Author: Bill Tarling

“A major concern for public health advocates for the upcoming biennium? Cuts to tobacco prevention funding. Through vaping tax bill SB263 in 2019, the state appropriated $2.5 million in both the 2019 and 2020 fiscal years for tobacco prevention. Instead, the state spent less than $2.3 million on SB263 tobacco prevention in the two years combined, and in the proposed budget for the upcoming biennium, there are no funds allocated for tobacco prevention efforts. During a legislative hearing on Tuesday for the proposed budget for the Division of Public and Behavioral Health, several public health advocates sounded the alarm about youth anti-vaping programs potentially going away. Representatives from the health districts in Washoe and Clark counties called for restoring funding, pointing to the ongoing trends in youth vaping.”

ARTICLE LINK: BEHIND THE BAR: Cuts To Tobacco Prevention

“The Vermont Senate has revived legislation that would ban the sale of flavored vaping and tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes. The ban was floated last year as a way to prevent youth usage of nicotine products, but the proposal was sidelined after the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Sen. Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden, chair of the Senate Committee on Health and Welfare, said in an interview this week that she’d like the Senate to pass the bill, S.24, “as quickly as possible.” She said use of nicotine products by young people has increased during the Covid-19 pandemic. Some people raised concerns about the ban with state legislators on Wednesday. Gov. Phil Scott has already signaled he would back a ban on flavored vaping products, but it’s unclear if he would support a prohibition on menthol cigarettes.”

ARTICLE LINK:   Lawmakers thinking again about a ban on flavored e-cigarettes and menthol

“The Director General of the UK Vaping Industry Association(1) (UKVIA) has addressed parliamentarians on the future of vaping and harm reduction. John Dunne was invited as an expert witness by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Vaping(2), a collection of MPs and Peers focussed on e-cigarettes. Dunne’s evidence will be used to advise the UK delegation to a high-level World Health Organization Framework Convention for Tobacco Control meeting(3) later this year: Conference of the Parties (COP9). The meeting will have repercussions for vaping industries around the world, and it is hoped the UK’s progressive approach can inspire similar stances internationally.”

ARTICLE LINK:   UKVIA Back In To Advise Parliament

“2021 IECIE Shanghai Vape Culture Week is coming to the Shanghai New International Expo Centre from 18-20 May! With less than 100 days to go before the official launch. 2021 IECE Shanghai will continue to uphold the concept development of new tobacco, aiming to focus in the field of heat-not-burn and functional e-cigarettes with building up new e-cigarette ecology. In addition to the presence of big-name brands, this year’s IECIE Shanghai will also create a multi-category showcase, including open pods, heat-herb-sticks, mod kits, e-liquids and more. See you on 18-20 May at Hall N4, Shanghai New International Expo Centre!”

ARTICLE LINK:   Shanghai VAPE Culture Week is Coming in Less than 100 Days

“Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) has released its update on teen ecig use in Great Britain. It stands as a glowing testimony to the way Britain has had the foresight to embrace vaping and tobacco harm reduction because, after over a decade of products on the market, there is still not any evidence of either an epidemic of teen use or anything suggesting that there is a gateway from vaping into smoking tobacco.”

ARTICLE LINK:   NO EPIDEMIC – NO GATEWAY

“Public Health England’s (PHE) seventh independent report on vaping in England, carried out by researchers at King’s College London, found that: using a vaping product as part of a quit attempt in local stop smoking services had some of the highest quit success rates – between 59.7% and 74% in 2019 and 2020. Data from systematic reviews since PHE’s 2018 report show that vaping products were significantly more effective for helping people stop smoking than NRT. Around 4.8% of young people (aged 11 to 18 years) reported vaping at least once a month – the same as last year – and most of these were either current or former smokers (only 0.8% of young people who had never smoked currently vape).”

ARTICLE LINK:
Vaping better than nicotine replacement therapy for stopping smoking, evidence suggests

“A group of Denver Public School principals want the city to prohibit the sale of all flavored tobacco products. Two dozen middle and high school principals and school directors sent a letter to Mayor Michael Hancock and city councilmembers expressing concerns about widespread e-cigarette use among students. In December of 2019, federal law changed to prohibit anyone younger than 21 years to buy tobacco.”

ARTICLE LINK:   Denver Principals Send City Leaders Letter To End Flavored Tobacco Sales

“After rolling out their respective tobacco taxes in 2020, Pitkin County and Glenwood Springs have enjoyed a healthy amount of sales tax revenue off the purchase of tobacco and nicotine products locally. In Glenwood Springs, its voter-approved tobacco tax generated too much money, city officials have estimated. Although still finalizing 2020’s tobacco tax revenue, Boyd believed Glenwood Springs tax brought in $928,000 last year. Glenwood Springs’ tobacco tax levies $4 on each pack of cigarettes and a 40% tax on all other tobacco and nicotine products sold in the city. Because Glenwood Springs’ ballot question said the tax would collect up to $900,000 in 2020, in accordance with the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or TABOR, the city must rebate the excess $28,000. According to City Attorney Karl Hanlon, city council members will ultimately decide how to rebate the $28,000 back into the community.”

BILL TARLING — Notice how they say they will think of a way to rebate $28,000 back to the community, and not back to the people they overcharged or the vapers they’re pushing back to smoking.

ARTICLE LINK:   Tobacco tax provides big bucks to county, city coffers

“Stakeholders will have 30 days to comment on the proposed U.S. Postal Service rules for mailing electronic nicotine-delivery systems (ENDS). The USPS posted the rules on Wednesday and they were published in the Federal Register today. Comments must be submitted by March 22. The rules are expected to take effect March 27. “The Postal Service proposes to revise Publication 52, Hazardous, Restricted, and Perishable Mail, to incorporate new statutory restrictions on the mailing of electronic nicotine delivery systems,” the listing reads. “Such items would be subject to the same prohibition as cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, subject to many of the same exceptions.””

ARTICLE LINK:   U.S. Postal Service Invites Input on ENDS Restrictions

“Through the first four months after the premarket tobacco applications (PMTA) deadline, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) processed submissions from more than 230 companies. According to a post from Mitch Zeller, director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products (CTP), as of mid-January, the agency completed the processing step of applications for more than 4.8 million products from those companies. After a company submits the application, the FDA begins processing the PMTA to properly receive and prepare it for review. The steps, as Zeller outlined, include physical or electronic intake of the submission and determining the type and number of applications contained in the submission. “One firm submitted information on more than 4 million tobacco products within a single submission. The amount of content in each submission also greatly varied, with some applications including up to 2,000,000 files where each file contains multiple pages of content for FDA to review,” he added. The agency continues to move through the processing steps of the PMTA submissions, and once complete, will release a list of products submitted under all three pathways for FDA approval: PMTA, Substantial Equivalence (SE) and Substantial Equivalence Requests (EX REQ).”

BILL TARLING — The FDA said that they have processed more than 4.8 Million PMTA submissions since September 2020 [i.e. over 5 months processing so far] just do do intake recording of the submissions — they haven’t even reached the Reviewing Stage], and they admit 1 company alone submitted for over 4 million products, and some applications have over 2 million files submitted. Rather turtle paced considering the FDA and Zeller originally said the PMTA would only affect a couple of hundred companies and products. So far the only products being approved are for tobacco company products.

ARTICLE LINK:   FDA Processes Premarket Tobacco Applications for 4.8M Tobacco Products