Category Archives: Vaping

As a new parent, I've rapidly discovered what a dangerous place the world is for children. It's an overwhelming realization at times. Given all the real threats my wife and I have toguard against, I can't understand why anyone would invent health scares that needlessly worry America's moms and dads, yet this seems to be the tobacco control movement's specialty.Earlierthis week, for example, the Truth Initiative (TI) launched a campaign highlighting the alleged mental health risks associated with teen vaping as part of their broader effort to restrict access to electronic cigarettes (also called "e-cigarettes" or "vapes.")

Two health crises among youth a mental health crisis and a vaping epidemic pose increasing threats to a generation of young people, the Truth Initiative wrote in a report accompanying its new marketing campaign. While it is well known that nicotine harms developing brains lesser known are the worrying connections between nicotine and mental health.

Activist-group rhetoric aside, no evidence implicates vaping in teenage depression.There is an established link between the disease and nicotine consumption, though it's a complicated relationship that doesn't lend itself to political causes.

A causal relationship?

Our first clue that the Truth Initiative is wandering away from the data comes fromthe Truth Initiative. The executive summary of its new reportincludedthis important qualifier:

Though it is unknown whether a causal relationship between nicotine and mental health conditions exists, there are troubling links between vaping nicotine and worsening symptoms of depression and anxiety, as well as higher odds of having a depression diagnosis among those who use nicotine[my emphasis].

This statement tells us right off the bat that the nicotine-mental health connection is messy. There could be many other factorsthat influence the association in various ways. After surveying the evidence, it's my contentionthat TI's analysis is backwards: the stimulant doesn't cause or amplify feelings of depression; people suffering from the condition seek relief in nicotine consumption. According to a 2017 review of almost 300 studies:

... [A]dverse internal states are the primary drivers of smoking behavior in depressed individuals. Accordingly, experimental treatment approaches which seek to modify reactivity to external smoking cues (e.g., via cognitive bias modification) are unlikely to be effective in depressed smokers [my emphasis].

Rather, treatments should identify the adverse motivational states that are the primary drivers of smoking in each individual and personalize treatment to target those states. Further, effective intervention strategies should address smokers beliefs about the high reward value of smoking in these motivational states.

This is a significant challenge to TI's thesis. Their activism is built on the assumption that removing external smoking cues, restricting e-cigarette marketingto adults for example, is the best way to discourage vaping, which is clearly not the case for depressed patients. That said,it is always unethical to market nicotine products to children, and ACSHopposesminors having access to any nicotine-containing products.

Why are depression and smoking linked?

Why? is a difficult question to answer in this case, but one possibility that adds some clarity is that nicotine has a well-documented antidepressant effect. Because it stimulates dopamine release, depressed patients often resort to smoking (or vaping) to mitigate the adverse effects of stressful stimuli. Depressed smokers have reported mood improvements that depression-free smokers don't experience after finishing a cigarette.

Several studies have also produced the same antidepressant effect in rodents, while other experiments have shown that nicotine can enhance the beneficial effects of some antidepressant drugs. The Truth Initiative seems to be aware that mental illness often leads to nicotine use as patients seek symptom relief, pointing out that its surveys reveal that many young people cite feelings of stress, anxiety, or depression as reasons they start and continue vaping.

TI tried to argue around this by pointing to nicotine-withdrawal symptoms, which can mirror the effects of depression. "The common misconception that nicotine relieves stress, anxiety, and depression, may be rooted in the cycle of nicotine withdrawal," the group's report states. But that's a different phenomenon than causing or amplifying a patient's depression.

Crucially, there is some evidence that vaping actually reduces nicotine dependenceby minimizing the peaks and troughs in blood nicotine smokers experience.If that's the case,vaping may help mitigate the withdrawal symptoms commonly associated with smoking cessation.

Of course, if vaping contributes to depression, then so do any smoking-cessation treatments that contain nicotine, which would include FDA-approved patches and gums endorsed by anti-tobacco groups.More importantly, the majority of teenagers do not vape. The fewwho doare already smokers in most cases. It follows, then, that regulations restricting adult access to vapor products will not help reduce nicotine use among teens.

