Category Archives: Vaping

As kids begin a new school year, its important for parents to understand the prevalence of vaping in Utah and talk to their kids about the dangers of vaping.

Vape pens and e-cigarettes look like schools supplies so theyre easily disguised as things they are taking to school in their backpack.

1 in 5 Utah high schoolers use e-cigarettes. Despite what is written on the vape product packaging, a study showed 99% of e-cigarettes contain nicotine. Nicotine harms the developing brain and puts youth at increased risk for addiction to other drugs. Nicotine use in adolescence can affect attention, learning, mood, and impulse control.

The e-cigarette aerosol that users breathe from the device contains harmful substances. Believe it or not, children and teens listen to their parents. In fact, studies have shown that when parents talk to their children and express strong disapproval about vaping, they are less likely to try it. Just remember you can make a difference.

Here are some tips for talking to your teen about vaping:

There are a few signs and things parents can look for to see if their child is vaping:

Parents can visit the website to find more information and tools to help their teen quit.

*Sponsored Content.

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Teens and Vaping: What you need to know to help them stop. - ABC 4

Retail sales of tobacco and vape products could be banned in Laguna Beach, a city which was the first in Orange County to end smoking in public places in 2017.

Editors Note: This dispatch is part of the Voice of OC Youth Media program, working with student journalists to cover public policy issues across Orange County. If you would like to submit your own student media project related to Orange County civics or if you have any response to this work, contact Digital Editor Sonya Quick atsquick@voiceofoc.org.

The City Council is expected to begin discussions Tuesday on whether to ban such sales and consider directing staff to study the issue and potentially return with an ordinance for the council to consider at a later date, according to a city staff report.

In May 2017, the council voted to prohibit the public use of all smoking products including tobacco, nicotine and marijuana devices. That ordinance expanded smoking regulations to include all public places.

Council member George Weiss has requested a discussion on ending retail sales of tobacco and vaping products within city limits. In a telephone interview last week, Weiss said when he walked the citys streets during his run for City Council last year, he noticed a substantial number of cigarette and e-cigarette debris on the ground and thought why are we promoting something that kills people?

Weiss emphasized the advantages of a ban, specifying the health and safety benefits for both individuals and the community.

When (people with respiratory illnesses) are exposed to secondhand smoke, its more than an inconvenience, he said.

Weiss also mentioned there are environmental considerations.

Environmental impacts including people smoking on trails and leaving lit butts near wildlife do more damage than individuals realize, he said.

In 2014, Laguna Niguel banned the use of electronic cigarettes in recreational areas. Laguna Beach became the first Orange County city to ban all smoking in public places in 2017, with Dana Point following shortly after.

In 2019, Laguna Niguel prohibited the retail sale of flavored electronic cigarette products, the first in Orange County to do so.

Since Beverly Hills and Manhattan Beach passed bans on retail tobacco sales in the past two years, Weiss said he is recommending one for Laguna Beach as well, but he would like to see cigar stores excluded.

We would ask staff to look at the economic impact on the 16 or so stores that sell these products and paraphernalia. We wouldnt target the cigar stores (they) would likely be exempt, but thats up to the council to decide. We would look at what the other two cities have done I dont want to put anybody out of business. I think itll have a minimal impact on that, Weiss adds.

According to the city staff report, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has noted the detriments of smoking, such as threats to public health through direct use, as well as through secondhand smoke. Many people are involuntarily exposed to over 7,000 chemicals in all public settings, including beaches, according to the CDC.

The City Council is scheduled to meet at 5 p.m. on Tuesday. The meeting can be viewed on the citys website.

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Laguna Beach to Discuss Ending Retail Sales of Tobacco and Vaping Products - Voice of OC

On October 4, Governor Gavin Newsom approved a 12.5 percent excise tax on vaping products in California.

The bill, authored by Democratic State Senator Anna Caballero, intends to tax vaping products at a rate closer to cigarettes and, runs the theory, consequently discourage youth vaping. According to The Los Angeles Times, its projected that the tax will yield $38.4 million in revenue by 2023, with money to be split among several programs, including early childhood education, public health education and grants to students from disadvantaged communities pursuing an education in the health field.

