Vape News: PHE Vaping 95% Safer Slammed – New York Flavour Ban Lifted? – Dangerous Destroy Your JUUL Campaign Plus More

Vape News Headlines:

PHE Vaping 95% Safer Claim Attacked – Judge Rules NY Flavour Ban Unlawful – New Jersey Vape Ban Latest – RELX Plans Massive Global Growth and That Downright Dangerous Destroy Your JUUL Campaign

UK Vaping 95% Safer Than Smoking Statement Attacked

American scientists say Public Health England’s claim that vaping is 95% safer than smoking is outdated and a myth rather than fact!

The media has of course been quick to pick up on this and as you can guess linked the ‘opinion piece’ to the recent EVALI outbreak over in the USA.

Researchers from the Virginia Commonwealth University have NOT carried out any studies to disprove the PHE statement, but say PHE’s original claim is now ‘irrelevant’.

Six scientists penned the piece: Invalidity of an Oft-Cited Estimate of the Relative Harms of Electronic Cigarettes – which was published in the American Journal of Public Health.

The authors say:

The ‘95% safer’ estimate is a ‘factoid’: unreliable information repeated so often that it becomes accepted as fact.

Public health practitioners, scientists, and physicians should expose the fragile status of the factoid emphatically by highlighting its unreliable provenance and its lack of validity today, noting the many changes in e-cigarette devices and liquids, the accumulation of evidence of potential harm, the increased prevalence of use, and the growing evidence that e-cigarette use is associated with subsequent cigarette smoking.

As you can imagine, the UK health experts behind the 95% safer statement have been quick to respond.

Professor John Newton from PHE said:

This research tells us nothing new.

Medical bodies across the world agree that e-cigarettes are not without risk but are far less harmful than smoking which kills 220 people every day in England.

The 95 per cent estimate was developed by independent academics that we agreed was a reasonable estimate at the time and a helpful way of communicating the different scale of risk between smoking and vaping, that people can easily understand.

PHE is constantly reviewing the evidence around e-cigarettes and we shall publish our next review in the next couple of months.

I think Pro Newton was being too kind calling it ‘research’ as it is only the ‘opinions’ of the 6 researchers.

And I expect the 95% safer figure may even go higher following PHE’s update.

New York Flavour Ban Lifted – New Jersey Total Vape Ban Imminent?

A Supreme Court Judge says the current ban on flavoured vape products in New York was an overstep by Governor Andrew Cuomo.

However across the water in New Jersey and the senate over there will be voting to ban ALL vape products tomorrow – Monday 13th January.

The New York flavour ban was brought in as an ‘executive order’ by Cuomo in a bid to stop the so called ‘teen vaping epidemic‘ and the EVALI outbreak – which we now of course know had nothing to do with nicotine based e-liquids.

At the time Cuomo made the now infamous statement:

Is vaping better than smoking?

Technically yes…but so what?

Acting Supreme Court Justice Catherine Cholakis responding to an appeal for the lifting of the ban brought in by The Vapor Technology Association, Benevolent ELiquids, Inc., and Perfection Vapes, Inc. has ruled in favour of the ban being lifted.

She says the Governor acted wrongly as the:

…emergency regulation encroaches on the powers of the legislature to make policy decisions that can affect significant numbers of citizens.

I feel sure Cuomo will appeal and we’ll keep you informed.

New Jersey Total Vape Ban

Meanwhile it’s bad news for vape shops and vapers in New Jersey as the senate there will probably bring in legislation banning ALL vape products.

That legislation looks likely to be voted in tomorrow – however should the bill be passed expect another court case looking to get that over turned too.

Gregory Conely, President of the American Vape Association says all is not lost and has urged all vape shop owners in the state to band together:

It appears the NJ flavor ban will pass out of both committees today, BUT the effective date will be 90 days from when it’s signed.

The sponsors wanted an immediate effective date, but some legislators balked.

We have a real chance of getting a new bill passed in those 90 days.

In other words, if vape shop owners get fired up and work cooperatively over the next 90-100 days (bill won’t pass and be signed until next week), we can potentially get a bill through to keep vape shops open.

Lets hope this urgent call to action is successful.

As always we’ll keep you updated.

E-cig Company Relx Plans Massive Growth

Despite the downturn in vape device production in China, one company has ambitious plans for global expansion.

RELX are known for their pod systems – we recently carried out a RELX pod review and were very impressed.

The company has unveiled plans to open 10,000 new stores over the next 3 years starting with a flagship shop in Shanghai.

RELX was only founded in January 2018, and currently has 1,400 shops mainly in China and run by ‘third parties’, so this is a massive move.

Wang Tao, head of RELX’s new retail business, said:

Consumers nowadays prefer immersive shopping experiences, and we want to make this flagship a place where we can not only better communicate with them about our product and values but also better understand their needs.

We’re always on the lookout for ways to better serve our consumers.

The company co-founder Jiang Long said:

RELX is investing heavily in breakthrough technologies to enhance franchisees’ profit margins and increase consumer loyalty during the course of its brick-and-mortar expansion.

As always, our focus will remain on preventing minors from using e-cigarette products and leading the path of innovation for the entire industry by developing advanced retail technology.

Good to see confidence in the vaping industry to say the least given the current climate.

and finally…Stupid Destroy Your JUUL Campaign Could Be Dangerous

I’ve said before the anti-vape brigade over in the USA are bat shit crazy – but this latest campaign is not only stupid but could be incredibly dangerous.

Kids in their hundreds are taking part in the Truth Initiative’s #ThisIsQuitting campaign with JUUL users destroying their vape kits and putting the videos online including on TikTok.

The Truth Initiative is:

…America’s largest nonprofit public health organization committed to making tobacco use a thing of the past.

It has teamed up with TikTok ‘influencers’ and wants JUUL users to film themselves destroying the device in ‘creative ways’.

Very many have met the challenge and some of the ways filmed are bloody dangerous to say the least.

Whilst a JUUL only has a tiny 200mAH lithium battery – messing around with them is a recipe for disaster.

Just imagine a youngster going for one-up-man-ship and smashing a more powerful device with an internal battery…

One dreads to think.

A point picked up on Twitter with many people tweeting their outrage.

I’ve written about some crazy anti-vape stories and campaigns coming out of the states – but this is too scary to be true.

The truth is – the Truth Iniative could have blood on their hands if this ‘campaign’ back fires…

Shame on them.

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More vape news on Wednesday.