Tag: e-cigarettes

AVM to Hold Public Forum With CTP Director King

Brian King / Credit: FDA
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products Director Brian King will participate in an open discussion with the vaping industry in late February.
The virtual event will be moderated by American Vapor Manufacturers Association (AVM) legislative director Gregory Conley and newly-named AVM vice president Allison Boughner.
“The Future of Vaping in the US: A Conversation with FDA’s Dr. Brian King” will be held on Feb. 24 at 1:00 p.m. EST, and is open to the public. Participants must register in advance, and AVM has provided an opportunity to submit questions for King.
King has been quiet since memos recently submitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit show that he reversed a recommended marketing approval of Logic Technology’s menthol vaping products, ignoring the advice of FDA scientists, according to Logic’s lawyers.
January 20, 2023
Philippines: Group Wants Crackdown on Illegal Vapes

Credit: Tupungato
The Philippine Tobacco Industry (PTI) has called on the Philippines’ Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to crack down on illicit vapor products, reports The Manilla Times.
In a letter sent recently to BIR Commissioner Romeo Lumagui Jr., the group emphasized that the full implementation of the Vaporized Nicotine and Non-Nicotine Products Regulation Act “will ensure that the public is protected against the dangers of using illicit products as well as the collection of appropriate taxes aimed at helping our economy.”
The Act, which became law in July 2022, regulates the importation, manufacture, sale, packaging, distribution, use and communication of vaping products such as e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products.
Under the laws implementing rules and regulations (IRR), e-commerce platforms, e-marketplaces and other similar online platforms are mandated to allow only Department of Trade and Industry and BIR-registered distributors, merchants or retailers of vape products, devices and novel tobacco products to sell on their website or platform.
To ensure vape products are made inaccessible to minors, the IRR also requires vapor product refill receptacles to be tamper- and child-resistant. Products packaged or labeled with flavor descriptors appealing to minors are prohibited.
“We are also hoping that the BIR will closely work with enforcement agencies such as the Philippine National Police, The Armed Forces of the Philippines as well as relevant anti-illicit trade groups from the Bureau of Customs to make sure the law and its IRR are effectively implemented,” the PTI said.
The PTI members include Japan Tobacco International Philippines, Associated Anglo-American Tobacco Corp. and Philip Morris Fortune Tobacco Co.
January 20, 2023
Advocates Clarify Science Controversies Ahead of COP10

Photo: Alliance
Tobacco harm reduction advocates are keen to clarify controversies surround the science on nicotine and vaping ahead of the Conference of the Parties (COP10) to the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which will take place in November 2023.
The Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Advocates (CAPHRA) has written FCTC delegation heads to help inform their respective countries’ positions.
In its letter, CAPHRA notes that two high-profile studies, which have been quoted by tobacco controllers regarding the dangers of nicotine and vaping, have since been retracted and removed from significant medical journals.
“The first retraction is an article published in February 2022 in The World Journal of Oncology, claiming that nicotine vapers face about the same cancer risk as cigarette smokers,” CAPHRA wrote.
Another article, in the Journal of the American Heart Association, which reported an association between vaping and heart attacks was also retracted. Astoundingly, advocates noted, this article is still used as a reference in the FCTC guidelines around e-cigarettes.

Consumers’ rights to choose to use less harmful products to switch from smoking remain under tremendous threat from FCTC’s continuing failure to address scientific evidence, democratic processes and human rights.
Nancy Loucas, executive coordinator, CAPHRA
In addition, the THR regional advocacy group sent delegates a bibliography of key and current studies that disprove some of the more outrageous claims around harm.
On the supposed “youth vaping epidemic,” CAPHRA noted “a new survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food & Drug Administration suggests that youth vaping rates appear to be dropping, compared to pre-pandemic levels… In fact, youth vaping in the U.S. has plummeted by 60 percent over the past two years.’
“Consumers’ rights to choose to use less harmful products to switch from smoking remain under tremendous threat from FCTC’s continuing failure to address scientific evidence, democratic processes and human rights,” says CAPHRA executive coordinator Nancy Loucas.
The CAPHRA representatives reminded the health leaders that the FCTC has a mandate to pursue Harm Reduction as a core tobacco control policy—a position it has failed to acknowledge or implement since its inception, according to CAPHRA.
“WHO and its FCTC continue to press for signatory states to adopt ever more restrictive policies, including outright bans, based on dubious science. Delegates to COP10 should be representing the rights and aspirations of the citizens,” wrote the CAPHRA member organizations.
“Consumers have the right to make choices that help them avoid adverse health outcomes and smokers have the right to access less harmful nicotine products as alternatives to smoking. Please take account of these rights when making and presenting your submissions to COP10,” the letter concluded.
January 20, 2023
Fifth Circuit Grants Triton Rehearing Before Full Court

