New from Steve K's Vaping World:
Welcome to another e-cigarette news roundup, the last one before Christmas. Two big stories are in the roundup this week. The EU reached a “compromise” on e-cigarettes that’s not much better than a ban. NYC has made good on its threat to ban e-cigarettes in public places.
NYC City Council Engages in Massive Nanny Orgy Before Christmas
Today was a sad day in the city that never sleeps. The City council voted 43-8 to include e-cigarettes in the city’s clean air laws. But, at least they’re not as bad as styrofoam where the council decided unanimously to give foam containers and coffee cups the boot from the city altogether. Takeout and vaping will never be the same.
The Council also voted to ban puffing on e-cigarettes at bars, restaurants, and workplaces, adding it to the city’s sweeping indoor smoking ban.
Officials say the little-studied devices may have health risks, and make it hard to enforce the existing ban.
“The smoke free air act has saved lives, benefited businesses, and reduced the number of young people who start smoking and end up hooked. We can’t afford to jeopardize these monumental accomplishments,” said Quinn.
via City Council Bans Styrofoam And Bars E-Cigarettes Indoors At Marathon Last Meeting | New York Daily News.
Ironically, what the council did will pretty much do the exact opposite of what the smoke free air act did. The good news is the law will be next to impossible to enforce. So at least public health may be served in spite of the council.
NYC eCig Ban Will be Virtually Unenforcable
As I write this the New York City Council is preparing to vote on a city-wide public vaping ban which will class e-cigarettes right along things that actually produce smoke. The preliminary hearing was quite lively. But it turns out, the ill-informed ban might have another problem. Enforcing it.
The bill is one of 25 that the City Council is scheduled to vote on today, and would tack on e-cigarettes to the Smoke-Free Air Act of 2002. Should it be passed, it will go into effect four months after the mayor signs it into law, with signage requirements kicking in after six months. Notably, Commissioner Farley admitted during the hearing that enforcement would be mostly up to the establishment’s owners.
via E-Cigs Likely To Be Banned In NYC Public Spaces: Gothamist.
We’ll find out soon whether the city will put one more notch in the belt of individual freedom restrictions.
Majority of People Against Vaping Bans
Despite what the prohibitionist extremists might make you think, it turns out Americans are a little more tolerant of e-cigarettes. A poll run by Reason finds that about 62 percent of Americans are ok with using e-cigarettes in public. Libertarians and conservatives were more in favor than self-identified liberals. However, even on the left-hand side of the scale, a majority still opposed bans (58%).
The new Reason-Rupe poll finds that 62 percent of Americans think the government should allow people to use tobacco-free electronic cigarettes in public places while 34 percent say the government should prohibit this activity.
Non-partisan independents (66 percent) and independents who lean Republican (68 percent) are more likely than Democrats (58 percent) to think government should allow people to use e-cigarettes in public places. Nevertheless, majorities of all political groups think electronic cigarettes should be allowed, including 63 percent of Republicans and 61 percent of Independents who lean Democrati
via 62 Percent Think E-Cigarette Use in Public Should be Allowed Despite Expected FDA Regulations – Hit & Run : Reason.com.
It’s still weird to me that this is still a partisan issue. People on both sides of the aisle want to see people get away from cigarettes after all.
e-Cigarettes Interfere with Dogma
An interesting editorial appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine that seemed to be oddly against and for e-cigarettes at the same time. While it started out bashing advertising of the products and how it messes with denormalization efforts and hinting that the vaping community was a bunch of astroturfers. However, it ended noting that trying to ban e-cigarettes flies in the face of public health.
The debate’s stakes are heightened by the current discussion of the tobacco endgame, which aims to eliminate smoking or reduce it to very low levels. Most endgame strategists have advanced prohibitionist policies, from complete bans on traditional cigarettes, to regulatory strategies that would reduce and eventually eliminate nicotine, to efforts to manipulate pH levels in tobacco to make inhaling unpleasant.