A complicated disease, oversimplified

Chronic nicotine consumption mayalter brain receptorsthat can lead to depression, but that's not terribly useful as an argument against vaping. We still need to know why now-depressed individuals seek out vaping in the first place. Do they have a genetic predisposition for nicotine dependence and depression? Did they develop a habit of smoking when drinking socially, which led to nicotine addiction? These are just some of the possibilities researchers are investigating.

The bigger issue is that depression, like many other diseases, probably has multiple causes that can augment each other. Your genetic makeup influences how sensitive you are to stressful life events, Harvard Medical School notes. When genetics, biology, and stressful life situations come together, depression can result. How these various factors contribute to the disease varies from one patient to the next, and there's still a lot we don't know.

What we do know is that, while researchers are investigating the depressive effects of childhood sexual abuse and the loss of a parent early in life, the Truth Initiative is running slickly produced videos referring to vapes as depression sticks and staging videos where a fake vaping company executive tries to honestly market his productto convenience stores. Nicotine can amplify depression and anxiety, he tells the cashier, so I'm trying to sell some depression!

Is that the work of a group truly concerned about mental illness? Color me skeptical.

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Vaping And Mental Health: Does Nicotine Use Cause Teen Depression? - American Council on Science and Health

Mathematician Jacob Bronoski once said, No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.

Unfortunately, in the last six years, I have spent advocating for the life-saving capabilities of vapor products when used by adult smokers as a less harmful alternative, I have experienced this first hand in many ways on multiple occasions.

The anti-vape lobby continually harps on a so-called epidemic of youth vapor product use, yet they consistently fail to mention that they are combining the youth usage numbers of nicotine vaping products and THC vaping products. Theyve been so closed-lipped about the breakdown of this total (which they simply refer to as vaping) that even now we do not know how many minors are vaping each product. However, during the Q&A portion of a recent public meeting with the Arizona Attorney Generals office that I attended, a representative let slip that over half of the products used among Arizona youth were vaping products that contained THC. While kids should not be vaping THC any more than they should be vaping nicotine, the fact that our opponents are disingenuously inflating the youth access numbers to cause a panic should highly concerning to everyone involved.

Another way the prohibitionists are knowingly muddying the waters to make rational policymaking impossible is by counting anyone who has used a vapor product in the last 30 days as a vaper.A 2018 Gallup pollshowed that while 9 percent of minors had used a nicotine vapor product in the last 30 days, only 2 percent had used one the day of the survey. The same poll showed 19 percent had smoked a cigarette in the last 30 days, while 13 percent had used one the day of the survey. This clearly shows the overwhelming majority of teens that had used a vapor product in the last month were experimenting and not addicted, with only 22 percent of current users using daily. Unfortunately, the same does not hold true for cigarettes, with a whopping 68.4 percent of current smokers doing so daily. As a 16-year smoker who converted to vaping eight years ago, I can personally attest that addiction to nicotine cannot be satisfied by consuming nicotine in any form once a month.

Perhaps one of the most egregious examples of extreme dishonesty Ive experienced while fighting for the rights of adult smokers to choose a less harmful alternative surrounds theU.S. Food and Drug Administrations (FDA) taxpayer-funded vaping epidemic media campaign. Before unleashing this campaign to the public, FDA conducted focus groups with 300 minors and 900 adults. These studies showed unintended consequences among adults, including perception of risk shifted to think that e-cigarettes were equally or more harmful than cigarettes. This is highly troublesome considering vaping has repeatedly been found to be95 percent safer than smoking, and FDAs study shows that they knew their campaign was causing adult smokers to believe otherwise.

