PMTA Delay Buys Vapers Some Breathing Space
Since the FDA first revealed its Deeming Regulations for e-cigarettes in April 2014, the looming threat of the new law has been the biggest worry for everyone involved with the US vaping scene – and, as Deeming is likely to wipe out hundreds of favorite juice flavors, it’s not that popular in the rest of the world either. So it’s no surprise that, when FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb announced a four-year delay this morning, there was widespread celebration. The background to the delay is a
Frogs shouldn’t vape
If you like vaping (and, I suppose, if you like frogs) the latest so-called research from Virginia Commonwealth University is going to leave you hopping mad. Even by the low standards of public health science this one really is shockingly bad – and the way it’s been done suggests that the aim is not to do science, but just to create negative publicity. So what exactly has happened? It seems to have started off with the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, which is
Teen Vaping Part 2: How Politics and Ideology Drive the Debate
In the first part of this post, I covered the state of the scientific evidence on a gateway effect in some detail. If you missed it, the CliffNotes version is that there’s no good evidence for a gateway effect, and while we can make a strong case against the claims, there is no evidence that can thoroughly refute it either. Basically everything about teen vaping is blown out of proportion at every turn. We’re spun a tale of epidemics, gateways and “a new generation hooked
Should We Be Worried About Teen Vaping? An In-Depth Look at the Facts and the Arguments
The issue of teen vaping is controversial, to say the least. It seems like every other week a story claims that vaping is addicting teens who’ve never smoked, and that those teens are more likely to progress to smoking cigarettes in the future. Youth smoking is something that basically everybody – vaping advocates and detractors alike – wants to stop, and so gateway claims are used to justify placing restrictions on e-cigarettes. Even if vaping isn’t that bad, the argument goes, if it leads to
A picture of the average vaper
A picture of the average vaper According to the CDC, almost 4% of adult Americans are regularly using e-cigarettes. This might sound like a relatively small figure until you take into account that this group is formed by more than 9 million individuals, and that number is just made up of those who are vaping on a daily basis. The data from the U.S. Census Board revealed as many as 12.6% of adults had tried an e-cigarette at least once. When you think of a typical
Marewa Glover Interview: Vaping and Tobacco Control in New Zealand
A couple of weeks ago Michael Grey looked at the difference in vaping laws between New Zealand and the USA. I thought that was pretty interesting, so to find out a bit more about how Kiwi vapers are doing I spoke to Associate Professor Marewa Glover about the law and what’s happening at the moment. Prof. Glover has been one of the leading pro-vaping voices in New Zealand for years, and she’s worked especially hard to improve access to vapor products for the Indigenous