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit granted Wages and White Lion Investments LLC, doing business as Triton Distribution, and Vapetasia LLC’s, request for the full court to re-hear Triton’s appeal of its marketing denial order (MDO), according to a court order handed down today.
Triton lost before a three-judge panel in July, but attorneys for Triton then filed a petition for a rehearing en banc by the entirety of the Fifth Circuit.
Most circuit court appeals are decided by a three-judge panel, however, the special circumstances surrounding the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s denial of Triton’s premarket tobacco product applications (PMTAs) motivated the court to allow a majority of the active judges (an estimated 17 judges) to vote to rehear the case “en banc.”
The FDA rejected applications to market 55,000 flavored e-cigarettes in August 2021, including Triton’s, and said applicants would likely need to conduct long-term studies establishing their products’ benefits to win approval.
A Fifth Circuit panel in October then agreed with Triton’s claim that the new requirement for long-term studies differed from earlier FDA guidance and called the action a “surprise switcheroo” and the panel allowed Triton to keep selling its e-cigarettes until another panel could hear its appeal.
The court then denied Triton’s request for review of the agency’s MDOs in a 2-1 decision.
The Fifth Circuit will hear the en banc argument in Wages and White Lion Investments v. U.S. Food & Drug Administration in May.
January 19, 2023
Italy Announces Rules for Ban on Indoor Vaping

New measures against nicotine products will be introduced in Italy to address the prevention and fight against vaping and smoking.
Italy’s health minister, Orazio Schillaci, announced new measures against vaping and other tobacco products to achieve a “tobacco-free generation,” reports Euractiv.
“Measures will have to be taken to guarantee all citizens maximum protection of their health, a fundamental right of the individual and an interest of the community,” said Schillaci.
Smoking rooms indoors will be banned, and the ban on smoking in open-air places in the presence of minors and pregnant women will be extended.
E-cigarettes and heated-tobacco products will also be included in the ban, taking into account “the constantly increasing diffusion of new products on the market and the growing evidence on their possible harmful effects on health.” Plans to extend the cigarette advertising ban to new nicotine-containing products are also in place.
“This process aims to allow the different multiple interests related to tobacco products, involving economic ministries, not to override health protection,” Schillaci said.
January 19, 2023
UK Trading Standards: Fake Vapes a Major Threat

Credit: Innovated Captures
According to UK Trading Standards officials, shops selling illegal vapes and the sale of vaping products to children are the top threats on the country’s High Streets.
Hundreds of thousands of vapes that flout current laws have been seized, according to BBC.
UK laws limit how much nicotine and e-liquid is contained in vapes, and which health warnings are required on packaging.
But some shops are selling vapes containing 12,000 puffs of e-liquid, when the law permits only about 600. Others contain illegally high levels of nicotine.
In the north-east of England alone, more than 1.4 tonnes of illegal vapes were seized from shops in the second half of last year, while in Kent there was a dramatic rise in counterfeit vaping products seized at Channel ports in December, with more than 300,000 removed.
January 19, 2023
New Mexico Lawmakers to Consider Flavor Ban

New Mexico State Capitol at dusk (Credit: Ball Studios)
A New Mexico lawmaker is proposing a ban on all flavored vaping and other tobacco products. The bill would stop the sale of any vaping or other tobacco product that has any flavoring added. The representative behind this bill says the main goal is to stop kids from getting hooked on nicotine.
“Most of my sales are all flavored stuff. There’s far few and in between that will come and be like ‘I just want nothing flavored,’” says Sabrina Garley, manager of Biroska SmokeShop, a vape vendor in New Mexico, according to KRQE.
Local smoke shops around Albuquerque say they fear a bill banning these flavored tobacco products like e-cigarettes and vapes will hurt their business. “I thought, ‘we’re going down.’ Definitely, definitely one of our biggest sellers. We’d have to figure out something else to replace that,” Garley says.
House Bill 94 is sponsored by Las Cruces State Representative Joanne Ferrary. “House Bill 94 will prohibit the sale of flavored tobacco products and it will define the terms and make sure that we aren’t losing a new generation of kids to nicotine,” Ferrary says, “By removing the flavored tobacco products from the market, it will keep kids from gravitating towards any of the flavors on the market.”
January 19, 2023
Calls for Scotland to Ban Disposable Vape Devices