The public policy solution to this was to assure that the campaign would be laser-targeted and stating The Real Cost Youth E-Cigarette Prevention Campaign will be limited to age-verified digital media, limiting adult spill by hyper-targeting the media to exclusively reach 12- to 17-year-olds on digital and social channels. These rules went out the window immediately upon opening Pandoras Box. Ive personally seen these misleading commercials preceding R-rated movies, during late-night TV shows centered around adult content, and during YouTube videos that required age verification in order to play. Ive also seen them replayed as the subject of news segments and during commercial breaks from shows that have confirmed to me that vapor products could be legally advertised due to over 80 percent of their audience being over 21 years age or older. Needless to say, the FDAs laser-targeting has proven to be as focused as a nuclear bomb.

In the end, the FDA has spent taxpayers money to convince the adult public of something they knew to be a lie.Anyone who has ever heard the term vaping epidemic, is a victim of this farce as well. Common sense regulations cannot be achieved under these conditions, and the fact that the agency responsible for doing so is knowingly and intentionally spreading inaccurate information that theyve proven will cause adult smokers to become misinformed underscores the alarming fact that science has fallen to corruption and politics at the FDA and American public health.

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Opinion: In the Era Of Fake News, FDA Is Contributing to the Epidemic - Prescott eNews

SHENZHEN, China, September 23, 2021--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SMOORE, a global leader in offering vaping technology solutions, today has made its mark at The Global Tobacco & Nicotine Forum (GTNF) 2021. Senior Vice President of SMOORE and President of FEELM, the flagship atomization tech brand belonging to SMOORE, Frank Han makes the keynote speech to outline SMOOREs mission of "atomization making life better."

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210923005511/en/

GTNF 2021 Frank Han's Keynote Speech (Photo: Business Wire)

The Global Tobacco & Nicotine Forum (GTNF) is the worlds leading annual forum discussing the future of the tobacco and nicotine industries. The annual industry conference brings together key stakeholders from around the world, including global tobacco companies, vaping brands, scientists, public health experts, NGOs and policymakers.

In his speech, Frank Han calls upon all stakeholders of the industry to join the mission of "atomization making life better", promoting the evolution of atomization ecosystem. He asserts that policymakers and NGOs should take the lead in institutional innovations to promote the healthier industry development and more balanced regulations, embracing vaping as a strategy to improve public health while safeguarding against youth vaping. Global media could also involve more people in the unbiased public dialogue on vaping.

Moreover, industry leaders should work together to build up more comprehensive industry standards. As one of the key industry standard setters, SMOORE has developed its vapor and material safety standards, which involve over 300 physical and chemical tests. These standards have also covered all of PMTA tests and the safety evaluation of over 50 atomization materials, thereby guaranteeing industry-leading product quality.

In terms of product innovation, Frank Han indicates that the underlying technology of vapingatomization, has showed promising prospects in other fields, such as healthcare. With one of its R&D focus on the atomization application in healthcare, SMOORE has made significant progress on the research of atomized medication in the past three years.

Story continues

"In the near future, more and more people will inhale medicines or vaccines with atomization devices. It could help the world pull through the pandemic," said Frank Han.

According to Frank Han, SMOOREs innovations are based on its insights into global consumers requirements and the commitment to improving user experience, which is the companys first principle of product development. Based on the principle, SMOORE launched the worlds first Taste Evaluation Model in 2020, covering 4 dimensions and 51 indexes, so as to establish a scientific system to evaluate vaping tastes.

Moreover, Frank Han points out that scientific innovation is the driving force of the industrys evolution. Industry pioneers are constantly committed to the cross-disciplinary fundamental research of "atomization science", to explore the mechanism of atomization.

As the worlds leading atomization tech platform, SMOORE has recruited R&D experts from different backgrounds and built up 7 global research centers around the world. In addition to in-house R&D resources, SMOORE has partnered with top universities to leverage the latest scientific discoveries and transform them into cuttingedge applied technologies.

The industry is also embracing intelligent manufacturing to improve resource efficiency. For example, SMOORE introduced the first fully automated pod production line in the world. Now, a single line of SMOORE can produce 7,200 standard vaporizers per hour.

