Category: Vaping News

“Community leaders gathered with hundreds of marchers to protest the discriminatory Senate Bill 793. The goal of SB793 is to ban the sale of flavored tobacco, prohibiting e-cigarettes and vaping; however, menthol cigarettes are also included in the band while excluding hookah. If the simple act of a consensual adult purchasing a menthol cigarette becomes a criminal act, then that makes the SB793 a direct hit towards African Americans.”

BILL TARLING — It likely wouldn’t take much to remove [exclude] the menthol tobacco products, and simply carrying on with the full anti-vaping bill flavor ban — although, with the FDA Sept PMTA deadline just ahead, it likely wouldn’t matter since almost all e-liquid vape flavors and companies will be wiped out of business [except for the Big Tobacco companies with their versions of the products, as well as a renewed market for selling their regular cigarettes

ARTICLE LINK:

Community Leaders Come Together Against Racism and Discrimination Protesting Senate Bill 793

““The Evolving Landscape of e-Cigarettes – A Systematic Review of Recent Evidence” was published in Thoracic Oncology CHEST Reviews. The authors relied on a myopic selection of studies to paint a picture of a post-apocalyptic landscape that would make a fitting home for Dark Lord Sauron in Lord Of The Rings. Experts Colin Mendelsohn and Wayne Hall have written to highlight several serious flaws in their work. They cited studies by the likes of recently retracted Stanton Glantz, Lincolnshire’s foremost expert on the art of massage David Bareham, Jessica ‘I will ignore evidence for funding’ Barrington-Trimis, and Andy ‘won’t someone think of the children’ Leventhal. This “evidence” comes from research outcomes that Stanton Glantz invented.”

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Landscape Designers Corrected

““Teens who crave excitement more likely to smoke, use multiple illicit substances,” say researchers who crave funding. The press office at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is claiming this is a ‘new’ study, but it was published and ignored last December. Given that the data they present shows over a fifth of the participants using marijuana products, and almost a fifth confessing to binge drinking, it is hard to see how all of this is caused by or linked to beginning with the 10% who say they have ‘ever’ vaped. A more reasonable explanation would be that those who engage in “risky behaviours” are predisposed to try vaping rather than the other way around. A greater example of conflating causation with correlation you’ll not see.”

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Scientists Who Crave Funding

“Japan Tobacco (JT) has received approval from the Ministry of Finance for its application dated July 31, 2020 to amend retail prices of its Japanese tobacco products. The new retail prices will be effective on Oct. 1, 2020 for a total of 224 products, including 136 cigarette products, 16 cigarillo products, three pipe tobacco products, three cut tobacco products, 18 snuff tobacco products and 48 tobacco vapor products. Under the Tobacco Business Act, list prices for any tobacco products in Japan must be approved by the Ministry of Finance.”

ARTICLE LINK:

Finance Ministry OKs Japan Tobacco Price Increases

“This segment of What’s Ahead tackles the mortally misbegotten campaign against electronic cigarettes. The attacks are factually false. Contrary to the antivaping narrative, e-cigarettes are the best, least harmful way for smokers to give up tobacco. By discouraging smokers from switching to e-cigarettes, antivapers are consigning hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of people to painful, premature death. While a growing number of teenagers vape, they are not moving on to cigarettes. In fact, cigarette smoking among teens has plummeted. Contrary to what happens in the U.S., Britain encourages smokers to switch to vaping. We should do the same.”

VIDEO & ARTICLE LINK:

Vaping Versus Tobacco: The Truth You Need To Know

“There is no link between nicotine in e‐​cigarettes and E‐​cigarette of Vaping Product‐​Use Associated Lung Injury (EVALI). EVALI cases have been traced to vitamin E acetate, used as a solvent for THC in black market vaping products. Flavored vaping products are preferred by adults who switch from combustible tobacco smoking to vaping. Yet none of these facts prevented a federal ban on flavored vaping products from going into effect last February. Not satisfied with a ban on flavored products, vaping opponents are now trying to leverage fear of COVID-19 infection as a means of preventing many adults from choosing to engage in an activity they find pleasurable.”