One can only hope that these programs will teach students better science and economic than their creators have displayed. The usual criticism on vape taxes apply: Because cigarettes and vapes are substitute goods, as the logic should go, the former should be taxed more than the latter, in order to incentivize people to switch to a less harmful alternative. California also has a wholesale tax for vape distributors around 60 percent, though customers may not have necessarily experienced the burden.

Most manufacturers that have had to collect or remit the wholesale tax decided not to push it onto the retailers and consumers and ate it, Stefan Didak, a tobacco harm reduction (THR) advocate in California, told Filter. Part of that was because its more economical for them to fiddle with it and only calculate the tax on the portion of nicotine itself going into a bottle, and the other was for competitive reasons.

As a result, he explained, the actual impact has not been felt in the state by consumers. However, with this 12.5 percent retail tax, it certainly will be felt.

THR proponents, vape producers and consumer advocates have already been on high alert: A version of a new federal tax proposal, which circulated around Washington in mid-September, would raise the tax rate on e-cigarettes to parity with tobacco, making them more costly than lethal combustibles. Specifically, the proposed tax per 1,000 cigarettes would be increased to $100.66and vaping products would be taxed at this same rate, with 1,000 cigarettes equal to 1,810 milligrams of nicotine. (Early estimates by critics and tax reformists, for example, calculated that a four-pack of Juul pods would be taxed around $9, whereas a pack of cigarettes would only be taxed around $2.)

With these sorts of state taxes, and federal ones still threatened, California would become one of theleast affordable states for vapers. Still harsher local policies appear to have backfired, even as nationwide youth vaping rates declined again in 2021: A study published in JAMA Pediatricsfound that after San Franciscos ban on flavored vapor and tobacco products, teenagers in the citys high schools were more likely to take up smoking compared to teenagers in other school districts.

But a less discussed aspect of new the tax leaves California vape producers in a potential legal bindand shows how the battle for THR will be waged on various fronts in the US. Thats because atypically, Californias tax code defines tobacco products as including, but not limited to, a product containing, made, or derived from tobacco or nicotinemeaning that these excise and wholesale taxes explicitly apply to synthetic nicotine.

This could weigh against a loophole that manufacturers have been consideringone that could give vapers an option other than turning to a cheaper and likely riskier illicit market.

Its a state-level policy departure from the feds. As the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) considers which vape products to deny and authorize through its premarket tobacco product application (PMTA) process, many small- and medium-sized producers, particularly of flavored products, have already been denied. Some of these manufacturers, frustrated by an arduous and expensive PMTA process that favors large companies, are turning to synthetic nicotinewhich, because it is not derived from tobacco, is understood to be outside the FDAs current jurisdiction.

The agencys definition of a tobacco product as anything made or derived from tobacco that is intended for human consumption, including any component, part, or accessory of a tobacco product, (emphasis my own) appears to preclude synthetic nicotine.

In short, Californias policies could weigh against a loophole that manufacturers have been consideringone that could give vapers an option other than turning to a cheaper and likely riskier illicit market.

Taxes aside, synthetic nicotine is expensive, as the process for producing it on an industrial scale remains difficult. For manufacturers, its something of a last resort to stay in business. Yet the new taxes could plausibly create a situation in which vape producers in California, increasingly employing synthetic nicotine to avoid the FDAs crosshairs, could have to pull back from this work-around.

Unfortunately, I have already observed some e-liquid manufacturers in the state expressing an intent to adapt to synthetic nicotine and mistakenly believe it is entirely unregulated and untaxed, Didak said. The last thing anyone would want is to see the powers of the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration used against small businesses because it presents an easier enforcement mechanism. Just like it did back in the days of alcohol prohibition where those caught were because of tax evasion more so than anything else.

The war on vaping is expanding at a rapid pace and all vaping productswhether they contain synthetic nicotine or are just standalone devices intended to be used with CBD or THCare going to get caught up in the rush to pass prohibitive and restrictive legislation, Greg Conley, the president of the American Vaping Association (AVA), told Filter.