In partnership with clients, SMOORE has also adopted sustainable practices in all stages of product development, especially manufacturing, so as to fulfill its commitment to reducing carbon footprint.

"Innovation and sustainability are the ideas to which the whole industry has been adhering, since the advent of vaping. The two ideas share a common goal, that is atomization making life better, which echoes SMOOREs corporate mission," said Frank Han.

Committed to the mission of "Atomization making life better", SMOORE will continue to discover more diversified atomization methods and more advanced technology roadmap while jointly promoting a more inclusive dialogue mechanism along with partners from different sectors.

About SMOORE

SMOORE is a global leader in offering vaping technology solutions, including manufacturing vaping devices, and vaping components, with advanced R&D technology, strong manufacturing capacity, wide-spectrum product portfolio and diverse customer base. The Company is the world's largest vaping device manufacturer in terms of revenue, accounting for 18.9% of the total global market share.

About FEELM

FEELM is a high-end atomization technology brand belonging to SMOORE. Focusing on the research of cutting-edge atomization technology, FEELM also specializes in the development and manufacturing of high quality atomization devices driven by FEELM ceramic coil. "FEELM inside" symbol is on the closed system pods of a number of global leading tobacco companies and vaping companies around the world. The accumulated sales volume of FEELM has surpassed 3 billion pieces per year.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210923005511/en/

Contacts

Frankie Chenfrankie.chen@smoorecig.com (+86)13530848319

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SMOORE Outlines Its Mission of "atomization making life better" at GTNF 2021 - Yahoo Finance

Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.

As a producer and director for our documentary series The New York Times Presents, Im used to pursuing subjects that are difficult to render onscreen. But when we set out to tell the story of the e-cigarette giant Juul Labs in the film Move Fast and Vape Things, which aired on FX last Friday, we faced some unexpected obstacles.

We started the production process armed with an arsenal of reporting from Sheila Kaplan, a reporter for The New York Times who has covered the tobacco industry for decades, and others who have chronicled the rise and eventual troubles of Juul Labs. Reading through the archives, you could see a clear arc of a once-scrappy start-up that found itself a Big Tobacco juggernaut accused of marketing its nicotine product to minors and helping perpetrate one of the nations greatest public health concerns.

But when we started to reach out to some of Sheilas original sources to sit for on-camera interviews, the challenge ahead of us became painfully clear. With thousands of lawsuits pending against the company related to a youth vaping epidemic declared by the Food and Drug Administration, no one wanted to talk.

Juul Labs, which denies that it knowingly sold its products to teenagers, declined to make anyone available for an interview. The company, which announced a reset in 2019, is proceeding with caution as its very existence is debated by regulators at the F.D.A. So instead, we mined hours of news reports, public hearings, conferences and even other documentaries for footage of the founders James Monsees and Adam Bowen, who have said they set out to help smokers quit. Piecing those tidbits together, we were able to reconstruct their narrative in their own words, at least partially.

When it came to interviewing former Juul Labs employees, the task was harder. Working from a database Sheila and her fellow reporter Julie Creswell had created three years ago, we combed LinkedIn, assembling a list of dozens of potential subjects. Then, we started cold-calling. We were ignored. We were hung up on. In some cases, we were granted off-the-record conversations. In two separate instances, we had booked interviews only to have the subjects back out on the eve of the shoot, frustrating our attempts to tell what we thought was a vital story.

So how did we ultimately urge people to go on-camera in the face of so much pressure? In some cases, they were motivated by a desire to clear their names. In others, Sheila and Julie had developed yearslong relationships with sources who came to trust that this would be worth the exposure. But for a few, it was simply a moral imperative. They saw the youth vaping epidemic as a systemic failure. Hiding from it would only ensure that it happened again. The only way to learn from it was to talk about how it had happened in the first place.

We encountered the same challenge when it came to finding teenagers who would share their experience with us. Over the phone, my own nieces and nephews confirmed that vaping was a huge problem in their schools. They talked about students they knew and shared dramatic stories of nicotine addiction. But when they asked those same peers if they were willing to share those stories on-camera, the response was silence. They were embarrassed. They didnt want to deal with the ramifications on social media. Their parents didnt want it to affect their futures.

