VapeAway has developed a technology designed to help reduce vaping dependency. According to the company, the VapeAway filter attaches to an existing e-cigarette pod, automatically working to remove toxins found in e-cigarettes, with minimal impact on the quality of the vaping experience.
The patented VapeAway filter is said to stop nicotine before it enters the body by gradually reducing nicotine intake in levels, beginning at 25 percent and increasing to a 75 percent reduction over the course of nine weeks, thus reprogramming the brain to decrease cravings and reduce dependency.
“Every e-cigarette, regardless of its type, flavor or contents, contains dangerous chemical toxins,” says Ike Sutton, the founder of VapeAway. “VapeAway offers the first patented filter that removes those toxins. Until now, those who were dependent on nicotine have been directed to nicotine patches or gum as their recovery solution, both of which uses nicotine to satisfy cravings and with that, comes a laundry list of warnings and side effects.
“VapeAway’s patented technology does the opposite and does not administer a drug to help people quit a drug. Our filters stop the nicotine directly at the source and reduces the intake of harmful chemicals while users continue to vape, all the while ultimately helping people quit in the long term if they choose to do so.”
VapeAway says its Vapor Freeze 2.0 Technology consists of a proprietary blend of military grade, non-toxic fibers that freeze potentially harmful toxic chemicals on contact, protecting vapers and others around them from unwanted chemicals and toxins entering their lungs.
The technology has been tested to ensure it meets VapeAway’s stated use cases and it effectively and consistently performs to achieve the stated impact for its users. Preliminary tests were conducted by Enthalpy Laboratories.
According to SGS North America, the VapeAway filter is 100 percent non-toxic.
BAT is the driving force behind the World Vapers Alliance (WVA), a pro-vaping group presenting itself as a grassroots initiative of anti-smoking initiatives, according to the Daily Beast.
According to the investigation, BAT sought to use the WVA to organize individuals to pressure government officials, including members of the European parliament, to roll back regulations on tobacco products such as bans on flavored products, health warnings and increased taxes.
BAT went to great lengths to conceal its involvement with the World Vapers’ Alliance, according to the investigation. Yet, sources and internal documents reviewed as part of the investigation revealed that BAT “has played a central and hands-on role in orchestrating, directing and funding the World Vapers’ Alliance.”
Writing for Vaping360, Jim McDonald said BAT’s involvement with WVA was no secret among vaping advocates, “which is probably a major reason why the organization only has 20,000 individual members, despite extensive social media efforts,” he wrote.
According to McDonald, many vapers tend to mistrust and resent involvement in vaping issues by the tobacco industry, partly because companies like BAT subsidiary Reynolds American Inc. have gone out of their way to eliminate the competition posed by independent vaping businesses.
McDonald cites a 2014 RAI comment to the FDA, “essentially offering the agency a blue-print for destroying the open-system vaping industry.”
Anti-smoking groups were aghast. “Tobacco companies like British American Tobacco claim that they are changed, responsible companies working to reduce the enormous harm caused by their products. But their actions tell a different story and show that they continue to use the same deceptive tactics they have always used, including front groups, to fight public health policies and protect their sales and profits,” said Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, in a statement.
End Cigarette Smoke Thailand (ECST) wants Thailand to legalize vapor products to enable smokers to legally switch to less harmful nicotine products, according to an article in The Bangkok Post.
This vaper in Koh Samui, Thailand could face fines or even jail. (Timothy S. Donahue)
Despite a seven-year old ban on e-cigarettes, the number of vapers has steadily increased in Thailand, according to the ECST. While the National Statistical Office estimates there are 78,742 vapers in the country, ECST representative Maris Kranyawath believes there are almost a million, based on the number of people following social media pages that sell vape products.
Maris said legalizing vapor products would allow state agencies to set product standards. “Thailand has had a ban on vaping for seven years, but the number of vapers has continued to increase despite it,” said Maris. “This means the policy has not been effective. If vape products were legal, they could be examined and standardized by state agencies.”