ARTICLE LINK:

Leveraging the COVID Pandemic to Advance Vapophobia

“The clock is ticking for tobacco companies to file premarket tobacco product applications (PMTAs) with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) and other newly deemed tobacco products. Reynolds American Inc. submitted two PMTAs in mid-April, before the deadline was extended. The Winston-Salem, N.C.-based company is seeking marketing orders for its Vuse Vibe and Vuse Ciro vapor products, which would allow them to remain on the market after the PMTA deadline. The filings include multiple flavor variants for each brand style. Fontem US LLC submitted PMTAs in late April seeking authorization to continue marketing a range of its myblu electronic vaping products. Altria Group Inc. received word in early June that the FDA accepted and filed for substantive review (the second phase of the process) the company’s PMTAs for 35 on! products. To support these applications, Richmond, Va.-based Altria submitted more than 66,000 pages of documentation, including six primary studies. E-Alternative Solutions (EAS) also announced PMTA submissions for its Leap and Leap Go vapor products. The FDA accepted the filings in early July, moving the applications to the substantive review phase of the process. “The substantive review is where our months of hard work assembling more than 100,000 pages of evidence will pay off in supporting our proposition that the Leap and Leap Go products are appropriate for the protection of public health,” said Chris Howard, vice president, general counsel and chief compliance officer at EAS. Juul Labs, which counts Altria as a stakeholder, filed its JUUL System. The application includes detailed scientific data from more than 110 studies totaling more than 125,000 pages evaluating the product’s impact on both current users of tobacco products and nonusers, including those who are underage, according to the San Francisco-based company. 511 Solutions LLC, owner of the PRISM e-liquid line and master distributor, is also seeking FDA approval by filing what it said is the first of many PMTAs for its nicotine-based e-liquid products.”

ARTICLE LINK:

Tobacco Cos. Line Up to File Vapor PMTAs as New Deadline Nears

“As an immediate response to the national panic, several states enacted temporary e-cigarette bans. In Massachusetts, Gov. Charlie Baker forbade the sale or purchase of all vape products for four months starting in late September, making the Bay State one of the most restrictive of the bunch. It basically just banned everything with the word ‘vape’ in it and didn’t consider the consequences of pushing users to the illicit market where evidence was showing the dangerous products were coming from. After it was widely understood that the outbreak was not connected to store-bought nicotine fluids or devices, the Massachusetts Public Health Council lifted the ban in mid-December, while signing off on regulations that work as a de facto flavored vape ban. As of June 1, the new law similarly restricts all flavored tobacco, plus adds a new 75% excise tax on all nicotine vaping products. Regardless of whether there was evidence for the flavor ban or not, it was dishonest that EVALI illnesses were cited as the reason to pass a ban on flavored tobacco. The two things have nothing to do with each other. Public health policy should be evidence-based.”

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C’EST EVALI: HOW DID MASS GET A FLAVORED VAPE AND MENTHOL BAN ANYWAY?

“The Tennessee Voices videocast is a 20-minute program that invites leaders, thinkers and innovators who have written guest columns for a USA TODAY Network. Dimitris Agrafiotis smoked for 23 years, unable to kick the habit despite many attempts and treatment alternatives. That changed when he discovered vaping, or smoking e-cigarettes that vaporize nicotine instead of combusting it like regular cigarettes do. As executive director of the Tennessee Smoke Free Association, he represents “mom-and-pop” vape shops and has worked on regulations as well as fighting myths and threats to their businesses.”

ARTICLE LINK:

Tennessee Voices, Episode 79: Dimitris Agrafiotis, Tennessee Smoke Free Association

NOTE: Extensive list and links to the latest research, reports, and studies released for the month are at the end of the article

“The UK E-Cigarette Research Forum (UKECRF) is an initiative developed by Cancer Research UK in partnership with Public Health England (PHE) and the UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies (UKCTAS). Among other things, it brings together genuine experts to look at research related to vaping and tobacco harm reduction.”

ARTICLE LINK:

UKECRF Research Roundup