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- Category: November 2021
The debate gets heated as public health expert Dr. Michael Siegel shares that e-cigarettes have helped 20 percent of people quit smoking, which the president of Tobacco-Free Kids Matt Myers disagrees with because he says the majority of smokers are dual-users.
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- Category: November 2021
Vaping damages people's DNA - just like conventional cigarettes, warns new research.
The chemical alterations - called epigenetic changes - can cause genes to malfunction. They are found in nearly all types of cancer as well as other serious diseases. A similar pattern was identified between e-cig users and conventional smokers.
Lead author Professor Ahmad Besaratinia, of the University of Southern California, said: "Our study, for the first time, investigates the biological effects of vaping in adult e-cigarette users, while simultaneously accounting for their past smoking exposure.
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- Category: November 2021
This month, the World Health Organisation (WHO) held two virtual meetings relating to its mission to eliminate illicit trade in tobacco products, [...] But those titles are misleading: key stakeholders were shut out of the conversation. As is now typical of the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), key parties were excluded from these vital conversations. The media was shut out, as was law enforcement. Countless organizations and individuals with potential insight into the issue, such as scientists, were excluded because of alleged distant connections to tobacco interests.
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- Category: November 2021
When they first appeared in the United States in the mid-2000s, “electronic nicotine delivery systems” — e-cigarettes, vapes, e-liquids and other wares that contain the stimulant found in tobacco — were subject to little federal oversight. Their makers could incorporate countless other ingredients and flavorings. Like cigarettes before them, the devices proved extremely attractive to young people; in 2018, the surgeon general declared youth vaping an “epidemic” and noted that one in five high schoolers and one in 20 middle schoolers used e-cigarettes. [...]
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- Category: November 2021
Most adult vapers of non-tobacco flavoured e-cigarettes overwhelmingly oppose flavour restrictions, according to a recent study.
The study, conducted by the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project at the University of Waterloo, examined whether regular vapers from Canada, England and the United States who only use non-tobacco flavoured e-cigarettes, would support or oppose a ban on all non-tobacco flavours and how they would potentially respond to such a policy.
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- Category: November 2021
Australia’s drugs regulator has fined four individuals and companies more than $170,000 for unlawfully advertising or importing vaping products, with one company hit with more than $100,000 in infringement notices. [...] Since the new laws kicked in, websites have emerged offering to link vapers to a health practitioner authorised to prescribe the products. But the new laws only allow pharmacies and pharmacy-marketing groups to advertise in a very limited way. Non-pharmacy websites which advertise vaping products, or advertise links to online suppliers, are likely to be non-compliant with the nicotine advertising permissions.
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- Category: November 2021
People who use e-cigarettes are more prone to fractures, warn scientists.
Lead investigator Dr Dayawa Agoons said: ‘To our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the relationship between e-cigarette use and fragility fractures.
‘It fills an important knowledge gap given the increasing popularity of e-cigarette use and the significant economic burden and known morbidity and mortality associated with osteoporotic fractures. ‘Our findings provide data to inform researchers, healthcare policy-makers and tobacco regulators about the potential association of e-cigarette use with reduced bone health.’
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- Category: November 2021
Key Tatarstan experts in the fight against smoking are unhappy with the anti-tobacco campaign’s pace. Though the number of smokers anyway falls, noted vice chief doctor for medical affairs of the Republican Drug Clinic, [...] Rezeda Khayeva. At the same time, the popularity of vapes and other trendy ways of smoking seriously increased. Some health workers spreading fakes about the benefit of smoking in the fight against coronavirus complicate the fight too. According to Kazan’s chief pulmonologist Rustem Khamitov, some doctors in red zones of COVID-19 hospitals of the republic believe: “We don’t fall ill because we smoke!”
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- Category: November 2021
E-cigarette giant Juul Labs will pay Arizona $14.5 million and vowed not to market to young people in the state to settle a consumer fraud lawsuit.
The settlement announced by Attorney General Mark Brnovich Tuesday is the second Juul has reached with state prosecutors. It ends litigation the Republican U.S. Senate candidate filed in January 2020 against Juul and another maker of electronic cigarettes, alleging they illegally targeted young people in their marketing. [...]
