Category: News This Week

Vapor Corp. will ask stockholders to approve two amendments to its Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation during a special meeting at its corporate office on Jan. 28.

The company is proposing a reverse stock split at a ratio between 1-for-10 and 1-for-70 shares of common stock to be determined by the board and a change in the par value of the common stock from $0.001 to $0.0001.

It is also seeking an amendment to increase the number of authorized shares of common stock from 500,000,000 shares, par value $0.001, to 5,000,000,000, par value $0.0001.

Based in Dania Beach, Florida, USA, Vapor Corp. is a distributor and retailer of vaporizers, e-liquids, e-cigarettes and e-hookahs.

Some e-cigarette liquids could give you an alcoholic buzz, a new Yale School of Medicine study has found. But an author of the study said commercially available e-cigarettes are not high in alcohol, according to an article in the New Haven Register.

According to Dr. Gerald Valentine of the Yale Psychiatry Department, the risk of ingesting enough alcohol to cause impairment comes from e-cig liquids that are bought on the Internet, or from enthusiasts who mix their own vaping liquids.

The liquid that e-cigarettes vaporize, which contains nicotine, includes additional chemicals, including alcohol. The researchers studied e-cig liquids bought on the Internet containing between 0.4 percent and 23.5 percent of alcohol, but the highest percentage represented just one of 31 samples, Valentine said. Most had less than 3 percent alcohol.

A study published in the journal Nature has found those who quit or cut down on smoking using e-cigarettes are less vulnerable to weight gain than those who don’t vape during cessation, reports The Daily Caller.

The randomized controlled trial conducted by Riccardo Polosa and colleagues at the University of Catania, Italy, examined changes in body weight over a year in 300 regular smokers in Catania who were invited to quit or reduce consumption with the help of e-cigarettes.

The trial found that while cigarette quitters gained more weight than those who did not quit at week 12 and week 24, there were no significant differences in weight gain among the quitters and non-quitters at 52 weeks, suggesting that by switching to e-cigarettes, smokers “may limit their post-cessation weight gain, with substantial reversal in weight gain being manifest at late time points.”

The authors noted that 80 percent of smokers who quit experienced post-cessation weight gain and that this was one of the most significant causes of relapse.

In the trial, the researchers compared weight changes among those who used high, medium and zero nicotine strength e-cigarettes.

E-cigarettes made the quitting process “easy, spontaneous and painless” for the participants, and also seemed to “improve cognitive effects during tobacco abstinence,” the authors added.

They noted, however, that the trial’s sample size was small and that their findings could be specific to the particular e-cigarettes they tested.

The e-cigarette they used in the study was Categoria model 401 with 0.13 percent nicotine, 0.09 percent nicotine and 0 percent nicotine, provided by the Arbi Group.

They emphasized the need for more research in the area.

Arcis Resources Corp. has acquired www.vapeoutlet.co, which sells premium vaporizers, e-juice, oils and accessories.

Arcis Resources is a technology solution provider with a strong focus on software, web, mobile apps, and social media.

The firm specializes in developing online information and directory portals for markets that strategically bring revenue and growth.

The U.K. Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is requesting feedback, until Jan. 29, on a proposal to introduce various fees to cover the MHRA’s costs of processing the notifications to put e-cigarettes on the market and carrying out “post-marketing vigilance.”

The suggested dues include a notification fee of £220 ($320) for a new e-cigarette product, an ongoing annual periodic fee thereafter of £60 and a “notification (modification)” fee of £110 to process a notification for modification to an existing product, to be collected from e-cigarette manufacturers and importers starting May 20, 2016.

The industry is on the rise. Global research firm BIS Research, which tracks the e-cigarette industry worldwide, projects the industry will grow by 22.36 percent annually, reaching $50 billion by 2025.

“Although the market is being driven on multiple promising factors such as the presence of established brands, cost-effectiveness, perceived health benefits and product customizations, there are certain pain points such as uncertain regulatory framework, increasing incidents of e-liquid poisoning and compatibility issues among others which must be addressed for the market to grow significantly,” states a BIS Research report on the industry.

As the popularity of vaping grows in Alaska and across the United States, some groups are saying that there’s a lot of misinformation circulating across the state, according to a news story published by an Alaskan NBC News affiliate.

Greg Conley, president of the American Vaping Association, says the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services has been misleading the public about the health effects of using electronic cigarettes.

“Alaska’s department of health has been perhaps the worst on this issue in the country,” Conley said.

Conley said one of the first things he noticed when he first arrived in Anchorage was an ad about the hazards of e-cigarettes. “They were putting out ads and they still are putting ads that tried to deceive the public into believing that, if you’re a smoker, there’s no point in switching to vapor products because they’re just as hazardous,” Conley said.

The AVA also said comments made in October by the department’s commissioner, Valerie Davidson falsely implied that e-cigarettes were just as harmful as regular cigarettes. The state’s chief medical officer, Dr. Jay Butler said those statements were taken out of context. He agreed that vaping may be a good option for a 30-year smoker looking to make a safer change, but said it may be a different story when it comes to young people.

Ground zero for filtered smokes has failed smokers trying to quit. Durham County, North Carolina, USA, where the filtered cigarette was invented, has closed a loophole that allowed the use of vapor products in public places. The ban took effect January 1, 2016.

“The enforcement part will come into play in July of 2016,” said health department director Gayle Harris. “We’re going to spend the next six months putting the signage up, educating people and doing a better job campaigning. What we’ve seen with the introduction of electronic nicotine delivery systems has been an uptick in the use with teenagers. We certainly don’t want to create an environment that sends the message that smoking is okay.”

Harris said non-smoking areas will be designated with the standard no smoking sign, but these areas will also include a sign that lets residents know e-cigarettes are not allowed. “There is now a universal symbol for electronic nicotine delivery systems that will also be included within a circle with a line through it,” she said.”

Carl V. Phillips, chief scientific officer at the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association (CASAA), said a CASAA survey of about 20,000 e-cigarette users, drawn from CASAA members residing in the U.S., found that almost 90 percent of the respondents said they quit smoking completely after starting e-cig use, according to the Daily Caller.

Only 5 percent of respondents said they continued to smoke.

Electronic Cigarettes International Group (ECIG) and Fontem Ventures (Imperial Tobacco Group) have reached an agreement to resolve litigation involving e-vapor technology patents.

As part of the deal, Fontem has granted ECIG a “non-exclusive royalty-bearing global license under the patents asserted in the litigation and certain other e-vapor technology related patents.”

ECIG is based in Golden, Colorado, USA, and Fontem Ventures is headquartered in the Netherlands