This debate compels us to address the fundamental issue posed by Kenneth Warner in a recent issue of Tobacco Control devoted to endgame strategies: “What would constitute a final victory in tobacco control?” Warner’s question raises several others: Must victory entail complete abstinence from e-cigarettes as well as tobacco? To what levels must we reduce the prevalence of smoking? What lessons should be drawn from the histories of alcohol and narcotic-drug prohibition?
via The Renormalization of Smoking? E-Cigarettes and the Tobacco “Endgame” — NEJM.
I’m sure those statements will make the libertarians among us convulse with rage.
e-Cigarette Vending Machine Coming Soon
For a high-tech market, it only makes sense for a high-tech solution. Seaga has come up with a space-age vending machine complete with an HD display screen to vend electronic cigarettes. The machines should hit the market sometime in 2014.
The E-Cigarette vendor will accept cashless payments and includes cloud-based telemetry with sales data reporting, multi-lingual customer interaction as well as a live product display lit by energy efficient LEDs. The vendor features a 19-inch HD video screen with optional sound package and integrated remote control. Boasting a sleek, modern appearance, the high security door and anti-theft design along with Seaga’s trademark space conscious engineering ensure years of performance in this growing market. The vendor will be offered in floor or wall mount applications for maximum location flexibility.
via Seaga Introduces New E-Cigarette Machine – VendingMarketWatch.
The I only thing I wonder is what will come out first. This machine? Or the prohibitionists screaming their favorite conspiracy theories. After all, they made a big deal about a Santa Claus billboard.
Senators Open New Front in eCig War
Apparently not content with harassing the FDA to move faster on regulations, politicians are taking a new route to harass the e-cigarette industry. Rather than continuing to badger the FDA, who’s regulations are still waiting for finalization, the group of senators is asking another 3-letter government agency to see what they can do. They’ve requested the FTC look into industry advertising practices.
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Edward J. Markey (D-MA) sent a letter to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairwoman Edith Ramirez today urging the FTC to investigate the marketing practices of e-cigarette manufacturers. The Senators called on the FTC to provide more information to the public about these practices and to pursue enforcement action against companies that make false or misleading health claims in their advertising.
The Senators wrote, “While public health experts learn more about the health and safety implications of e-cigarettes, it would be beneficial to disseminate to the public information about the marketing of these products and to investigate companies that conduct false, deceptive, or misleading advertising and hold them responsible to the full extent of the law.”
via Senator Edward Markey.
Why is it I have the feeling that their puppet masters won’t rest until somebody does something. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a bill get floated to ban e-cigs outright. Probably the only reason it hasn’t is because congress can’t pass anything.
Halo eCigs Sues Hookah and Tobacco Companies
Here’s one for a change up, an e-cigarette company is suing a tobacco company. Sadly it’s not quite the David and Goliath story as one might hope. Big T is still crushing small companies that would cross them. Instead, Halo is suing a California-based tobacco and hookah company over using its trademark Halo name.
In 2011, Nidal Haddadin, of Montebello, Calif., who owns tobacco manufacturer LA Trendz, Inc., began using Halo to sell tobacco, shisha tobacco – which is used in hookah pipes – and cigars, the suit claims.
Similarly, one of his relatives, Gahndhi Haddadin, the owner of The Hookah, LLC, which owns Halohookah.com, began selling Trendz products by using the Halo trademark, and so did another company, Global Hookah Distributors, the suit says.
Trident claims that the three companies’ use of the Halo trademark “casts a negative connotation” on Trident e-cigarettes and nicotine vaporizers, by linking them to traditional smoking products.
“Despite the product’s name, (e-cigs) are not cigarettes at all, and they do not contain tobacco leaves meant for combustion,” the suit claims. “Rather, they are simply nicotine delivery services.”
via E-cig maker to old-school tobacco: you’re an insult | BizBlog | NorthJersey.com.
It should be interesting to see how that one plays out. I’m still dreading the day I have to report on ecig on ecig lawsuit action. You know that day will eventually come.
eCigs: What did Consumer Reports Have to Say?
Consumer Reports released a short article attempting to answer the question whether or not it was safe to be around e-cigarettes. The article noted studies which found minor amounts of nicotine but nothing terrible in the vapor. The resulting bottom line wasn't as terrible as it could have been.