To protect young people, the ECST has proposed regulations to ban minors from buying and using vape products. “A salesperson must provide vape products that are appropriate for each user,” said Maris. “Moreover, each vaper should register for a vape card at a district office first. When a vaper purchases products, he/she must show the card. Also, vape stores must have a machine to scan cards to identify the customer who has a daily limit of no more than 200ml of e-liquid per day.”
The push for permitting vapor products has been gaining momentum in Thailand. Recently, Digital Economy and Society Minister Chaiwut Thanakamanusorn said he would explore ways to legalize the sale of e-cigarettes, citing their comparatively low health risk and the impact of black market sales on tax revenues.
Smokers in England continue to be encouraged to quit by being offered free vaping devices. The action will now bring the borough of Kirklees in West Yorkshire, one step closer to fulfilling the UK government’s ambition for England to be smoke free by 2030, a move which could save local National Health Service (NHS) trusts millions of pounds.
The devices are now available from Kirklees Council’s stop smoking services and the charity Yorkshire Cancer Research alongside more traditional forms of Nicotine Replacement Therapies such as patches or gum. The devices are being offered as part of the Kirklees Wellness Service, a council funded initiative that supports over-18 youth in Kirklees to live healthier lives.
Stuart Griffiths, director of research, services and policy at Yorkshire Cancer Research, said his organization is committed to saving lives by helping more people quit smoking for good. “Yorkshire has the highest smoking rate in England, and this causes thousands of smoking-related cancers and needless deaths in our region each year,” he told Yorkshire Live. “When it comes to helping people quit for good, being able to offer vaping products is essential. They are an incredibly effective aid in helping people give up cigarettes.”
A recent review of evidence by global researchers Cochrane has shown that vaping devices are more effective than Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) when supporting smokers to quit. More than 500 people in Kirklees lose their lives to smoking related illnesses every year, yet smoking remains one of the biggest causes of preventable death in the region, according to the story.
Using medical licensing to get smokers to switch to vaping products is like using a hammer to crack a nut.
By George Gay
On the face of it, the U.K.’s big tobacco/nicotine news story of 2021 was the announcement that e-cigarettes and other inhaled nicotine-containing products could in the future be prescribed through the National Health Service (NHS) in England. Of course, the problem with “could” stories is that they come pre-loaded with “might not” stories. And there is the nagging concern, also, that this story is not quite as new as it seems. But let’s start on a positive note.
An Oct. 29 press note issued by the peculiarly named Department of Health and Social Care and Office for Health Improvement and Disparities said the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) had published updated guidance paving the way for medicinally licensed e-cigarettes to be prescribed for tobacco smokers who wished to quit smoking. The health and social care secretary, Sajid Javid, was quoted as saying that opening the door to a [sic] licensed e-cigarette prescribed on the NHS had the potential to tackle the stark disparities in smoking rates across the country, helping people to stop smoking wherever they lived and whatever their background.
“Manufacturers can approach the MHRA to submit their products to go through the same regulatory approvals process as other medicines available on the health service,” the story said. “This could mean England becomes the first country in the world to prescribe e-cigarettes licensed as a medical product. If a product receives MHRA approval, clinicians could then decide on a case-by-case basis whether it would be appropriate to prescribe an e-cigarette to NHS patients to help them quit smoking.”
In fact, this statement was qualified by a background note saying e-cigarettes could be prescribed only after the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) had recommended them for use. It did not spell out the circumstances under which NICE might recommend or reject such prescribing, but it is likely that one possible case for rejection would be a poor cost/benefit ratio.
Nevertheless, the announcement was generally well received. Philip Morris International said in a note published on its website that it supported the U.K. government’s plan to simplify the pathway to license electronic cigarettes and other inhaled nicotine-containing products as medicines in England.
At the same time, John Dunne, director-general of the U.K. Vaping Industry Association, said in a press note the government deserved “huge praise for taking this bold decision to look more closely at the use of vaping when it comes to smoking cessation and for taking an evidence-based, science-led approach rather than the nonsensical anti-vaping, anti-harm reduction stance of some countries.”
