Some smokers credit e-cigarettes with saving their lives – does that matter?

In a major blow to the vaping industry, the American Medical Association has called for a ban on e-cigarettes and vaping products that the FDA doesn’t deem tobacco cessation devices. As a tobacco researcher and former smoker, I don’t care much about the health of the vaping and e-cigarette industry. But I do care about the health of smokers, and I wonder whether policy makers may now be reacting too strongly to e-cigarettes. Although e-cigarettes in the U.S. are not regulated or approved by the FDA as smoking cessation devices, they may have helped thousands quit cigarettes.

2019-11-21
theconversation.com

What case to file vs arrested vape users? ‘Wala,’ admits PNP

At the behest of President Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippine National Police (PNP) will continue arresting vape users across the country, but its top official admitted on Thursday, November 21, that they have no legal basis for filing cases in the first place. "Kung umaresto ang policeman, anong ipa-file na kaso (When a cop makes an arrest, what case will be filed)?" Rappler asked PNP officer-in-charge Lieutenant General Archie Gamboa in a press briefing in Camp Bagong Diwa. "Wala nga eh (None)," said Gamboa, a licensed lawyer.

2019-11-21
rappler.com

Up in smoke: are we wrong about the dangers of vaping?

Inside a laboratory in suburban Southampton, a corporate display board includes a portrait of Paracelsus, the 16th-century Swiss “father of toxicology”. It sits above his most memorable adage: “All things are poison … the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison.” Next to this is the logo of British American Tobacco (BAT), whose cigarettes have poisoned to death more people than it would probably care to calculate. The lab, part of the tobacco company’s sprawling research and development centre, is a rare indoor space where smoking is legal. Marianna Gaca, a BAT biologist, shows me a robot.

2019-11-21
theguardian.com

U.S. shelves its plan to sharply cut nicotine in cigarettes

U.S. regulators are hitting the brakes on plans to force tobacco companies to drastically reduce addictive nicotine in cigarettes, retreating on an ambitious public-health initiative that comes amid increasing worry about nicotine use among young people. The Department of Health and Human Services has dropped a proposal unveiled two years ago to cut the nicotine in cigarettes to nonaddictive levels, according to a regulatory document published Wednesday.

2019-11-21
latimes.com

Some senators consider ban on e-cigarettes a good move

Senator Pia Cayetano said on Thursday she believes that a ban on e-cigarettes is in order, noting how members of the industry negatively reacted to President Duterte’s order banning the use of vapes. In a statement, Cayetano [...] said she believes that the President’s announcement imposing a total ban on the importation and use of vapes is a good move. “I agree that when the people’s health is at risk, public interest must always take precedence over any business or commercial interest,” said the senator.

2019-11-21
news.mb.com.ph

Smoking levels falling faster than increases in e-cigarette use

The number of people taking up e-cigarettes is lower than the amount who have quit smoking in recent years, new figures show. In the last five years the portion of the population who smoke has fallen from 23 to 17 per cent, according to the latest Healthy Ireland survey. Over the same period the number of people who reported to be e-cigarette or vape users only increased by two per cent, from three to five per cent of the population.

2019-11-21
irishtimes.com