Photograph by Todd Jones via Flickr/Creative Commons 2.0

The Influence Foundation, which operates Filter, has received unrestricted grants from Juul and donations from AVA. Filters Editorial Independence Policy applies.

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New California Vape Taxes Will Put the Squeeze on Synthetic Nicotine - Filter

The future is here, and its a robot that vapes.

Science fiction promised us robots that can do housework, fight wars and recycle our trash, but this may be the weirdest robo-task.

Of course, studying vaping is actually quite important. In Pennsylvania alone, one in four high school students has vaped in the past 30 days.

Much of whats in the liquid e-cigarette mixes is unknown, and constantly changing. For example, theres a DIY-eJuice Reddit page with 70,000 members (many in their teens), who share their recipes for flavors ranging from peanut butter to stroopwafel. Even nicotine-free vaping mixtures can feature compounds that damage the lungs.

So, enter the vaping robot.

Researchers at Pitt led by Dr. Kambez Benam, a visiting associate professor of medicine, have created a robotic simulator for the lungs and associated systems. The robot can study how different vaping mixtures impact what a person inhales, and how it contributes to the vapors toxicity in the body.

Dr. Kambez Benam is an associate professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh.

The details about the systems design were published in the scientific journal iScience this week. The technology is owned by Pneumax, LLC.

The idea comes from this mystery lung disease that came around about two years ago, where people were going into hospitals and they dont know exactly whats happening, says Benam. And then they found out they had a vaping history; they were smoking electronic cigarettes. And then the more kind of insight into that came that they were smoking electronic cigarettes that had Vitamin E Acetate and cannabinoid products, like THC, etc.

So when this happened, we thought, OK, what if we try to develop a system that we can actually predict when theres a modification or change into an electronic cigarette, to see what happens Basically, can we get insight into potential toxicity of these products.

You cant just play around with adding and subtracting different vape juice combinations and test it on people, so Benams team at Pitt built a device that would simulate possible impacts of various e-liquid combinations without needing clinical subjects.

Heres what theyve learned so far, according to Benam:

Dont assume that if something is safe to take orally or put on the skin, like Vitamin E Acetate, is safe to inhale. Its not the case.

Electronic cigarettes are harmful. Theyre not safe.

We need to have better ways to understand all these new products that come into market, what potential they have to cause damage to us particularly people in middle school, high school and younger kids.

The robot combines multiple components to accurately simulate the breathing pattern of a person who vapes an e-cigarette and vaping behavior.

Vaping is being studied across the country. In 2009, President Obama established the Center for Tobacco Products within the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), whose purview was expanded to cover any electronic nicotine delivery system. Benams robot is supported by funding from the FDA.

Thats not to say that its easy for the government to keep up.

Its a field thats evolving, so it can change almost on a day-to-day basis, says Benam. For us as investigators and scientists, were interested to understand not just the regulatory aspect, but also the biology, the pathology, the disease aspect of exposure.

Benam has lived on three continents, and has degrees from Newcastle University and Oxford University in England, and attended Harvard Medical School and the University of Colorado before landing at Pitt.

The robotic system is quite complex, regulating and measuring everything from inhalation and exhalation to the humidity present in the human body.

It creates fresh vapor from electronic cigarettes, diluted with normal air that you would otherwise have inhaled into the lungs, mimics the rib cage so your lungs go in and out, says Benam. And then at the end of it, it has sensors that can measure what sort of particles have been generated.

So far, hes calling the robot HUMITIPAA, which stands for Human Vaping Mimetic Real-Time Particle Analyzer. (It doesnt exactly roll off the tongue like Vape Bot.)

electronic cigarettesKambez BenampittPneumaxrobot vapesUniversity of Pittsburgh School of Medicinevapingvaping robot

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Pitt develops robot that vapes to study health impacts of e-cigarettes - NEXTpittsburgh

Plastered with eye-catching slogans and stirring photographs of young activists, ex-New York mayor and billionaire Michael Bloombergs Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK) website boasts a virtuous protection scheme for future generations of poorer countries by promising to Advance Health Equity and Save Lives. The campaign seems to want to make everything in the world better, praising itself for taking on the toughest fights. Surely this is enough to touch the heart of even the most cynical among us.