Meanwhile, Doug Mutter, director of VPZ, which recently launched a vape clinic service across its retail network of 157 U.K. stores, said in a press note that he believed vaping products being prescribed through the NHS in England could provide a huge leap forward in the country’s ambitions to be smoke-free by 2030. “We fully welcome the news that the NHS in England is exploring opportunities to prescribe vaping products to help people quit smoking,” he said. But he added that he believed it was not simply about prescribing a vape product and smokers going away and quitting smoking. “People need education, expert knowledge, support, advice and a personalized service that meets their individual needs,” he said. “Our vape clinic service responds to this demand and is filling a huge void left by [cuts to NHS] stop-smoking services…”
This need for consumer support had echoes in a new nationwide initiative launched at the end of October and aimed at providing guidance to frontline nursing staff at U.K. hospitals. The initiative, which was being rolled out to every NHS trust by the U.K. Vaping Industry Association and the stop-smoking app, Smoke Free, provides access to a range of resources that provide healthcare practitioners with the knowledge needed for them to give sound advice on how to switch from conventional cigarettes to vape products. It follows a decision by the NHS earlier this year to trial the use of vapes in selected hospitals.
Qualified support
A number of health professionals working in tobacco control also welcomed the government announcement, but many qualified their support. Probably, the most common concern was that, because the process of obtaining a medicines license, even if simplified, would still be complex and expensive, only tobacco companies would be able to attempt it.
There were basically two strands to this concern. One was that some healthcare professionals found the involvement of tobacco companies distasteful, tout court, while another was that consumers might be encouraged to try only licensed, tobacco-company products when other, unlicensed but more efficacious products were available.
This second argument is interesting partly because it raises the question of how much importance would consumers attach to a medicines license. After all, few smokers in the U.K. today started their habit at a time when the risks of smoking were unknown, so we can assume they are not severely risk averse.
Given this, I think it would be reasonable to assume that not all of those who tell researchers they are looking to quit smoking want to do so for health reasons. Additionally, the question raised about the importance smokers attach to health concerns is underlined in the U.K. because switching from smoking to vaping stalled some time ago even though Public Health England (an executive agency of the Department of Health and Social Care whose health protection and health improvement responsibilities were split between two other bodies at the start of October 2021) was on record as saying vaping is probably 95 percent less risky than smoking.
And despite PMI’s positive reaction, it cannot be assumed that all tobacco companies would want to go down the medicines license route. I cannot help thinking, for instance, that it would be something of a disadvantage in getting a product tied to a medicines license because, I assume, it would become petrified within an overall market that was dynamic. Unless the process of obtaining and holding a medicines license for vaping products in the U.K. is to be changed substantially, even obtaining permission to change the font size on the packaging would entail an involved process.
At least, this is what I was told while previously writing a few stories on Voke, which was or is a product developed over 12 years by Kind Consumer and licensed by the MHRA as a medicinal product that was a safer alternative to combustible cigarettes. Voke was not a vaping product but an alternative nicotine-delivery system that used pharmaceutical-standard inhaler technology in a device closely resembling a traditional cigarette in both the way it looked and in the way a consumer, in using the device, mimicked most of the rituals of smoking. Voke, which had no batteries and no electronics and therefore generated no heat and no chemical reactions and produced neither smoke nor vapor, just an invisible, cool, odorless aerosol, could be used anywhere. And its environmental credentials were good given that it was a relatively simple device made of metal, card and plastic: materials that can be recycled.
And yet, despite its medicines license and all the other apparent advantages it offered, it didn’t take off. It is worth noting, however, that British American Tobacco, which had cooperated with Kind in developing Voke, pulled out of the arrangement before the product was launched. It is worth noting, too, that Voke was launched as a consumer product in normal retail outlets, not in pharmacies, and not much seemed to be made of its having a medicines license. Finally, its much-delayed launch was not helped by coinciding with the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic.
