Vape News Headlines:
No UK Teen Vape Epidemic – Taxing E-Cigs Bad – JUUL Sues Monster – SWAT Fights Vaping – Swap Smokes For E-Cigs – Pakistan’s Cancer Crisis and Ignorant Tweet of the Week
No Surge In UK Teen Vapers and NHS Should Do More To Promote Vaping Says PHE
A new report from Public Health England shows there’s no ‘teen vaping epidemic’ in Britain despite fake news and anti-vaping organizations saying there is and calls for a wider use of e-cigarettes in NHS clinics.
Figures show that only 1.5% of under 18’s has tried an e-cigarette whilst youngsters that vape once a week or more is a lowly 0.2%.
PHE’s director Professor John Newton said:
In contrast to recent media reports in the US, we are not seeing a surge in e-cigarette use among young people in Britain.
While more young people are experimenting with e-cigarettes, the crucial point is that regular use remains low and is very low indeed among those who have never smoked.
PHE uses the report to call for NHS Stop Smoking Services to embrace e-cigarettes and use them as a primary aid to quitting lit tobacco pointing out that:
Despite e-cigarettes now being the most popular quit aid, just over a third of smokers have never tried one. Only 4% of quit attempts through Stop Smoking Services in England are made using e-cigarettes, despite this being an effective approach.
The report recommends that Stop Smoking Services should do more to encourage smokers that want to quit with the help of an e-cigarette.
Smoking rates in young people have plateaued in recent years, while smoking rates among adults continue to fall, with just under 15% of adults in England smoking, according to government figures.
Professor Newton agreed and said very many more smokers would be able to quit IF the NHS accepted the evidence e-cigarettes were the best and safer option:
We could accelerate the decline in smoking if more smokers switched completely to vaping. Recent new evidence clearly shows using an e-cigarette with Stop Smoking Service support can double your chances of quitting.
But with e-cigarettes currently used so rarely in services, it’s time for change. Every Stop Smoking Service must start talking much more about the potential of vaping to help smokers quit.
If you smoke, switching to vaping could save you years of ill health, and even your life.
More positive news on the benefits of vaping coming out of the UK and I’ve written a larger article on this report on the main page.
Taxing Vape Products In The USA Is A Huge Mistake
A US based ‘think tank’ says not only are e-cigarettes beneficial to health but also to state budgets and warns that suggestions of huge tax hikes will kill off a crucial and life saving industry.
Writing for the Heartland Institute Lindsey Stroud uses the proposed tax increase of 35% on all vape products in Dakota as an example. She shows how states across the US are not only putting smokers lives at risk by bans and taxation but also cutting off income and in many cases causing widespread job losses.
She says the savings on health care budgets could be slashed dramatically if e-cigarettes were embraced rather than banned adding:
The use of e-cigarettes is also useful for state budgets. As a THR product, e-cigarettes can help negate the associated health care costs of combustible tobacco cigarettes. One study determined that if all Medicaid recipients that smoked combustible cigarettes had switched to electronic cigarettes, states could have saved $48 billion on Medicaid in 2012.
A similar, smaller analysis of just 1 percent of the Medicaid population concluded Medicaid savings would be “approximately $2.8 billion per 1 percent of enrollees” over the next 25 years.
Quite staggering figures to say the least and she doesn’t end there.
I wrote last week about Chicago taking online and bricks and mortar vape shops to court. The last time it did this one closed down completely whilst another left the city. This says Lindsey is a huge mistake:
Lawmakers should also be aware of the potential benefits that e-cigarettes could bring to their state’s economy. Analyses on vape shops indicate these businesses “generate annual non-online sales of more than $300,000 per store” and average $26,000 in monthly sales.
Additionally, the e-cigarette industry is expected to grow substantially, as the global market “is estimated to reach $44,610.6 million by 2023.
It’s a superb article that really needs to be spread far and wide.
JUUL In ‘Monster’ Law Suit
Vape company JUUL has a phenomenal record of bringing law suits against companies they say are infringing on their trademark or ‘copycats’ and have begun another this time aimed at a brand calling itself ‘JUUL Monster’.
In the past they’ve sued companies in Argentina and China and have open cases in at least 10 district courts and have now turned their attention to four vape companies based in New Jersey.
The lawsuit claims the use of the term JUUL Monster and JUUL Megastore infringes on the company’s trademark adding:
The monster’s small stature and impish expression also suggests that the character is himself a rebellious child or teen that enjoys using the product.
Given there’s a number of lawsuits the JUUL is fighting off as well as bringing to court their legal department is sure going to be busy. Still they can afford a huge team of lawyers given they have expected profits of $3.4 billion this year…quite remarkable to say the least!
BTW I did find an image of the JUUL monster…however decided not to show it for obvious reasons…Google is your friend 😉
SWAT Team Calls For Restrictions On Vaping
Nope not those heavily armed American police but a group of Florida youngsters.