A public health group connected us with Jackie Franklin and her mother, Janine Browne Franklin. As a high school student, Jackie was vaping three pods a day. Her terrifying experience with nicotine addiction (detailed in the film) led the Franklins to speak out against teen vaping.

Like the great investigations of the 1990s that targeted the tobacco giants, this sort of journalism relies on individuals willing to come forward and share their experiences, often at great personal risk. The decision to do so is less a rational choice than a leap of faith. Feeling the weight of their trust, my colleagues and I agonized throughout the edit, ensuring that nothing was taken out of context or twisted around. I would lie awake at night questioning whether it was OK to cut this part or that, double- and triple-checking that it didnt violate the spirit of what was being shared.

As a journalist, your greatest achievement comes when you can cut through the spin and bring your audience the unvarnished truth. But without the contributions of these individuals, we would never even come close.

Readers can watch Move Fast and Vape Things on Hulu.

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A Film on a Crisis, Powered by Willing Voices - The New York Times

Mathematician Jacob Bronoski once said, No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.

Unfortunately, in the last six years, I have spent advocating for the life-saving capabilities of vapor products when used by adult smokers as a less harmful alternative, I have experienced this first hand in many ways on multiple occasions.

The anti-vape lobby continually harps on a so-called epidemic of youth vapor product use, yet they consistently fail to mention that they are combining the youth usage numbers of nicotine vaping products and THC vaping products. Theyve been so closed-lipped about the breakdown of this total (which they simply refer to as vaping) that even now we do not know how many minors are vaping each product. However, during the Q&A portion of a recent public meeting with the Arizona Attorney Generals office that I attended, a representative let slip that over half of the products used among Arizona youth were vaping products that contained THC. While kids should not be vaping THC any more than they should be vaping nicotine, the fact that our opponents are disingenuously inflating the youth access numbers to cause a panic should highly concerning to everyone involved.

Another way the prohibitionists are knowingly muddying the waters to make rational policymaking impossible is by counting anyone who has used a vapor product in the last 30 days as a vaper. A 2018 Gallup poll showed that while 9 percent of minors had used a nicotine vapor product in the last 30 days, only 2 percent had used one the day of the survey. The same poll showed 19 percent had smoked a cigarette in the last 30 days, while 13 percent had used one the day of the survey. This clearly shows the overwhelming majority of teens that had used a vapor product in the last month were experimenting and not addicted, with only 22 percent of current users using daily. Unfortunately, the same does not hold true for cigarettes, with a whopping 68.4 percent of current smokers doing so daily. As a 16-year smoker who converted to vaping eight years ago, I can personally attest that addiction to nicotine cannot be satisfied by consuming nicotine in any form once a month.

Perhaps one of the most egregious examples of extreme dishonesty Ive experienced while fighting for the rights of adult smokers to choose a less harmful alternative surrounds theU.S. Food and Drug Administrations (FDA) taxpayer-funded vaping epidemic media campaign. Before unleashing this campaign to the public, FDA conducted focus groups with 300 minors and 900 adults. These studies showed unintended consequences among adults, including perception of risk shifted to think that e-cigarettes were equally or more harmful than cigarettes. This is highly troublesome considering vaping has repeatedly been found to be 95 percent safer than smoking, and FDAs study shows that they knew their campaign was causing adult smokers to believe otherwise.

The public policy solution to this was to assure that the campaign would be laser-targeted and stating The Real Cost Youth E-Cigarette Prevention Campaign will be limited to age-verified digital media, limiting adult spill by hyper-targeting the media to exclusively reach 12- to 17-year-olds on digital and social channels. These rules went out the window immediately upon opening Pandoras Box. Ive personally seen these misleading commercials preceding R-rated movies, during late-night TV shows centered around adult content, and during YouTube videos that required age verification in order to play. Ive also seen them replayed as the subject of news segments and during commercial breaks from shows that have confirmed to me that vapor products could be legally advertised due to over 80 percent of their audience being over 21 years age or older. Needless to say, the FDAs laser-targeting has proven to be as focused as a nuclear bomb.

