Author: Bill Tarling

“A recently proposed ban on vaping flavors in the Netherlands will endanger public health, according to the Independent European Vape Alliance (IEVA). Around 65 percent of adult vapers in Europe use fruit or sweet liquids. According to the IEVA, the variety of flavors is one of the most important reasons for smokers to switch to e-cigarettes and for vapers not to go back to smoking. Ignoring this fact, the Dutch State Secretary Paul Blokhuis announced a ban on all e-cigarette flavours except tobacco flavors in the Netherlands, to discourage youth smoking. A public consultation on the plan will run until Jan.19, 2021. The vast majority of the comments so far come from vapers and scientists who reject the government’s plan.”

ARTICLE LINK:   Dutch Urged to Ditch Planned Flavor Ban

“As the Maryland General Assembly’s 2021 session gets underway, lawmakers will consider a tax hike bill previously vetoed by Gov. Larry Hogan (R). It has several parts, but the cigarette tax increase should cause some consternation. House Bill 732 would raise cigarette taxes by $1.75 per pack and raise taxes on other products as well. High excise taxes on cigarettes encourages smuggling, but it has other effects, too. One effect is brazen lawlessness that has included retailer and wholesaler thefts, hijackings, violence against people, property and police and public corruption. All of this law enforcement hassle might be worth it if the tax hikes cause smokers to quit in the numbers predicted by some officials, and society gains from improved public health. Frequently we’ve seen lawmakers and others simply point to a decline in the legal purchase of cigarettes and say, “The tax hike worked.” But research shows that up to 85 percent of after-tax hike changes in legal sales may be a function of tax evasion and avoidance and not from quitting.”

NOTE: House Bill 732 Summary: “imposing a sales and use tax rate of 12% on electronic smoking devices”

ARTICLE LINK: A cigarette tax hike in Maryland would increase smuggling

“In what opponents say is part of a larger push this session to pass laws favorable to the tobacco industry, legislators discussed a bill proposal Wednesday that would prevent local governments from regulating nicotine products ingested through devices like electronic cigarettes and vape pens. The proposal, HB 137, would prohibit local governments and the state Department of Public Health and Human Services from regulating “alternative nicotine products or vapor products” used in devices like e-cigarettes. That prohibition would prevent local governments or state health officials from regulating the sale, manufacture, flavoring, marketing, product display, public exposure to and access to those products. It would also define the nicotine products as separate from tobacco products, though the U.S. Food and Drug Administration classifies the devices used to ingest the nicotine solutions as tobacco products. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Ron Marshall, R-Hamilton, owns a vaping retail chain with his wife, Deanna Marshall. He has also sponsored a bill, HB 106, to prohibit expansion of the Montana Clean Indoor Air Act.”

ARTICLE LINK:  Lawmakers debate local nicotine-product prohibitions

““Our sales have increased for every tobacco category except for e-cigarettes, which has been hurt by increased regulation,” said Mike Clifford, category manager for Cliff’s Local Market, owned by Clifford Fuel Co. The company runs 19 convenience stores throughout central New York state. The biggest thing that will impact the tobacco category this year will undoubtedly be FDA premarket tobacco application (PMTA) decisions. The agency has until September to determine which ENDS will be approved for future sales and whether some banned SKUs can return to tobacco backbars. The FDA has not yet published a list of submitted PMTAs”

ARTICLE LINK:  2020 Tobacco Tally

“In 2015, Texan Tommy Lowrance claims he tried vaping once. The professor at McLennan Community College says he is the only person in existence to contract ‘popcorn lung’ and resulted in a “near death” experience. No doctor has been able to confirm Tommy’s self-diagnosis but that hasn’t stopped him from speaking to the press and urging others never to vape. Despite bronchiolitis obliterans (the official name for popcorn lung) being recognised in eight microwave-popcorn factory workers in 2000, not a single case has been attributed to vaping. Tommy spent the intervening years giving lectures to students about his claimed dangers of vaping. Last week he popped back up, this time on KVEO-TV. The truth started to dribble out. Now he admits he spent 20 years smoking prior to switching to vaping.”

ARTICLE LINK:  Man Still Seeks Oxygen of Publicity

“A new paper claims that people vaping instead of smoking are putting their hearts at risk but their study does not show that. Instead, they mixed chemicals in Petri dishes with heart cells and used mice. Both of those are fine exploratory experiments but they are scientifically invalid to make the conclusions the authors make in their press release. It is import that that the public be shown the difference between clinically relevant work and papers that claim relevance while being nothing of the kind. Mice are not little people. No drug can get into the approval cycle at the US Food and Drug Administration if it only studied them or cells in dishes. Yet other parts of the U.S. government continue to promote doubt. The money behind the new study is the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences which, like the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, is funded by your tax dollars and is part of the National Institutes of Health, but do nothing the American public would recognize as science.”

ARTICLE LINK:

Vaping Flavor Chemicals In Huge Quantities Can Damage Heart Cells In A Dish, But Where Is The Human Relevance?

“Before Phoenix leaders take action on a request to ban flavored tobacco, they want more information about enforcement and possible state legislation. During Wednesday’s public safety subcommittee meeting, Swati Rawani, an attorney for Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, said at least 300 localities have placed restrictions on the sale of flavored tobacco and so far they’ve survived all court challenges. “Thus, the City Council has clear authority under federal law to restrict the sale of flavored tobacco products and does not need to wait for either the state or federal action in order to ban such products,” she said. Opponents said federal law already bans tobacco sales to anyone under 21 and they argue a ban on flavored tobacco could lead to an underground market where no one regulates how the products are made. The subcommittee directed staff to research enforcement options, along with bills being proposed at the state Legislature and report back to the group.”

ARTICLE LINK:  Phoenix Weighs Enforcement, State Legislation In Tobacco Debate

“Dr Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, managing editor of Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group and senior research fellow of the University of Oxford, will be discussing the science behind the most common and most successful ways of quitting smoking for good. The talk will be streamed live on YouTube. It takes place on Friday 15th January, between 12:45 pm – 1:15 pm. It is anticipated that Dr Hartmann-Boyce’s talk will include positive statements about vaping.”

ARTICLE LINK:   The Best Ways To Quit

“Researchers at University of California San Diego need to speak to experienced vapers about subohming because taking their guidance from other ignorant self-appointed experts isn’t working out for them. Having poisoned more mice, the team have decided that vaping impacts the colon. Is this how they think vape devices are used? Given the team’s ignorance on how vapers subohm it is highly unlikely that it replicated vaping in adults. Samples of colon were taken once the mice had been killed. “Because the chemicals used to make the e-liquids and e-cig aerosols used in these studies (propylene glycol and glycerol) are found in >99% of all e-cigarettes,” they write, “these data broadly apply to e-cigarettes and vaping devices.” You couldn’t make it up – but they did.”

ARTICLE LINK:   Gut Reactions

“Outlawing the sale of flavored tobacco products for adults would deepen New York State’s budget hole, threaten the survival of thousands of mom-and-pop retailers, and place the jobs of frontline workers at these businesses at risk. That’s the conclusion of an economic study performed by Regional Economic Models Inc. (REMI) for the New York Association of Convenience Stores (NYACS). REMI estimated the proposed action would cost the state $3.4 billion in tax revenue over the next decade, cost shop owners nearly $500 million annually in lost sales, and eliminate 1,200 jobs in retail and related industries.”

ARTICLE LINK:  Study: NY Flavored Tobacco Ban Bad for Businesses, State Coffers