E-Cigarette | Electronic Cigarette Safety – Consumer Reports
Bottom line: This study adds to the evidence that vapor from e-cigs is probably safer to inhale secondhand than cigarette smoke—though that doesn't mean it's 100 percent risk free. If you're pregnant or have young children with you, or if you have a cardiovascular condition that might be aggravated by exposure to nicotine, you might want to politely move away if someone powers up an e-cigarette in your vicinity.
Surprisingly enlightened view, whereas most news stories start to freak out and quote people who claim nicotine will kill everyone they love. Turns out nicotine might not be all that bad. Of course this article did mention other studies found “contaminants” like propylene glycol.
EU Compromises on eCigs But Leaves in Doomsday Switch
The commission that meets in secret to come up with compromise deals when the EU can’t seem to decide on something has reached a deal on e-cigarettes. The immediate dangers of restrictions that would wipe out the market are gone for now. However, this is still a bitter pill to swallow for many because there is a very low nicotine concentration limit for one thing. The big deal is, however, that this addition to the TPD has a little surprise built in.
Under the deal, e-cigarettes will be regulated for general sale at EU level, but member states would be allowed to regulate them as medicines if they so choose. Refillable cartridges will not be banned. However member states can ban specific types of cartridges, if the ban can be justified by safety concerns. If three member states adopt a ban on a specific cartridge, the European Commission can unilaterally impose an EU-level ban, without approval by Parliament or member states. Although the deal on Monday would have capped cartridge size at 1ml, this was raised today to 2ml on the advice of the Commission.
via EU tobacco law agreed | European Voice.
Yes, that’s correct, if just a minority of member states decide to ban something, the EU can ban it for everyone. It’s a good thing there’s no trigger-happy, pharma influenced governments in the EU.
Vaping Community Represented in Mainstream Media
You may have noticed these days that I’m somewhat jaded and cynical when it comes to mainstream media reporting on e-cigarettes. It’s always the same prohibitionist rhetoric with occasional soundbites from a vaper. Imagine my surprise when I saw an article in the guardian not only arguing for e-cigarettes, but penned by our own Nick “Grimm” Green.
We have recently seen all sorts of arguments from the anti-vaping-crowd, ranging from a need to protect the children to the incredibly outdated and inaccurate anti-freeze argument – based on a small-scope study the FDA did in 2010. Currently, the big trend in the crusade against vaping is arguing that e-cigarette use will somehow get non-smokers addicted to nicotine, and that they will then move from vaping to tobacco cigarettes. Politicians and the public simply can’t believe that vaping isn’t the next scourge of society.
If I could stress one thing to anyone, it would be the incredibly important point that e-cigarette use is not about being 100% safe and harmless; it is about harm reduction. It’s about being safer than the alternative. It’s actually comparable to clicking on a seat belt when you get in the car. For former smokers, it’s about feeling better about yourself, not smelling like an ashtray, and being excited about not using tobacco.
via Don’t believe the hype: e-cigarettes won’t ruin society, they changed my life | Nick Green | Comment is free | theguardian.com.
Naturally, this is going to be a very pro-vaping article. But, you might want to keep an eye on the comments section or future articles, because I’m pretty sure the prohibition types aren’t going to sit quietly for that.
Nicotine Expert: Little Harm from Nicotine
Addiction to deadly nicotine. That’s the battle cry you hear from prohibitionists high and low. But are either of those things true? Not really. My good friends over at the Ashtray Blog interviewed an expert on nicotine who asserted that nicotine on its own is not as addictive as cigarettes or particularly harmful.
Nicotine itself is not causing harm, particularly in people used to it like smokers. They become rapidly tolerant to its effects. The only remaining question is what long-term effects of inhaling pure nicotine could cause. We don’t have the answer yet in humans, even if some vapers are using it for many years now. To date we have not seen any adverse effect.
But we have some evidence from a study in rats, that exposed them to pure nicotine inhalation for 2 years (equivalent to a human life for a rat). The results showed no adverse effects on any organ (no carcinogenic effect, no pulmonary effects, no cardiovascular effects). The only difference noted between rats who where exposed to nicotine and control rats, was that nicotine exposed rats weighted less than control rats. This is also the case in smokers as we know, they weight less than they would weight as non smokers.
via An Interview with Nicotine Expert Dr Jacques Le Houezec.