SWAT in this case stands for the Florida based Students Working Against Tobacco.
Read my lips kids – e-cigarettes do NOT contain tobacco!!! Given that I did consider using the word that sounds similar and begins with T and ends in T…think about it…
OK in all seriousness…kids from SWAT have called on Casselberry city commissioners do do something about the alleged ‘teen vape epidemic’ apparently playing out across America apparently playing out across America and in their town schools.
They want to see the minimum age to buy e-cigs raised from 18 – 21 – a prohibition order banning shops from selling any vape equipment within 1,000 feet of schools and a huge tax placed on all things vape.
SWAT and it’s flashy website is backed by both Florida Health and Tobacco Free Florida. You may remember I wrote about the latter organization last week and the bid to define e-cigarettes as tobacco so they can campaign to get them banned! The charity can’t actively campaign against vaping as it’s not part of the current Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control act lol hence the need to re-define!
A Florida health official – Alfredo Maldonado who’s 11-year-old child is part of SWAT said:
When you look at the target, when you look at the promotional, it’s all targeted toward youth.
When we go to any convenience store, we see tobacco products, we see Juuls, and it’s all at the eye level. And it can be mixed with the candies. The packages now are like candies.
He also went a little ‘bug eyed’ with this claim:
You can find pesticides, aerosols and now mixing it with THC or opioids (in e-cigarette cartridges).
We have a lot of teen pregnancies and when the teen is using e-cigs, well her brain is still developing, and now you have a baby developing that is also in taking nicotine as well.
Maybe you should also create the organization SWAP as in Students Working Against Pregnancies…but I digress…
Thankfully the commissioners didn’t hold a vote and it seems have no plans to do so.
Swap Your Cigs and Lighter For An E-Cig In Darlington!
A new vape shop in Darlington UK is offering smokers an e-cigarette for their fags and lighter.
Cloud Collaborative is running the promo for a very limited time so if you’re a nearby smoker and ready to quit get over there fast.
It’s not just a vape shop either as customers can play pool – table football and other ‘games’ and they plan to organize vape meets in the near future. Manager Mark Gowland said:
We are a business but we also want to be part of the town’s community which is why we are offering more than just vaping. We have a limited number of free e-cigarettes to give to people who hand over their cigarettes or tobacco.
You can find the vape shop/lounge on King Street.
Pakistan Considers A Vape Ban As Financial Cost Of Treating Cancer Spirals
As I wrote back in January the government of Pakistan is seriously considering banning e-cigarettes meanwhile the country’s cancer charity says the cost of treatment is spiraling.
Speaking at a meeting in the country and sharing a platform with the American Cancer Society, Cancer Research UK, and the Department of Economics at Dhaka University – a spokesman for the Bangladesh Cancer Society said the true cost was Tk 30,570 crore ($3.6 billion US) – that’s an unbelievable 1.4% of the country’s GDP.
Pakistan plans to be ‘tobacco free’ by 2040…surely stopping the really quite silly idea of banning e-cigarettes would be a start?
and finally…The Ignorance is Astounding…
This tweet from US based political pundit come writer ‘Candi’ on Twitter drew plenty of derision from ‘those in the know’…bless her…
She tweeted a sneering reply to a positive report from JUUL that e-cigs had cancer biomarkers at the same level as none smokers as I covered HERE.
That’s great news, until the #juul explodes in your face & severes your carotid artery. It could get messy https://t.co/TIk9Cmnr6d
— candi (@itsCandi) February 24, 2019
Though to be fair she hasn’t removed the tweet that really hits home the ignorance of all things vape in across the pond so credit to her for that! However she did respond to early criticisms saying:
Two people have died from this. One was a head wound, one was a neck wound.
Some of the replies were as you might expect a little ‘unfriendly’ however Charles A. Gardner, PhD explained away her scaremongering quite beautifully:
Dear Candi: No JUUL has ever exploded or caught fire. If that happened even once, you can be sure if would be headline news. The battery inside a JUUL is comparable to the battery in an electric toothbrush. In 2018, 118.92 million Americans used electric toothbrushes…
— Charles A. Gardner, PhD (@ChaunceyGardner) February 25, 2019
Candi is a founder of the political website DC Politick with a core mission of:
We are observers – observing the motivations of politicians and public figures to understand why they do what they do and say what they say. We do not worship them. Let’s untangle the webs they weave.
Here’s an idea how about untangling the webs those politicians are currently weaving around vaping in America and in particular understanding why they are doing and saying such negative things about what is a life saving industry…
Might I suggest you start with the Big Tobacco and Pharma lobbyists and of course those state coffers emptying as more American smokers turn to e-cigarettes…
*COUGHS*…Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement…*COUGHS*
*Shuffles Papers*
More vaping news on Sunday!