Yet, Bloombergs campaign appears to be behind the push from unaccountable global forces to ban e-cigarettes the proven, safer alternative to smoking. This movement is a direct attack on public health and will achieve little in reducing tobacco-related deaths.

As to be expected, the scheme has little to do with dragging children out of poverty and saving peoples lives, and much more to do with wrapping poorer countries (which have less money to spend on healthcare) around their well-polished and unscrutinized fingers.

Naturally, the CTFK website is packed with evidence from the World Health Organization (WHO), to whom Bloomberg Philanthropies, the parent company of CTFK, has donated $1 billion towards its tobacco harm reduction initiatives. Its an NGO match made in Heaven.

Take Mexico, for example. Was it a coincidence that supposedly pro-cannabis advocate President Lpez Obrador announced a stringent vaping ban after his health secretary commissioned Bloomberg to advise on the matter of vaping? Given that the smoking rate in Mexico peaked in 2019, and the vast evidence in countries such as the UK that e-cigarettes are an invaluable tool for smoking cessation, youd have thought that President Obrador would have encouraged the use of e-cigarettes. Seemingly not. Bloomberg appears to have used his monetary influence as a manipulative tool and has become some sort of independent government advisor, implementing his agenda with little scrutiny.

Moreover, the Mexican government should perhaps look over at the Philippines, who are now exposing Bloomberg for his moralistic strings that he attached to the funding of their healthcare initiatives. The same thing has happened in Vietnam after they received $2.3 billion. Some may still call it the toughest fights, others, more appropriately, might call it exploitation, or blackmail.

Not only does such coercive bribery highlight the menacing nature of NGO influence on elected governments in economically vulnerable states, but it also ignores a serious issue of public health. Mexico suffers from 141 smoking-related deaths per day, costing its healthcare system billions of dollars per year. But of course, the logical move is to ban one of the most reliable forms of quitting, because Bloomberg said so.

Bloombergs unwarranted influence also stifles the innovation of safer non-combustible products which would only aid these economies. In the UK, where vaping is recommended by the National Health Service as a means of quitting, more and more small, independent vape businesses are popping up on the high street, as well as family-run corner shops stocking vape products. We have the second-lowest smoking rates in the EU, with vape sales pumping 450 million into our economy and the NHS. These can only be good things, especially given the context of economic recovery post-pandemic.

By aiding these harmful bans, Bloomberg, with the WHO in his pocket, is creating a toxic regime of private governance. It creates fear where it is not needed over safer smoking alternatives, brings harm to innocent citizens, and exploits economic weaknesses.

It must be said, Im sure they would adore a meeting with yours truly, a female ex-smoker and a loyal vaper they can do their toughest work on to save me from slipping into the sexist tropes promoted by the tobacco and vaping industries they claim are so prominent.

We must call on European countries to lead by example and reject the influence of organizations seeking to dictate policy directions under the guise of objective science. The WHO is no longer a soft power if every country that turns to it is financially motivated to adopt its harmful policy recommendations.

If you're interested in writing for International Policy Digest - please send us an email via submissions@intpolicydigest.org

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Bloomberg's Anti-Vaping Policies are Exploitative and Wrong - International Policy Digest

The FDA has previously approved new tobacco products from three companies, for which it was happy to accept more general evidence than it currently is.

Despite shifting the PMTA deadline back and forth numerous times, leaving the smaller vape companies unprepared, over 500 businesses (most of which are small) managed to meet the deadline. In total, over 6.5 million Premarket Tobacco Applications were submitted, one for each product from every brand and any slight variation of it.

A blog on Competitive Enterprise Institutes website highlighted that this was way over the 25 applications a year the FDA initially expected. Perhaps that explains why the FDA now seems intent on coming up with excuses to issue sweeping denials and whittle that number down to a size it can handle, reads the blog.