In the end, the FDA has spent taxpayers money to convince the adult public of something they knew to be a lie.Anyone who has ever heard the term vaping epidemic, is a victim of this farce as well. Common sense regulations cannot be achieved under these conditions, and the fact that the agency responsible for doing so is knowingly and intentionally spreading inaccurate information that theyve proven will cause adult smokers to become misinformed underscores the alarming fact that science has fallen to corruption and politics at the FDA and American public health.

See the article here:

In the Era Of Fake News, FDA Is Contributing to the Epidemic InsideSources - InsideSources

Two countries divided by a common language is a common saying misattributed to George Bernard Shaw. US and UK vocabulary differences are of perennial amusement: elevator, lift; sidewalk, pavement; gas, petrol; soccer, football. Brits say pants to mean underwear; Americans say it to mean what we call trousers.

A ubiquitous British slang word for a cigarette is also an offensive slur in the States. But if social media is anything to go by, the nicotine taboos run deeper than vocabulary.

Specifically, Ive noticed regular tweets from US-based accounts which express surprise, amusement or even disgust about older people vaping. Examples include: Seeing old people vaping will never not be funny to me, Anyone else cringe x 10 when they see old people vaping? and Old people vaping is just as shocking as babies smoking cigarettes.

British adults over 55 have a higher vaping rate than the youngest adults.

These are strange tweets indeed, considering the millions of lives, in every adult age group, that have been saved by these products. What could be going on in the US to make some people believe that vaping is only for the young?

In the UK, at any rate, weve welcomed vaping with open arms and lungs. Currently, 3.6 million of us vapeover 7 percent of the adult population. Two-thirds are ex-smokers, while under 5 percent have never smoked (the rest combine vaping and smoking, likely on a path to smoking less or quitting). And these numbers emphatically include those of us with a bit more life experience.

The latest survey of e-cigarette use amongst adults by the influential UK anti-smoking charity Action on Smoking and health (ASH) finds that the peak ages for current e-cigarette use in 2021 are among 35-44 year olds (10.1%) followed by 45-54 year olds (8.6%), and then 25-34 year olds (8.1%). The lowest vaping rates by age are 5% for young adults aged 18-24.

Adults over 55, the oldest age group, have a higher vaping rate (5.4 percent) than the youngest adults.

As for use by minors, ASH reports that more than 88 percent of 1117-year-olds have never tried or are unaware of e-cigarettes. Only 1.2 percent vape more than weekly. And only 0.7 percent of those who regularly vape were not former smokers.

Looking across the Pond, Brits see a panic-stricken and oppressive environment for vape shops and vapers.

Regulation of e-cigarettes is very liberal in the UK. The National Health Service hosts vape shops in its hospitals, runs a pilot program giving free vapes to smokers in emergency rooms, and recommends e-cigarettes for smokers who find them helpful during pregnancy. Vape shops freely do business in every High Street (translation: Main Street). And vaping products and accompanying liquids are sold in the health aisle in some supermarkets, alongside corn plasters and vitamin pills.

By contrast, looking across the Pond, Brits see a panic-stricken and oppressive environment for vape shops and vapers. Americans are bombarded with media telling them that there is an epidemic of youth vaping in their country. This conviction appears so entrenched that the Food and Drug Administration is currently in the process of regulating just about every flavored vaping product out of existence on the basis of protecting kids.

In truth, evidence shows that frequent youth use is about as rare in the US as it is in the UK. Yet it seems to serve the anti-vaping organizations agenda to prolong the mythwhile engaging in bizarre efforts to terrify kids that frequently end up backfiring.