A lawmaker in Scotland is calling for a ban on disposable vapes “after Scotland’s streets became a plastic dumping ground.”
Green MSP Gillian Mackay said city parks have become clogged up by disposable plastic vaping products, which experts say are a threat to children’s health and a menace to wildlife and she will urge the Government to introduce a ban on disposable plastic vapes.
Mackay warned the single-use devices were turning up more and more on streets and in beach clean-ups – and claimed they could become “the cotton bud of their time,” according to the Daily Record.
It comes after the Scottish Government last year banned most types of single-use plastics as part of efforts to shift to a “circular economy” with fewer items wasted. But disposable e-cigarettes weren’t affected, and they’ve exploded in popularity since 2021 with a 14-fold increase in their use among vapers over more eco-friendly rechargeable products.
Mackay recently also called for a ban on flavored vaping products and all advertising for vaping products.
Research last year found 1.3 million single-use vapes are being discarded every week in the UK, enough to cover 22 football pitches – an average of two thrown away every second.
Recycling the products is also tricky as inside the plastic are valuable lithium batteries. Campaigners say the number of batteries chucked away would be enough to power 1200 electric cars.
January 19, 2023
Luxury Cars Used to Smuggle Vapes Into Singapore

Credit: Andreykr
Criminals in Singapore are not using just trucks and trailers to smuggle vaping products. They are also using luxury cars in an attempt to evade detection and capture.
Based on seizures and captures carried out by the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) enforcement, many different types of luxury vehicles are being used for smuggling activities, namely Mercedes Benz, BMW, Audi and high-end Toyota Vellfire and Alphard MPVs (Multi Purpose Vehicles), according to media reports.
“Perhaps these syndicates feel that the ‘status’ of being perceived as being rich by driving luxury vehicles can evade detection by enforcement. This is why the syndicates choose all sorts of different luxury vehicles to carry out smuggling of e-cigarettes and vape liquid,” according to an unnamed source.
The ICA’s employs hi-tech X-Ray machines to detect smuggled items. Based on information received, the Singapore enforcement authorities recently confiscated 792 e-cigarettes that were smuggled from Malaysia using an Audi vehicle.
Also confiscated were 3,093 e-cigarette refill pods, apart from 4,000 e-cigarettes and 3,120 e-cigarette refill pods that were hidden in another luxury vehicle, a Mercedes Benz.
“On Nov 23 last year, the syndicate used an Audi vehicle to smuggle 2,700 pods filled with e-cigarette refills apart from 100 disposable e-cigarettes. The seizure also yielded 145 e-cigarette products that were concealed under the seats and floor of a Toyota Vellfire MPV,” the source said.
January 19, 2023
“Common Language” Video Attracts Ire of THR Advocates
Tobacco harm reduction activists have criticized a John Hopkins School of Public Health video calling for “common language” in tobacco control.
The video features Johanna Cohen, Bloomberg professor of disease prevention and director of the school’s Institute for Global Tobacco Control.
“With the introduction and marketing of new nicotine products, it’s not only the marketplace that has diversified,” Cohen says in the video. “The number of terms used to describe these products has expanded significantly as well. Often with word choice that serves tobacco industry interests.
“Accuracy and consistency are extremely important because language can shape our thinking, including setting boundaries for discourse and policy options.”
The video, however, did not go over well with some vapers; one comment on the video states, “If we accept Joanna Cohen’s language, then we—People Who Use Safer Nicotine to avoid toxic forms of tobacco—would be accepting the language of our oppressors. What she does not seem to understand is that this is not a battle between tobacco control and evil industry. There are real human beings involved, with lived experience. Cohen clearly has zero empathy for us.”

“This is a bit rich coming from the people who call e-cigarettes ‘tobacco products’ and use the term e-cigarette or vaping use-associated lung injury to describe an illness that has nothing to do with e-cigarettes.
Chris Snowdon, head of lifestyle economics, Institute of Economic Affairs
Chris Snowdon, head of lifestyle economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs, also criticized the video. “This is a bit rich coming from the people who call e-cigarettes ‘tobacco products’ and use the term e-cigarette or vaping use-associated lung injury to describe an illness that has nothing to do with e-cigarettes,” he said.
In the video, Cohen recommends “using ordinary, precise terms without additional adjectives” with the goal of “establish[ing] a common language.”
“What’s regrettable,” writes Alex Norcia on Filter, “is that there is an important conversation to be had about terminology in the tobacco and nicotine field, but the video, from an institution funded by anti-vaping billionaire Michael Bloomberg, misses that opportunity.”
“When it comes to language and terminology, it seems to me that people in public health get overly preoccupied with what incumbent tobacco companies are doing, when their actual focus should be on consumers and people who actually use these products,” said Danielle Jones, the president of the board of CASAA.
“Using the language of the people using the products, which is typically the terminology most well known, should be their focus in order to facilitate clear communication and not confuse people. For instance, not knowing the established terminology when writing survey questions for people who vape can lead to erroneous results if the respondents misunderstand what the researchers are asking,” Jones said.
Another viewer commented, “WE use these devices. WE define the terms. You need to stop talking and start listening.”
January 18, 2023