Beyond the soundbites
I don’t want to be too downbeat, but it has to be said that the e-cigarettes announcement was made by a government better at sound bites than policy. The reference by Javid to tackling “the stark disparities in smoking rates across the country” would have been meant to have fed into government claims to be intent on levelling up the country, a strategy being honored more in the breach than the observance. Whether the policy announcement will survive mixing with the realities of an NHS struggling from the effects of more than 10 years of austerity and those of the Covid-19 pandemic remains to be seen.
In this regard, it was interesting that one healthcare professional who welcomed the announcement as “excellent news” went on to say one of the reasons why one in three U.K. smokers had not tried e-cigarettes was because of the perceived cost barrier. Having approved devices prescribed would therefore help those least able to afford e-cigarettes.
This raises some interesting questions, not least of which is whether the government has thought through the costs involved if e-cigarette prescriptions started to be given out liberally. And even if it has, has it decided whether ex-smokers should be allowed e-cigarettes on prescription for the rest of their lives rather as a diabetic is provided with insulin for life?
If you follow the logic of most thinking on nicotine addiction, you would have to say that cutting off prescriptions for e-cigarettes at some time in the future would lead only to relapse. Another question is whether the government could hold the line if, after prescribing came in, young, nonsmokers started to cut out the middleman and take up vaping in numbers, as seems possible.
The question has to be faced, also, as to whether general practitioners would be happy to prescribe e-cigarettes. The first step in encouraging them to do so would be convincing many of them that nicotine in the doses delivered by e-cigarettes was not harmful. But even so, there is the question of whether in asking them to do so you would be causing them to be conflicted.
Credit: kues1
The obvious answer to this is that healthcare professionals are generally accepting of the concept of harm reduction, but for some I’m sure there would be a difference between giving to heroin addicts clean needles from a medical supplies company and providing smokers with e-cigarettes from a tobacco company. Such conflicts have surely been reflected in the labored approach the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has taken since being saddled with overseeing a harmful product.
A simpler solution
To my way of thinking, one of the best comments on the government announcement came as part of a quote on the Science Media website by Peter Hajek, director of the Tobacco Dependence Research Unit at the Queen Mary University of London, who admitted to being ambivalent about the plan. Hajek welcomed the fact that the initiative provided a positive message that e-cigarettes were much less risky than smoking and helped smokers quit.
“Overall, it would seem easier to just recommend existing products, which are well regulated by consumer protection regulations,” he said. “There is sufficient evidence available now that these products are effective and dramatically reduce the risks of smoking.”
I’m not sure what Hajek meant by “recommend,” but all the government needs to do to promote the shift from smoking to vaping is to allow manufacturers of e-cigarettes complying with consumer protection regulations to state on packaging and advertising agreed wording to the effect outlined by Hajek: “these products are effective and dramatically reduce the risks of smoking.”
It seems to me that, as things stand, using medicines licensing to try to shift smokers from cigarettes to vaping products is like taking a hammer to crack a nut because I’m not convinced the changes made by the MHRA to its guidance for licensing e-cigarettes as medicines would produce the results sought.
I was told the key changes made relate to guidance on the quality standards for dose uniformity, nonclinical toxicological data requirements and the design of the clinical pharmacokinetic studies. The updates were said also to reflect changes to the regulatory environment post-Brexit.
John Britton, emeritus professor of epidemiology at the University of Nottingham, in generally welcoming the government announcement, made the point on Science Media that what was needed urgently was a bespoke regulatory system for all nicotine products that allowed market access and endorsement by health professionals in inverse proportion to those products’ health hazards.
This, to my mind, is correct. The question remains, however, just how bespoke the system needs to be to work. I’m not convinced the changes announced will be enough. In fact, I’m not convinced any bespoke system complying with the necessarily rigorous demands of the MHRA would give rise to a workable system. I hope I’m wrong.
The French Vaping Association FIVAPE has joined the Independent European Vape Alliance (IEVA). IEVA now brings together eleven national associations from Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania and Spain as well as 13 international corporations in the e-cigarette industry.
