal, vape shop owners are one of the few who see some benefits to the tax increase, according to a story published by a Nebraska NBC News affiliate.

“I believe that it would bring more people in. I don’t know how many people it would bring in, but I do think some other people would come in and try vaping,” Hastings Vapors store manager Jonathan Compton said.

Compton said the cost of vaping could even save smokers more money in the long run. “I think that’s kind of been the point of the sin tax the whole time, has been, ‘If we increase the price, it’ll get less and less people smoking, particularly the poor,” Compton said.

Compton said the initial cost of purchasing an e-cigarette is expensive, but after that, a week’s worth of vaping juice is $16, as opposed to a week’s worth of cigarettes under the new tax, costing $50 if a pack is purchased every day.

“I can’t see paying another dollar and a half a pack. It would be $6.50? Yeah, I can’t see that. I think I’d have to think about quitting real hard,” Hahn said. The increase hasn’t been discussed yet, but with talks of the tax, some smokers are already considering going electronic.

“I know a lot of guys do that vape down where I work. They gave up cigarettes and just do that,” Hahn said. “It would probably send people to try it. I’d try it, I mean.”

The largest independent producer of electronic vaping devices in the UK is MultiCig according to a new survey.

The Top Product Survey of 2015, published in the December’s edition of leading British grocery sales magazine The Grocer, using information compiled by consumer analysis group Nielsen, which found MultiCig is now the largest independent e-cigarette brand in the UK, and the fifth largest e-cigarette brand overall.

MultiCig has experienced one of the largest sales increase over the entire category this year, with 2,882 percent, compared to that of other major brands including Big Tobacco.

Christian Mulcahy, business development director for MultiCig said, “MultiCig are delighted with these latest results. Not only does the Nielsen data highlight the success MultiCig has achieved over 2015, but it also gives an indication for the future of e-cigarettes in 2016: The data showed a total category increase in sales of 18.6 percent, proving that electronic devices remain popular.”

Scientists have criticized a study suggesting that smokers using e-cigarettes have lower smoking-cessation rates than do smokers who don’t use e-cigarettes.

Co-authored by Stanton Glantz of the University of California, San Francisco’s (UCSF) Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, and Sara Kalkhoran of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, the disputed paper reviewed 38 studies assessing the association between e-cigarette use and cigarette cessation among adult smokers, along with 20 studies that had control groups of smokers not using e-cigarettes.

The authors concluded that the likelihood of smoking cessation was 28 percent lower in smokers who used e-cigarettes compared to those who did not, even after adjusting for differences in demographics, the level of the smokers’ nicotine dependence, and past cessation attempts.

Published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine on Jan. 14, the UCSF study was immediately criticized as flawed by Peter Hajek of the Queen Mary University of London’s Tobacco Dependence Research Unit, who called it “grossly misleading” for looking only at current smokers who had at some point used an e-cig and excluding former smokers who may have used an e-cigarette to quit successfully.

Ann McNeill of King’s College London said the UCSF review was “not scientific,” as it included data from two studies she co-authored, but used that data in ways that she said was “either inaccurate or misleading.”

The Smoke-Free Alternatives Trade Association (SFATA), a group representing the vapor industry, expressed surprise about The Lancet’s decision to publish the study.

“It’s unfortunate that self-interested studies from Professor Glantz and other anti-vaping researchers are being published and not properly vetted, creating confusion and ultimately misleading the public about the efficacy of vapor products,” said  SFATA president Cynthia Cabrera.

Malaysia has joined the global debate over vaping. However, its situation is unique as religion and a growing vape economy clash.

Singapore and Thailand have banned vaping. Globally, sales of e-cigarettes remain largely free in most countries, including the U.S. and the U.K, according to an article published in the Asian Review. Other territories have opted for regulation short of a ban (the EU will introduce revised rules in May, including a maximum concentration of nicotine for liquids).

A third approach is to license e-cigarettes as medical or therapeutic devices, positioning vaping as a means to help smokers quit their habit. An independent review by England’s public health authority found that e-cigarettes were 95 percent less harmful than traditional tobacco, and had the potential to help smokers quit.

However, Malaysia faces two additional problems. One is that amid pressure from Muslim leaders and some health activists, bans on e-cigarettes have already been announced in several of the country’s 13 states. In the weeks leading up to January — when bans came into force — state authorities in Johor and Kelantan raided hundreds of shops, seizing equipment and liquids. In the central state of Negeri Sembilan, Muslims were told to stop vaping after Malaysia’s National Fatwa Council declared electronic cigarettes “haram,” or forbidden, in Islam. A fatwa has long existed on smoking.

The second problem is that the rapid growth of vaping has created a major new industry of producers, distributors and retailers serving at least half a million of Malaysia’s 4.6 million smokers, according to Hong Leong Investment Bank, a local bank. Most of the companies involved are small and medium sized businesses that could face extinction if a national ban is imposed. Conversely, tobacco companies and manufacturers and retailers of anti-smoking aids such as nicotine pouches are threatened if vaping survives.

The Malaysian E-Vaporizers and Tobacco Alternative Association (MEVTA), which represents about 200 vaping-related businesses, estimates that sales reached 2 billion ringgit in 2015. The industry has also begun to export to countries such as Indonesia and China, according to MEVTA.

The organization says Malaysian companies produce as many as 2 million bottles of e-liquid each month, which they sell for between 30 and 35 ringgit each. Vapers tend to get through about four bottles a month.