You should just click the link and read the interview, it’s pretty good stuff. Particularly when he notes that anti-smoking activists need more education.
There's an App For That, Thanks to a French eCig Company
According to an article a French e-cigarette company has produced an e-cigarette that tracks your vaping experience via an app. Of course the article touts this as a first, but there are other devices on the market like the eVic. Still this one is interesting because it tracks way more than how many puffs and their duration.
it tells you when, where, and for how long you tend to vape, which can give insight into what triggers a nicotine craving: Late-night drinking binges? Stress at work? It tells you how many puffs of the e-cig you’ve taken and how many analog cigarettes that would have translated to, thus calculating how much sin-tax money you’ve saved. But the most striking feature is the little heart icon that’s colored red over time as you e-smoke yourself back to health. The app tracks blood oxygenation, heart rejuvenation, and calculates how many days you’ve added back onto your life.
via Of Course There’s a Smart E-Cigarette to Shame You Into Quitting Smoking | Motherboard.
It seems ironic that this came from a French company since the courts decided to hand e-cigarettes over to the tobacco industry. Possibly one of the least innovative industries when it comes to stuff that doesn’t kill people.
Do Prohibitionists Honestly Think 6 Year Olds Target eCig Market?
The anti-tobacco set has been on this e-cigarettes trying to hook kids paranoid conspiracy theory kick for some time now. Things weren’t really helped with the CDC releasing stats that were juked to put it mildly. Now someone over at Tobacco Free Kids must have soiled themselves when someone dug up a vapor shop billboard with a picture of santa on it.
Now one e-cigarette retailer has stooped to a new low in copying Big Tobacco’s playbook. Vapor Shark features Santa Claus in a billboard ad for its e-cigarettes that was spotted on I-95 in Miami. The company’s products come in a wide variety of flavors including “Candy Cane Menthol,” “Sour Apple” and “Blueberry Waffle.”
via HO HO – OH NO! – Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids.
“Holy golly gee you guys, we totally have proof they are marketing to kids.” Well, one of two things is happening. Either they are complete idiots, or they assume everyone else is. They are correct, Santa is a big hit among the kids. The really young kids. Most other kids catch on to the Santa thing when they’re in 1st or 2nd grade (spoilers).
So either Tobacco Free Kids really thinks people are trying to convince people just one year past the demo for Bob the Builder to start taking on nicotine. Or, maybe they think you won’t notice since they had you at “the kids.”
Euro Prohibitionists' Greed May Cause Them to Lose All eCig Control
Europe has been struggling these past several weeks with the oddball process the EU uses to negotiate laws after the parliament votes on proposed legislation. The idea of medicalization of e-cigarettes was roundly defeated, but that didn’t stop prohibitionists. They promptly went to work coming up with a secretly negotiated compromise that wouldn’t carry the label of medical regulation, but would be at least as, if not more so, restrictive than medical requirements. It turns out such stubborn tenacity is not without its drawbacks.
Member states have compromised from their original insistence to regulate e-cigarettes as medicines, as originally proposed by the European Commission last year. They say they are willing to regulate e-cigarettes as consumer tobacco products, but only on the condition that they are strictly regulated. National capitals are extremely worried about the potential health effects of this new product and the possibility that it could in fact open a whole new market for smokers.
Member states including Germany, Belgium, Hungary and Poland have said refillable cartridges are a red line and under no circumstances could they vote for a tobacco law that allows them.
via EU may abandon e-cigarette regulation | European Voice.
The consensus now seems to be that if the prohibitionists keep trying to tighten the noose around e-cigarettes, they stand to lose everything they’ve already gained in the much maligned TPD. Such is the burden of those driven by dogma over pragmatism.
A Statement so Shockingly Awful, I Forgot the Point of the Article
I think I’ve just read an article that succeeded in making me slightly less intelligent than I was prior to reading. That’s pretty impressive considering the article came from Time Magazine and was largely about the bad things that might happen as a results of poorly considered e-cigarette regulation. So what could have possibly have been so bad?