“FIVAPE has been at the forefront of responsibility and regulation in the vaping sector, and we believe we can amplify the voice of French vape businesses within IEVA,” said Jean Moiroud, president of FIVAPE, in a statement. “We hope to tackle our industry’s future challenges together.”
“We are delighted that FIVAPE has decided to support the work of IEVA,” said Dustin Dahlmann, president of IEVA. “The French vaping industry is one of the largest and most successful in Europe. We very much look forward to working closely with FIVAPE on ensuring robust yet proportionate regulation for our sector.”
The number of people who vape in the U.K. has risen to its highest level since records began while the number of U.K. adults who smoke has fallen below 14 percent for the first time in years, according to just released government figures.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has published its annual report into smoking prevalence in the U.K., which includes figures on the number of adults who vape, just one month after the Department of Health’s announcement that vaping devices could soon be prescribed to smokers through the National Health Service.
In 2014, when data on the number of U.K. vapers started being collected, 3.7 percent of the population reported using e-cigarettes. In 2020, that had risen to 6.4 percent, equivalent to around 3.3 million people.
The report also reveals that the number of adult smokers in the U.K. currently stands at 13.8 percent of the population—its lowest percentage since at least 2015.
“This is a hugely welcome announcement as everyone on the side of harm reduction knows that vaping is far less harmful than smoking—by as much as 95 percent, according to the former health protection watchdog Public Health England [now part of the U.K. Health Security Agency]—so more people vaping and less smoking can only be cause for celebration,” said John Dunne, director-general of the U.K. Vaping Industry Association, in a statement.
This is a hugely welcome announcement as everyone on the side of harm reduction knows that vaping is far less harmful than smoking.
The ONS Smoking Prevalence Report highlighted that the number of ex-smokers who now vape had risen from 11.7 percent in 2019 to 12.3 percent while the number of smokers who also vape increased from 15.5 percent in 2019 to 17.8 percent in 2020.
However, according to the ONS monthly data, smoking rates rose sharply during the pandemic and national lockdown to a peak of 16.3 percent in August before slowly decreasing to 13.8 percent by the end of 2020.
“While this rise in smoking prevalence during lockdown could be attributed to increased anxiety because of the pandemic, I would also point toward the fact that specialty vape shops were not granted ‘essential retail’ status and therefore had to close their doors as another significant contributing factor,” said Dunne.
China has the potential to revolutionize global tobacco harm reduction now that its government has asserted authority over e-cigarettes, according to consumer advocate Martin Cullip.
On Nov. 26, China’s State Council on Nov. 26 amended the country’s tobacco monopoly law to include vapor products, which means that vaping products and their manufacturers will be regulated by the Chinese government under the same process as cigarettes.
The announcement triggered feverish speculation about the impact of the new rules, with some commentators fretting that tobacco rules would put vapor companies out of business and others welcoming the prospect of enhanced product safety and quality.
Writing in Filter, Cullip points not only to the vapor industry’s economic significance to China, but also to the potential domestic health benefits of sensible regulation. China, argues Cullip, has a lot to gain from financially from domestic harm reduction, when the country’s high smoking prevalence in an aging population creates heavy costs in health care and lost productivity.
Cullip is also encouraged by China’s willingness and ability to stand up the World Health Organization, which remains ideologically opposed to tobacco harm reduction.
While the government would seem to have much to gain from blocking the growth of safer alternatives such as e-cigarettes and tobacco-heating products—the state-owned CNTC sells more than 40 percent of the world’s cigarettes—there are many incentives for the government to push things in an entirely different direction, according to Cullip.
China manufactures the vast majority of the world’s vape products. More than 170,000 businesses engage in e-cigarette production and the supply chain, employing around 3 million people. The CNTC is also the world’s biggest holder of tobacco harm reduction patents, owning almost 27 percent of all related patent publications.
“It is difficult to imagine the government strangling the market—even if this is motivated more by profit than by its citizens’ health,” writes Cullip.
