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- Category: March 2021
Dr. Oyston explains that tobacco kills twice as many people as Covid.
Vaping is much safer than smoking and teens who vape are unlikely to smoke which may be why teen smoking levels are at historically low levels.
Vaping is an effective way to quit smoking.
Unfortunately, the medical establishment sees vaping as a threat and has told lies and overestimated the risk of vaping, acting like anti-vaxxers. [...]
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- Category: March 2021
Gov. Ned Lamont, along with the support of many in the Legislature, wants to legalize adult-use marijuana and sports wagering, in his words, “rather than surrender the market to other states or the black market.” But various flavored tobacco ban proposals making their way through the Legislature would send menthol cigarettes, mint smokeless and vape into those same black markets. What gives? Wherever one stands on marijuana and sports wagering, his points are valid. Legalization would bring both out of the shadows of illegal markets to allow for regulation, enforcement and taxation. [...]
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- Category: March 2021
Canada looked set to embrace tobacco harm reduction, similar to the United Kingdom. At least until July 2019, when a research paper by a group of high-profile public health scholars in the United States, the UK and Canada appeared in the BMJ [...]
The authors concluded that, in Canada as in the US, there was an increase in youth vaping between 2017 and 2018.
It was the typical tale. However, the researchers also determined that in Canada, unlike in the US, there had also been a significant uptick in youth smoking—lending credence to an often-debunked and challenged theory of a “gateway” from vapes to combustible cigarettes.
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- Category: March 2021
Yesterday on the 16th of March, the EU Commission (EC) held a meeting with EU health ministers, in order to present its flagship initiative on cancer to the EU’s health ministers. Documents leaked earlier this month pertaining to the EC’s “Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan” (EBCP), indicated a goal of creating a ‘tobacco-free generation’ by 2040. According to these documents the plan is based on four key pillars: prevention, early diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up care – with seven flagship initiatives and a number of supporting actions.
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- Category: March 2021
The health dangers of smoking cigarettes have been well-documented and, to a large extent, that message has been well-received. The percentage of Americans who smoke has been dropping for decades.
Yet, that trend appears to have taken a hit last year. [...] "Quitting smoking is one of the most difficult things a person can do, and it's hard to quit when everything is going well in life," Linda Bailey, CEO of the North American Quitline Consortium, told The Washington Post.
"The stress and anxiety created by the pandemic really caused people not to be able to think about quitting. They were worried about the pandemic. [...]
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- Category: March 2021
Why Bans of Low-Risk Nicotine Alternatives to Smoking (E.g. Vape or Electronic Cigarettes , Snus, HTP's) in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) Will Do More Harm Than Good.
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- Category: March 2021
A study produced by the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that nearly three-quarters of hospitalized COVID patients were either obese or overweight. At the same time across the European Union, health ministries have put more resources into keeping their populations healthy, using education and incentive programs to encourage children and youth to exercise, eat healthy foods, and more. Several of these initiatives have been funded and promoted by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the chief charity vehicle of American billionaire media executive Michael Bloomberg. [...]
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- Category: March 2021
In recent years, tobacco-free nicotine pouches, which are intended to be placed under the lip, have existed in a grey area with no clear rules or regulations to govern, for example, the warning labels which they must carry or their marketing. The government has therefore assigned to the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs the task of assessing and analysing how such products should be regulated. On 31 March 2021 the results of the analysis will be presented. [...] Sweden has a long tradition of using 'snus', a tobacco product that contains nicotine and is placed under the upper lip.
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- Category: March 2021
Never heard of ‘popcorn lung’ before? If you vape, then there’s a good chance you’re familiar with it. But, it won’t hurt to recap the basics…
Popcorn lung (aka bronchitis obliterans) is a rare type of lung disease, caused by a chemical called diacetyl. Its name originates from the artificial buttery flavour which can be found in popcorn, fruit-flavoured drinks, caramel and some dairy products.
After workers in a popcorn factory became unwell after breathing in the harmful chemical, many leading manufacturers decided to remove it from their products to ensure the safety of their employees and consumers too. [...]
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- Category: March 2021
Previous increases in the use of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) by youth were driven by multiple factors, including advertising, the use of appealing flavors, and the introduction of new devices with prefilled pods or cartridges and high nicotine levels, such as Juul. According to data from the National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS), 19.6% of high school students (3.02 million) and 4.7% of middle school students (550,000) reported current (within the preceding 30 days) e-cigarette use in 2020 — 1.8 million fewer than in 2019. [...]
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- Category: March 2021
The government agency Statistics Canada has found signs that there is a generational difference in nicotine habits among Canadians. Vaping is more popular among the young, while more older people smoke cigarettes.