Stanton Glantz, a professor at the University of California San Francisco medical school and a leading expert on the effects of secondhand tobacco smoke, says electronic cigarette vapor still emits harmful fine particles in the air. “If you look at absolute levels of risk [of electronic cigarettes], they are pretty bad, because a cigarette is just ridiculously toxic and ridiculously polluting,” he said in a September TIME story. “If you go into a bar or casino where there is a lot of smoking, the only way to get the air that polluted outdoors is to be downwind from a large forest fire. If you say an electronic cigarette is only 10% to 20% less polluting than a massive forest fire, that’s not so good.”
via Electronic Cigarettes: RegulatingCould Have Unintended Consequences | TIME.com.
The leaps in logic in that single paragraph seem to have short circuited more synapses in my head than entire college freshman year of drinking. Call me duly impressed. I should give out an award or something. Now, where did I put that beer bong?
Selling eCigs to Minors Never Crossed Minds of Vendors
Pennsylvania is one of many states considering prohibiting the sale of e-cigarettes to minors. Based on interviews conducted for one newspaper article, it seems that’s more of a formality than anything else. Vendors by default seem to have decided not to sell devices to the underage to begin with.
“I didn’t know it was legal to sell to kids,” said Gabrielle Williams, co-owner of Vape Inn on East Carson Street in the South Side, which stocks the personal smoking simulators. “I never see them in here. Teenagers don’t really try to buy.”
Signs such as Williams’ warding off underage, would-be patrons could become a statewide norm if Senate Bill 1055, fresh from the Judiciary Committee, passes the Senate when sessions resume in the spring. Pennsylvania would be the 27th state to enact stricter legislation.
via Electronic cigarettes are not a big hit with teens | TribLIVE.
According to the article, it seems the schools are the ones that need help. Some schools even report they might give e-cigarette device back to parents after a student is disciplined. Then again, if my punk kid swiped one of my devices, I’d kind of be mad if it got confiscated and disposed of by the school.
Nicotine Researcher Comes Clean About Nicotine Dependence.
An article by Dr. Fagerstrom online that examined the power of nicotine as an addictive substance. It turns out that nicotine on its own is far less addictive than many other addictive substances (like street drugs). It turns out that nicotine addiction really comes from the other gifts you get along with nicotine when you smoke a cigarette. On it’s own nicotine doesn’t seem to be the threat prohibitionists make it out to be.
If other constituents in smoked tobacco are also important in dependence, a consequence is that the term ‘nicotine dependence’ is often used incorrectly: it would be more accurate to refer to ‘tobacco dependence’ and even more precisely to ‘cigarette dependence’ when cigarettes are involved. Nicotine dependence is mostly studied in animals and more rarely in humans.
…
As much as there is a continuum of harm with pure nicotine products on one end and cigarettes in the other, these studies suggest that it is easier to stop using some nicotine products than others and that there seems to be a continuum of dependence. This would place traditional cigarettes at one end and the pure nicotine products (and particularly nicotine patches) at the other end of the continuum (Fagerstrom& Eissenberg 2012).
Just as from a morbidity and mortality point of view, we would like to see users move away from cigarettes to less harmful products, the same can be true for dependence. One important reason for the unparalleled harmfulness of the cigarette is that users become so dependent on it. Fortunately it seems that the less harmful products, such as snus and the clean nicotine products, are also easier to give up. If the world could rid itself of smoked tobacco, particularly cigarettes, it would be easier to take further steps toward a nicotine free society if that would be desirable.
via Dependence on tobacco and nicotine – Nicotine Science and Policy.
Of course, we knew that, you say. Yes, the particularly interesting thing about this article is the author’s background. You see, Dr. Fagerstrom is one of the researchers that made the original claims in the 1980′s about nicotine’s addictive properties. This article is essentially a departure from the current ideology that is gaining traction among prohibitionists.
Story Looks for Kids' Gateway, Finds Adults Gateway (away from cigarettes)
The Sacramento Bee rain a reasonably in-depth article on e-cigarettes, trying to cover the controversy from all sides. The post included more than just the passing quote from a store owner and gave a fair amount of coverage to both friend and foe alike. It seemed that ultimately, the story fell down when it came time to present evidence of the great e-cigarette gateway.