The first batch of rejections came in early August 2021, when the FDA announced that it would not even review the 4.5 million applications from the same company, JD Nova, on grounds that they did not include an adequate Environmental Assessment. At the end of the same month, the agency issued marketing denial orders, or MDOs, for applications related to flavoured vaping products (55,000 from one company and 800 from another), based on the excuse that these failed to provide product-specific scientific evidence to demonstrate enough of a benefit to adult smokers that would overcome the risk posed to youth.

The agency added that such evidence, would likely be in the form of a randomized controlled trial or longitudinal cohort study, though it leaves room for other types of evidence if sufficiently robust and reliable.

However all this came as a shock to say the least, as over the last six years, the FDA has approved new tobacco products from three companies, for which it was happy to accept more general evidence about the product categorys appeal to adults and youth, as well as their general risks to public health.

These approvals included eight varieties of Swedish Match North Americas snus, PMIs heated tobacco product, IQOS, and reduced nicotine cigarettes made by 22nd Century Group. All of this came as a surprise to the vapor industry, which, after years of requests for clearer guidance from the FDA, was never told that the agency was uninterested in more general evidence about the safety of e-cigarette ingredients, products, or their efficacy in reducing risk to adult smokers. One reason they couldnt have known this is because it isnt the standard to which the FDA has held other tobacco products that have successfully completed its pre-approval process, read the blog about the applicants who got rejected.

Meanwhile, a recent release by ECigIntelligence who analysed data from over 6 million submissions received by the FDA, highlighted that this analysis shows that there were many hundreds more applications for the simpler disposable and cigalike devices than for open system hardware. These type of products tend to come from large companies such as tobacco manufacturers, while open systems tend to be produced by smaller specialist businesses.

Of some 200 open system brands available today, only about 30 have filed PMTA applications to the FDA. Even if all these are approved, that disparity implies that about 85% of open system hardware brands will soon be removed from the market. This may indicate the discouragement non-tobacco companies face when applying for PMTA approval, said ECigIntelligence managing director, Tim Phillips.

The US FDA Moves Bantam PMTAs Into Formal Scientific Review

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The FDA's Bias Against The Vape Industry Emerges During The PMTA Process The FDA's Bias Against The Vape Industry Emerges During The PMTA Process -...

Back in August, the Council on Smoking and Health said government statistics have shown that teenagers in Hong Kong use the products more often than adults. Council chairman Henry Tong Sau-chai had added that the public at large agrees on a total ban of the products. However, it has been almost three years since the policy address first announced a ban on alternative smoking products, he said.

The councilman added that health risks associated with the use of heated tobacco products (HTPs) have been proven by scientists worldwide. However, he failed to add that countless independent studies have shown that they are substantially safer than regular cigarettes.

Subsequently, Hong Kongs largest party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress (DAB), has also voiced its support for the measure. DAB member and chairman of the Bills Committee on Smoking, Wong Ting-kwong, said he has been asked to host a meeting so that the government can finalize its stance and decide on whether or not to ban the products.

Given the lack of success the vape ban in Australia has had in decreasing smoking rates, Hong Kong should think twice about implementing theirs.

Smoking rates in Australia have risen by over 21,000 to 2.4 million between 2013 and 2016. For the first time ever, there has been no statistically significant reduction in the smoking rate, and an increase in the number of smokers in Australia, said renowned public health Colin Mendelsohn back in 2017.

The public health expert who is an advocate for the use of safer nicotine alternatives for harm reduction, pointed out that clearly the punitive and coercive approach that the country has adopted, is not working. Supporting his arguments, is data from the UK, where the opposite approach has been adopted and smoking rates have reached an all time low.

To this effect, says the article on the Post, while vaping may not be the ideal way to quit smoking, discarding it when it may be the most effective method to do so, is nonsensical. Vaping nicotine is one of the most effective means of quitting smoking. Its not perfect not consuming nicotine at all is preferable but it is vastly safer than inhaling smoke into the lungs. It is not the nicotine that causes lung and heart disease, but the thousands of other chemicals in smoke.