In August, a seismic report by 15 world-renowned public health professors was sharply critical of the kind of public messaging that has dominated in the United States. They called anti-vaping messaging harmful, and worried that as public health groups, the media, policymakers, and the general public focus on youth vaping, vapings potential to help adults quit smoking too often gets lost.

It is surely this youth-obsessed outcry that prompts those shocked American reactions to older people vaping. And thats a real shame. Because older smokers deserve the chance to protect their health by switching as much as anyone else. They definitely dont deserve to be stigmatized and ridiculed for doing so.

From this side of the Atlantic, were baffled as to why US authorities, NGOs, media and others seem so willing to perpetuate such a counterproductive public health strategy, wrongly telling their public that youth vaping is the only game in town. Were lucky enough to have experienced an approach that embraces vaping in a calm, orderly, and government-approved mannerperhaps just the way to attract older smokers without unduly intriguing youth.

Photograph by Sarah Johnson (Knighthoodstudio.com) via Flickr/Creative Commons 2.0

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The US Obsession With Youth Vaping Looks Odd From Across the Atlantic - Filter

US brand JD Nova Group is the company that submitted the most applications, at 4.68m submissions.

US brand JD Nova Group is the company that submitted the most applications, at 4.68m submissions. ECigIntelligence revealed that the companys president Jack Blaisdells LinkedIn profile, lists four subsidiaries for the company, including Vapolocity, a vape shop located in El Paso, Texas.

The second company that topped the list is the Texas-based Matrix Minds, with a total of 336,272 submissions. Owner Char Owen said that she has helped approximately 180 small companies file PMTAs by creating standard files that just had to be filled by the different companies. For small manufacturers that had no information technology staff, this was an impossible task, said Owen who has a background as a computer engineer.

With 120,399 submissions, Oklahomas Perfect Vape, holds the third position, while the forth and fifth down the list are Big Time Vapes and Imperial Vapors, with 96,950 and 65,382 submissions respectively.

Meanwhile the industry is growing concerned about the number of rejected applications. 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), saying 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.

A recent blog on Competitive Enterprise Institutes website highlighted that the amount of applications received by the agency 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.

However, it added, these rejections 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, the heated tobacco product, IQOS, made by Philip Morris, and combustible cigarettes with reduced nicotine made by 22nd Century Group.

FDA Issues Warnings to Vape Brands Lacking PMTA

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ECigIntelligence: The Vape Brands Submitting The Highest Numbers of PMTAs ECigIntelligence: The Vape Brands Submitting The Highest Numbers of PMTAs -...

The campaign, created by independent agency Mojo Supermarket, is part of the long-running anti-tobacco campaign Truth, and involved the creation of a brand identity, packaging and advertising to sell Depression Stick!, a new brand in the style of other products such as Juul, Vuse, blu, Logic and Njoy, the leading e-cigarette brands popular among young people.

The intention is to highlight how nicotine can contribute to mental health issues, and via a set of ads airing across the US, including on a Times Square billboard in New York, be the first e-cigarette company to honestly admit vaping nicotine can amplify feelings of depression and anxiety.

As well as the branding and ads, the campaign includes a series of documentary-style films where Craig, the fictional VP of marketing at Depression Stick!, tries to convince influencers, ad agencies and the manager of a gas station store to sell Depression Stick!

UK readers may be reminded of Chris Morris spoof drugs story Cake on Brass Eye, where figures from light entertainment including Noel Edmonds and Bernard Manning were shown in the hyperbolic news report. Here no influencers or ad creatives were fooled however, and instead they reject working on marketing the supposed new vape brand.

While the campaign and branding may be witty, the Truth Initiatives campaign contains a serious message and arrives with the release of a white paper from the organisation on the affects of nicotine use on mental health in young people.

Depression Stick! boldly highlights the marketing tactics Big Tobacco uses to lure young customers into life-long addiction and mess with their heads, said Robin Koval, CEO and president of Truth Initiative. The multi-platform campaign places the necessary spotlight on nicotines role in potentially heightening symptoms of depression and anxiety to give young people the facts they deserve to make informed decisions to live their best and healthiest lives.