Vaping is defined as the act of inhaling and exhaling vapour produced by an electronic cigarette, vape mod, vaporizer or vape pen. Some people take up vaping in order to curtail or quit smoking. But the Canadian government’s health departments says vaping can have negative effects. It notes that most products contain nicotine and vaping can lead to nicotine addiction. [...]
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- Category: March 2021
On May 27, 2020, the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease published a statement in anticipation of World No Tobacco Day: Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) should prohibit vapes and heated tobacco products (HTPs). Borrowing COVID-era vernacular, the press release said that “in an abundance of caution, the sale of these products should be banned in LMICs.”
It wasn’t a surprising stance. The influential NGO, headquartered in Paris and colloquially known as the Union, is meant to be “working to improve health for people” in LMICs. [...]
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- Category: March 2021
Health experts and advocates on Wednesday asked senators to raise to 21 or 25 years old the minimum age of persons who may be allowed to purchase or use vape, e-cigarettes and vapor products to curb its harmful effects on minors. The bills [...] propose to prohibit the purchase, sale, distribution and use of such products for children below 18 years old. [...]
“Scientific studies have shown the age of maturation actually occurs at the age of 25 years. Now, if we are thinking of changing the minimum age of purchase maybe what we should do is even increase it to 25 years,” said Philippine College of Physicians executive director and doctor Encarnita Blanco-Limpin.
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- Category: March 2021
In 2020, The International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union), a Bloomberg partner for ‘The Initiative to reduce tobacco use’, published its fourth position statement on e-cigarettes. In it, The Union called for a blanket ban on all electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) and heated tobacco products (HTPs) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
INNCO has developed a report in response to The Union, titled 10 reasons why blanket bans of e-cigarettes and HTPs in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are not fit for purpose.
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- Category: March 2021
New proposals with regards to Korea’s tobacco control policy have drawn international attention following its release at Western Economic Association International (WEAI) Virtual Conference [...] Economists hailing from Korea and abroad convened for a heated debate on the topic of a new direction for tobacco control policy in Korea. Professor Sun-Ku Hahn [...] Kwon Ill-Oong [...] Woo-Hyung Hong and Park Young-bum [...] David Sweanor [...] participated and gave a speech at WEAI to emphasize the need for adopting an inflation-indexed tobacco tax and a differentiated tobacco control policy for each type of product based on the level of harm.
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- Category: March 2021
A vaping trade association has called on the government to relax regulations as part of a consultation on the future of the industry.
UK Vaping Industry Association, whose members include the big tobacco companies, issued a wide-ranging report yesterday recommending an easing of restrictions covering advertising, packaging and product sizes. The proposals to the Department of Health and Social Care include greater advertising freedoms starting with a government-led communications campaign explaining the potential harm reduction of switching from smoking to vaping and the introduction of switching messages on products. [...]
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- Category: March 2021
A recently published Eurobarometer survey reveals widespread ignorance about e-cigarettes. Most people do not smoke or vape and therefore have little reason to educate themselves about these products, [...]
The survey shows that among those who have little or no experience with vaping, only 20 per cent think e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products help smokers quit. [...] The survey does not ask what they mean by ‘harmful’ and no one claims that e-cigarettes are completely risk-free, but there are indications elsewhere that the average member of the public thinks the risks are much greater than they are. [...]
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- Category: March 2021
For years, the tobacco category has been firing up in-store sales for convenience stores, [...] Of course, cigarettes always landed No. 1, but in recent years, other tobacco products (OTPs) have gained favor with consumers. According to NACS, OTPs came in with approximately the same percentage of in-store sales for beer. Now, the tobacco-free modern oral nicotine segment is catching on, too.
The modern oral nicotine category attracts millennials, women and people interested in alternatives. Most items are characterized as spitless and odorless, so there are fewer restrictions where they can be used unlike cigarettes, moist chew and some OTPs. [...]
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- Category: March 2021
Within 30 years there may not be any cigarette smokers left but that doesn’t mean you should avoid tobacco stocks. Quite the opposite in fact, Citigroup analysts argue.
The number of smokers has fallen for the past five decades, largely because of the greater awareness around the dangers of smoking. Other factors have also been at play: the smoking ban in pubs made it a less social activity and huge tax rises have made it almost prohibitively expensive.
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- Category: March 2021
If Health Canada has its way, this year vaping will be dealt three knockout blows that will see, not just the end of the business as we know it, but an increase in smoking-related deaths nation-wide. Ottawa is recalibrating the delicate equilibrium between harm reduction and youth use of nicotine. It plans to introduce a mandatory limit on nicotine concentration in e-cigarettes and to ban most flavours. Maximum permissible content is currently at 66 milligrams per millilitre; the new limit will be 20. Eventually, we will see strike three: excise taxes.