Read Further: The Standard

Asia Harm Reduction Group Welcomes Hong Kongs Vape Ban Termination

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Hong Kong is Getting Closer to Banning Vaping and Heated Tobacco Products Hong Kong is Getting Closer to Banning Vaping and Heated Tobacco Products -...

Adolescents who vape cannabis are at greater risk for respiratory symptoms indicative of lung injury than teens who smoke cigarettes or marijuana, or vape nicotine, a new University of Michigan study suggests.

The result challenges conventional wisdom about vaping nicotine, says the studys principal investigator, Carol Boyd, the Deborah J. Oakley Collegiate Professor Emerita at the U-M School of Nursing.

I thought that e-cigarettes (vaping nicotine) would be the nicotine product most strongly associated with worrisome respiratory symptoms, she said. Our data challenges the assumption that smoking cigarettes or vaping nicotine is the most harmful to the lungs. If we control for vaping cannabis in our analyses, we find there is a weaker relationship between e-cigarette or cigarette use and respiratory symptoms when compared to vaping cannabis.

Boyd, who also co-directs U-Ms Center for Drugs, Alcohol, Smoking and Health, stressed that the findings do not mean that vaping nicotine or smoking cigarettes or marijuana are not bad for you. These products also produce symptoms of lung injury, but not to the same degree as vaping marijuana, she said.

In short, it is all bad but if you also vape cannabis you have a greater number of unhealthy respiratory symptoms than if you just smoke cigarettes or marijuana, or vape e-cigarettes, Boyd said. Without a doubt, cigarettes and e-cigarettes are unhealthy and not good for lungs. However, vaping marijuana appears even worse.

Boyd and colleague Philip Veliz, U-M research assistant professor of nursing, wanted to explore the association of unhealthy respiratory symptoms among U.S. adolescents currently using cigarettes, e-cigarettes or cannabis and who had vaped cannabis within their lifetime.

Adolescents who reported vaping marijuana were roughly twice as likely to report wheezing and whistling in the chest than those who did not. Current use of cigarettes, e-cigarettes and cannabis were associated with some respiratory symptoms, such as dry cough, but most associations were not significant after controlling for vaping cannabis.

The researchers also found that an asthma diagnosis was most strongly associated with symptoms of future lung injury than cigarettes, e-cigarettes, cannabis use and vaping cannabis.

One study limitation is that the researchers did not look at co-use of vaping cannabis and the use of cigarettes or e-cigarettes.

Future studies need to assess if it is the combination of vaping both nicotine and cannabis that is creating so many respiratory issues, Veliz said. It may be the combination of vaping cannabis along with smoking cigarettes is what leads to the high rates of respiratory symptoms among youthful marijuana vapers.

Boyd and Veliz looked at self-reported symptoms from a sample of adolescents ages 12-17 years, from the 2016-2018 Wave of the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health Study. Symptoms were: wheezing and whistling in the chest; sleep disturbed or speech limited due to wheezing; sounded wheezy during or after exercise; and dry cough at night not associated with chest illness or infection.

The study is scheduled to appear in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

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Vaping marijuana associated with more symptoms of lung ...

Vaping is linked to a substantially increased risk of COVID-19 among teenagers and young adults, according to a new study led by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

The study, which was published online Aug. 11 in the Journal of Adolescent Health, is the first to examine connections between youth vaping and COVID-19 using U.S. population-based data collected during the pandemic.

Among young people who were tested for the virus that causes COVID-19, the research found that those who vaped were five to seven times more likely to be infected than those who did not use e-cigarettes.

Teens and young adults need to know that if you use e-cigarettes, you are likely at immediate risk of COVID-19 because you are damaging your lungs, said the studys senior author, Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, PhD, professor of pediatrics.

Young people may believe their age protects them from contracting the virus or that they will not experience symptoms of COVID-19, but the data show this isnt true among those who vape, said the studys lead author, postdoctoral scholar Shivani Mathur Gaiha, PhD.