Vaping has become so normalised in pop culture and many young people dont even see it as an issue, continues Mo Said, founder and CCO of Mojo Supermarket. With everything happening in the world young peoples number one concern is their mental health. We believe that if we could show the connection between vaping nicotine and anxiety and depression, theyd never look at a vape the same way again.

Credits:Creative Company: Mojo SupermarketProduction Company: division7Editorial: Mackcut

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Truth Initiative launches spoof vape brand to raise awareness of the dangers of vaping - Creative Review

The Laguna Beach City Council will revisit the conversation pertaining to a ban on the sale of tobacco and vaping products in the city when it meets on Tuesday.

Councilman George Weiss has brought an agenda bill that will lead to a discussion about the possibility of such a prohibition.

The council will be considering whether to have city staff bring an ordinance prohibiting the sale of those products in Laguna Beach and to provide an analysis of the potential impact.

Laguna Beach has looked at similar restrictions in the past. Smoking and vaping are already illegal in all public areas within the city limits, but the council looked at expanding those restrictions to include a stoppage in sales two years ago.

According to reporting by the Daily Pilot, the council was particularly concerned with the usage of flavored tobacco and vaping by school-aged children.

Weiss said that preventing the habit before it starts for Laguna Beachs next generation is also a primary concern for him, but he brought up several points, including fire safety and environmental impact.

I think the environmental side of this, now that weve removed plastics from the equation, for the most part, its time to move to something that is also an environmental issue, Weiss said.

Councilwoman Toni Iseman said she was glad that Weiss brought the subject back to council, and she expressed optimism that now might be a time for action.

Support on the council is one thing, and implementation is another, Iseman said in a phone interview on Saturday. I think its a time when we might be more willing to do something about it, to actually follow through.

Iseman appears to have had a change of heart since the council considered banning e-cigarettes in 2013.

I remember that night going over to the Lumberyard, and there was somebody sitting at the bar vaping, and I watched it, and we were clueless as to exactly what we were doing, Iseman added. This was before it was kind of evident of how bad it is.

Weiss agenda bill cites decreases in the likelihood that teens begin smoking or vaping and in the impact of secondhand smoke on the public as benefits of bringing a prohibition ordinance.

It also makes the claims that there would be less cigarette butts found in the community and contribute to efforts to lower fire risks.

The hybrid format remains in effect for council meetings in Laguna Beach. Members of the public who wish to address the council in person may enter council chambers to speak and then exit immediately.

The regular meeting, which begins at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, can also be viewed on Cox cable channel 852 or on Zoom at lagunabeachcity.zoom.us/j/91641723096.

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Laguna Beach to revisit banning sales of tobacco and vape products - Los Angeles Times

Theres a new vape product on the scene andits a real downer.

Depression Sticks are a new vape product that come just as research links vaping to amplified feelings of depression and anxiety. The introduction also follows lastweeks decision by the FDA to postpone ruling on vape products.

Depression Sticks arent realits a fake product invented by truth, the anti-tobacco initiativelaunched in 1998. The new initiative, via Mojo Supermarket, attempts to tell the truth about vaping while giving a salespitch.

National ads boast fruity flavors like Citrus Sadness and Dissapoint-mint and boast that the vapes Feel like anxiety, but TasteLike Cereal. The ads drive viewers to Depressionstick.com.

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One ad presents vaping as Smooth, satisfying, depressing,as upbeat music plays. The ad goes on to explain that Depression Sticks can amplify feelings of depression and anxiety.

The claim is based on research showing a link between vaping and depression. In particular, a 2019study in JAMA Network Open found that e-cigarette users had higher odds of reporting a history of clinical diagnosis of depression compared with participants who never used e-cigarettes.

Later research has also shown that the incidence of anxiety symptoms in late June 2020 was three times as high as those reported in the second quarter of 2019. Depression was four times ashigh.

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Truth's New Vape Product Is Smooth, Satisfying And Depressing 09/22/2021 - MediaPost Communications