A global collaboration of THR consumer groups, SCOPE includes Consumer Advocates for Smoke-Free Alternatives Association (CASAA) in the United States, Iberoamerica (ARDT) in Latin America and the Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA).
SCOPE recently broadcast around the clock during the nineth Conference of Parties for the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).
Alex Clark
“SCOPE’s five-day global livestream was a huge success, countering and shining much-needed sunlight on COP9. It shows just what can be achieved when international consumer organizations come together in their tireless work to humanize and promote the life-changing tobacco harm reduction movement,” says Alex Clark, CEO of CASAA.
Hours of SCOPE’s presentations by international THR experts and panel discussions featuring consumer advocates have now been uploaded into one online library, available at https://bit.ly/319zzkx
Nancy Loucas, executive coordinator of CAPHRA, says if more smokers’ lives are to be saved then the World Health Organization must not be allowed to continue to demonize safer nicotine alternatives like vaping. Instead, it must be mandated to follow the scientific evidence.
It’s critical, she says, over the next two years that the world’s THR organizations work more closely and effectively together.
“SCOPE provides consumers, the public and the media with an invaluable resource and platform going forward. Our focus now shifts to COP10 in 2023 where risk reduced products will be a key discussion topic for delegates. With over one billion smokers’ lives at stake, consumers need one clear voice and SCOPE now provides that,” says Loucas.
Ignacio Leiva Benitez
Chilean consumer advocate Ignacio Leiva Benitez, general secretary of ARDT Iberoamerica, says Latin America is delighted to be part of SCOPE. His organization, he says, is now working more closely with allies from all around the world.
“SCOPE is all about showing the world’s decisionmakers what has worked for us individuals and changed our lives for the better,” says Benitez. “I started vaping 12 years ago, after smoking two packets of cigarettes a day. For years I tried different ways to quit but was unsuccessful until I discovered nicotine vaping. SCOPE will enable us to fight more successfully on behalf of adult smokers, in every country, to gain better access to safer alternatives.”
Knowledge Action Change (KAC) is looking for people to propose projects exploring their professional or personal interest in tobacco harm reduction (THR) for the next cohort of its Tobacco Harm Reduction Scholarship program (THRSP). Applications for the fifth year of the program close on Nov. 30, 2021, and successful applicants will receive a 12-month bespoke mentoring program and up to $10,000 in financial support.
According to Paddy Costall, a director at KAC, the THRSP is a crucial part of global efforts to communicate the benefits of safer nicotine products, helping to raise awareness about vaping, heated tobacco products, snus and nicotine pouches.
“The Tobacco Harm Reduction Scholarship program is the jewel in the crown for KAC,” he says. “When we were setting out on this journey, we wanted to attract a passionate and diverse group of new advocates into the tobacco harm reduction field from across the globe. We wanted to inspire them to take the movement into the future. We wanted to find the researchers of tomorrow, and with the THRSP that is exactly what we are doing.”
To further enhance the program’s status, KAC recently appointed Ethan Nadelmann, the founder of the Drug Policy Alliance, as the THRSP’s new patron. Nadelmann will be providing support to the recipients of these scholarships.
Launched in 2018, the program has supported 75 Scholars on six continents. Projects completed by THRSP participants include:
A short documentary film exploring attitudes on smoking and THR in Malawi
Novel scientific research in Romania showing that switching completely from combustible cigarettes to heated tobacco products can boost the oral health of smokers
The creation of a smoking and recovery toolkit in the U.S. to combat the high rates of smoking among people in recovery or seeking treatment for dependency on alcohol or other drugs
A study assessing the THR knowledge base of healthcare staff in Lithuania
A pair of studies that demonstrated the potential for safer nicotine products, such as vaping and Swedish-style snus, to help India’s smokers and smokeless tobacco users
The creation of THR Uganda, an organization set up to share accurate information on tobacco smoking and nicotine with its own dedicated website
A study on the effects of providing vapes to homeless smokers in Ireland