Nicotine flavors available at Royal Vapes carry names with a youth slant: Air Headz, Flatline and Curious Jorge.
Kenny Hammon, 19, says he likes that the smell from vaporized nicotine isn’t offensive like cigarette smoke. He smokes about half a pack daily and wants to quit.
Last week, he bought his first vaporizer at Sublime Vape, a shop in central Fresno that opened this year. His first pick for a nicotine flavor: sour candy. It tastes “like a Popsicle,” he says. His second choice: sweet honeydew.
via Vaping gains popularity in Valley | Health | FresnoBee.com.
Still, the story raises an interesting question. What about the unintended consequences? Most prohibitionists and media outlet want to focus on a conspiracy that doesn’t exist. That’s the wrong approach because it’s based on some new anti-tobacco religion. It seems there’s a pragmatic question that’s getting ignored. There will be a percentage of non-smokers who might like to “play” with e-cigarettes, is that acceptable and what should be done? So far nobody is focusing on that question.
Sleazy Shop Owners Sell eCigs to Minors? Blame Simon Cowell
The city of Reading in the UK apparently has an unscrupulous e-cigarette vendor issue. Killing some spare time with a pseudo-sting, local health officials found several vendors willing to sell e-cigarettes to a 14 year-old. Of course, not much can be done with these merchants since there’s no age restrictions in place in that town. Instead locals did what parents always do when kids get caught doing stupid things. Blame the media.
“It is not acceptable behaviour to sell these e-cigarettes to under 18s and if I caught my daughter with one I would want to know exactly where she got it and would report the shop immediately.”
E-cigarettes are quickly becoming one of the most popular smoking cessation aids, with big tobacco companies producing their own brands and celebrities including One Direction’s Zayn Malik and Simon Cowell glamourising products by using them at glitzy events.
via Reading parents call for restrictions on e-cigarettes | Reading | News | Local Berkshire.
Yeah, best look at that as the guys kids look up to trying to hook kids on e-cigarettes. As opposed to, I don’t know, taking the more commendable step of giving up cigarettes.
NY Post May Deliver Higher Concentrations of BS than Other Newspapers
The New York Pos recently ran a story with the link-bating headline e-cigarettes are more toxic than regular cigarettes. This was based on a different story that dental researchers were going to look into whether or not e-cigarettes somehow magically deliver more toxins than cigarettes. Apparently as far as the post is concerned, idle musings that don’t make sense count as proof as long as it’s someone with a PhD speculating.
E-cigarette users may be getting higher concentrations of toxins than regular smokers because they inhale deeper and more frequently when they puff, NYU researchers say.
Although they are often touted as a safer alternative, e-cigs, introduced in the States in 2007, haven’t been in use long enough to determine their health effects, said Dr. Deepak Saxena, of NYU’s College of Dentistry.
“We have no scientific data to show that nicotine at this concentration is safe,” said Saxena, an associate professor of basic science and craniofacial biology.
via E-cigs may deliver more toxins than smoke, researchers say | New York Post.
Then again, it seems to fit the standards any more when it comes to e-cigarette research. If it’s negative, even if it’s written on a cocktail napkin after a hooker and blow marathon, it’s concrete proof. Anything that shows a positive benefit isn’t sufficient or is inaccurate. God himself probably couldn’t prove e-cigarettes are a good idea.
Deal of the Moment
Innokin 134 20% off at Panda eCigs
The Innokin iTaste 134 is one of those love it or hate it devices. Whichever way you swing, there’s one truth. This bad boy is a little pricey. Panda’s running a sale until Sunday November 17 that makes the price a little more wallet-friendly. If you’ve been waiting to get one of these, this week might just be a great time thanks to a hefty 20% discount. Use coupon code TASTE to get the discount. Oh, and if you haven’t heard of the 134 yet, there’s always my review.
See Options and Price
Older Entries »
Originally posted: e-Cigarette News Roundup for 12/20 – Wreck the Halls
Steve K's Vaping World - The Electronic Cigarette Supersite