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- Category: November 2021
Taxes and advertising restrictions may have contributed to a decline in the number of people using tobacco of 20 million over five years, but more investment is needed to persuade users to quit, says the WHO. [...] Luke Allen, a clinical research fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, tells SciDev.Net that "implementation of effective tobacco policies is making the biggest contribution—think of taxes, plain packaging, advertising bans—along with shifting cultural values."
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- Category: November 2021
It often comes up in the crosshairs of politicians and political editorialists, who see it as an opportunity to mix up many subjects.
Unfortunately, this is sometimes what happens when it comes to the legality of CBD in The UK.
Confused with cannabis, cannabidiol is, however, not the same substance. This is why it is necessary to take stock of the legality of these products in the UK.
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- Category: November 2021
In an era when so much is known about the dangers of cigarettes and other tobacco products, it may be surprising to some just how many individuals still struggle to abstain from smoking.
Whether it is people who grew up in a time when less was known about the ill effects of smoking, or younger individuals — who can’t imagine being impacted in such a negative way — giving in to the often misleading advertisements and peer pressure has the potential to turn one cigarette into a lifelong habit with deadly outcomes.
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- Category: November 2021
Death from a heart attack or stroke may be the first cardiovascular disease (CVD) event in some people who smoke cigarettes and CVD is the leading adverse health effect among smokers, according to new research. [...] "There is often more awareness and concern about cancer as a result of smoking than heart disease, so we wanted to better define the risks of smoking-related to different types of cardiovascular disease and, most importantly, to cardiovascular death," said lead study author Sadiya S. Kahn, MD, M Sc, an assistant professor of medicine in the division of cardiology at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.
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- Category: November 2021
Swedish MEP Sara Skyttedal remains critical of the European Commission’s continued unwillingness to recognise the potential for snus and other harm reduction alternatives for reducing tobacco-related mortality as part of the EU’s beating cancer plan.
Work on the EU’s plan for beating cancer continues ahead of a European Parliament vote on amendments planned for December 6th. One of the plan’s main priorities is to “ensure that less than 5% of the population uses tobacco by 2040”.
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- Category: November 2021
Synthetic nicotine has been on the radar of state-level and federal lawmakers in the past, but never with the mainstream traction it’s received in the past few weeks. Despite decreasing youth vaping rates, it has quickly morphed into the next target for policymakers.
On November 16, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein launched an investigation into Puff Bar, the disposable vape producer that recently switched to using synthetic nicotine and appears to have surpassed Juul as the popular e-cigarette among teens. [...]
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- Category: November 2021
The current debate on tobacco harm reduction in Malaysia is unbalanced, with far too great an emphasis on taxation and the state’s role in dictating the health of its citizens.
In a paper published recently by the Property Rights Alliance (International Best Practices for Tobacco and Nicotine Public Policy), which we co-authored with three Malaysian economists (Benedict Weerasena, Abel B Lim and Fariq Sazuki), we stressed how policymaking should instead be focused on respecting freedom and choice, while allowing innovation to thrive to produce better options for consumers.
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- Category: November 2021
One of the many goals of the Build Back Better plan is to improve the health of the public. Yet members of Congress have undermined that goal by including a tax on nonconventional nicotine products, including e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches, but not raising taxes on cigarettes.
The tax on e-cigarettes is undoubtedly well-intentioned. Legislators rightly share the public’s concerns about widespread youth vaping and about some manufactures’ despicable marketing of e-cigarettes to children. [...]
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- Category: November 2021
The horribly misguided smoking and vaping ban in Philadelphia’s city-funded drug treatment programs, including outdoor spaces, has finally been lifted.
The ban was passed in 2018 and implemented in 2019 by the city’s Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services (DBHIdS). It applied to 80 inpatient addiction treatment programs, including nine detox facilities, 32 short-term and 31 long-term rehabilitation programs, and eight halfway houses.
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- Category: November 2021
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.
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- Category: November 2021
BETWEEN tobacco tax and public health, the government's choice is clear — money.
Taxes from tobacco fund public health programs anyway.
This was essentially the message that the Philippine delegation to the recently concluded ninth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP9) [...] "Taxes of a vice are called salutary. They fund useful and beneficial purposes," read the delegation's statement, delivered by Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr., at the opening of the six-day virtual conference on November 8.
Because of this, health experts have declared that "public health is under attack by the tobacco industry and its proxies," [...]