This study tells us pretty clearly that youth who are using vapes or are dual-using [e-cigarettes and cigarettes] are at elevated risk, and its not just a small increase in risk; its a big one, Gaiha said.

Data were collected via online surveys conducted in May. Surveys were completed by 4,351 participants ages 13 to 24 who lived in all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and three U.S. territories. The researchers recruited a sample of participants that was evenly divided between those who had used e-cigarettes and those who had never used nicotine products. The sample also included approximately equal numbers of people in different age groups (adolescent, young adult and adult), races and genders.

Participants answered questions about whether they had ever used vaping devices or combustible cigarettes, as well as whether they had vaped or smoked in the past 30 days. They were asked if they had experienced COVID-19 symptoms, received a test for COVID-19 or received a positive diagnosis of COVID-19 after being tested.

The results were adjusted for confounding factors such as age, sex, LGBTQ status, race/ethnicity, mothers level of education, body mass index, compliance with shelter-in-place orders, rate of COVID-19 diagnosis in the states where the participants were residing, and state and regional trends in e-cigarette use.

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Vaping linked to COVID-19 risk in teens and young adults ...

The letter asks the WHO to end its war on vaping and other alternatives to smoking, which have been identified by science as effective smoking cessation tools. Discussing the letter, Michael Landl, the director of the World Vapers Alliance (WVA), one of the organisations behind the letter, explained that millions of lives could be saved if the WHO would change its stance.

The WHO has an opportunity to beat smoking for good but instead they choose to turn their guns on vaping and other tools that can reduce the harm of tobacco. The WHO routinely ignores the wealth of scientific evidence pointing to the benefits of these products and the first-hand experience of millions of citizens who have quit smoking for good. Restricting or banning access to vaping, nicotine pouches, snus, and other products will do nothing but cost lives. Millions of lives could be saved if the WHO was really serious about beating smoking.

The WHOs global COP 9 conference, taking place this November, is known to be blindly against vaping and is tragically known to have a great influence on anti-smoking and vaping policies worldwide. Sadly, the COP9s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) protocol is know to have lost sight of its core objective of reducing smoking, and has become increasingly focused on fighting access to less harmful alternatives that are actually helping millions of smokers worldwide quit smoking.

200 million lives worldwide could be saved, but as it stands it looks like COP9 will be another anti-science and anti-consumer WHO charade. It is time to actually deliver on the FCTC commitment to tobacco harm reduction by endorsing harm reduction products, said Landl.

Meanwhile in Asia, in the lead up to the 13th Asia Pacific Conference on Tobacco or Health (APACT) which took place virtually from Bangkok earlier this month, the 11 members of organizations of the Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA), signed a declaration promoting THR.

September marks the start of the secret season which sadly sees supposed tobacco control experts playing up to their puppet masters and denying Asia Pacifics 600 million smokers access to safer nicotine products, said CAPHRA Executive Coordinator Nancy Loucas.

APACT presented a line up of speakers renowned for their irrational stance on THR. APACT has wheeled out a totally predictable programme and line up of speakers who share an irrational and untenable position against safer nicotine products such as vaping. Also, in common is that many, if not most, are longtime Bloomberg grant recipients or indirect beneficiaries. Preaching to themselves in their echo chamber, they continue to ignore all the science and the harm they are causing consumers, explained Loucas.

While a few days later, the WHOs South East Asia Regional Office (SEARO) also held its online regional conference, from 6 to 10 September, with the Western Pacific for their Regional Office (WPRO) following from 25 to 29 October.

Discussing these major events, the Asia Pacific Declaration expressed its concern with regards to the influence they will exert on the regions policy makers. We are extremely concerned that decisions are being made in various conferences and regional meetings that are not considering the body of scientific evidence that proves the benefits of safer nicotine products.

WVA Urges Policymakers to Differentiate Between Vaping and Smoking

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Consumer Groups Urge WHO to Save Lives By Endorsing THR Consumer Groups Urge WHO to Save Lives By Endorsing THR - Vaping Post