Vaping News Headlines: UK Public Believes Vaping IS Safer – iQOS May Not Be Sold in USA – Universities Reject Big Tobacco Money – Good And Bad News For US Vapers – Singapore Criminalizes Use Of E-Cigs – What’s Tom Hardy Vaping On?

The UK Public Now Believes Vaping Is Safer Than Smoking

More people in the UK now believe vaping is healthier than Smoking than ever before.

This is massive sea change in public opinion given just a couple of years ago many people believed the complete opposite.

OK 2,134 people were quizzed in a poll carried out by YouGov and the results show that slowly but surely the message that vaping is safer is getting through.

• 43% thought vaping was better for your health
• 5% thought it was worse for your health
• 31% believe vaping has the same impact on health as smoking
• 21% of those questioned had no idea – probably journalists haha

The poll was commissioned by the UK online vape retailed the Electronic Tobacconist who say:

Public perceptions about vaping are changing. Just a few short years ago, many people were wary of e-cigarettes.

They didn’t really know what they were, what they did, or if they were any better than tobacco cigarettes. Certainly when any new product arrives into the marketplace, there will be a great deal of suspicion about it, and this has definitely been the case with e-cigarettes.

Not anymore. In January, we commissioned leading pollsters YouGov to carry out a survey for us about UK public attitudes to vaping.

We wanted to know what people thought of electronic cigarettes, and especially if they believed they were any safer, or better, than traditional tobacco cigarettes.

Because a number of top health authorities have started supporting vaping in recent times, primarily as a way to quit smoking, we suspected public attitudes toward vaping might be changing, and we wanted to find out.

It might only be a smallish poll but the results have to welcomed especially given the negative press the public has been bombarded with over the last few years.

Source

iQOS May Never Be Sold In America

Tobacco giant Phillip Morris the makers of the heat not burn product iQOS was licking its wounds last week after a FDA backed panel of experts recommended it shouldn’t be allowed on sale in the USA.

The advisory panel to the FDA studied the evidence presented by PMI but decided the company hadn’t proved the safety of the device in particular:

…that lowering exposure to those chemicals is reasonably likely to translate into a measurable reduction in disease or death.

The panel voted overwhelmingly with 8 votes to 1 against but PMI was upbeat with a spokesman saying:

We are confident in our ability to address the valid questions raised by the committee with the F.D.A. as the review process for our application continues.

A final decision from the FDA is due in a few months and history tends to suggest they rarely go against the advisory panels decisions.

You can read my full article Is This The End Of iQOS In America? for further info and Mike’s superb review on iQOS Here.

Universities Refuse Research Cash From Smoke Free Foundation

In yet another twist to the Marlboro Men’s attempt to go ‘smoke free’ 17 universities across America and Canada are refusing to accept research grants from them.

Phillip Morris Inc – the makers of brands such as Marlboro – has invested $1billion [and rising] into the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World – a non-profit organization that aims to:

…to accelerate global efforts to reduce health impacts and deaths from smoking, with the goal of ultimately eliminating smoking worldwide.

However big name universities such as Harvard and Johns Hopkins are not convinced.

Karen Emmons, dean for academic affairs at Harvard’s public health school said:

The idea of taking money that’s from the tobacco industry is just antithetical to everything we do.

Philip Morris in particular has focused very hard to undermine the strategies that we know will reduce smoking rates.

Ouch!

President of the foundation and former WHO director Derek Yach said he was ‘disappointed’ at the decision:

We share the same goals: To improve public health and urgently advocate for more funding and better science to help millions of smokers reduce their risk of death and disease.

However in a statement released last week and signed by the Deans of the 17 colleges they made their position crystal clear:

…both the tobacco industry and Philip Morris International have a long history of funding ‘research’ in ways meant to purposely confuse the public and advance their own interests.

Double ouch lol.

Source

Great News and Not So Great News For America’s Vapers

An American scientific study of vaping – backed by the FDA – has said for the first time that vaping is considerably safer than smoking.

However whilst that’s indeed amazing news for America’s vapers – there was more than a few stings in the tail!

A team of experts from the powerful National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine looked at 800 peer reviewed papers and research on e-cigarettes and published 47 key reasons why they believe vaping is far far safer than smoking with the three key points being:

• There is substantial evidence that except for nicotine, exposure to potentially toxic substances from e-cigarettes (under typical conditions of use) is significantly lower compared with conventional cigarettes.
• There is conclusive evidence that completely substituting e-cigarettes for conventional cigarettes reduces users’ exposure to many toxicants and carcinogens present in conventional cigarettes.
• There is substantial evidence that completely switching from regular use of conventional cigarettes to e-cigarettes results in reduced short-term adverse health outcomes in several organ systems.

Great news indeed however the team quite bizarrely also came to the conclusion that passive vaping was bad and that e-cigarettes were still a gateway to youngsters smoking!

Given all the very latest data on both subjects I’m quite right to call their findings ‘bizarre!’

However and as I said in the article New Scientific Study Could Be A Game Changer For Vapers In America – there’s enough good news in there for US advocacy groups to get to work promoting the benefits of switching – particularly this snippet:

..there is conclusive evidence that completely substituting e-cigarettes for combustible tobacco cigarettes reduces users’ exposure to numerous toxicants and carcinogens present in combustible tobacco cigarettes.

Responding to the report Michael Frennier the president of the New York Vapor Association said:

With the number of bills proposed in New York in the 2018 legislative session which would severely limit adult smokers’ access to vapor products, we hope the New York legislature will take a long hard look at this federal report before taking risks with New Yorkers lives.

As always we’ll keep you informed!

Singapore To Sling Vapers In Jail

Not sure why many Asian countries are vehemently anti-vaping but it’s soon going to be illegal to vape in Singapore.

Anyone caught vaping can face a fine of up to S$2,000 – just over £1000 AND 6 months in jail for first time ‘offenders’.

This can rise to S$20,000 fines and up to a year in jail for ‘repeat offenders’ – absolutely bloody crazy and yet another criminal act by a Government forcing desperate smokers to a slow lingering death.

It has been illegal for a while to import – sell or distribute vaping products but the new Tobacco (Control of Advertisements and Sale) Act passed into law last November now includes the use and goes into effect in February this year.

As to why they’ve took such a tough stance on e-cigarettes a Government spokesman said:

It will further reduce opportunities for youths to take up smoking before they turn 21…and better protect our population from the harms of emerging and imitation tobacco products.

Absolutely crazy to say the least.

I wrote an article about this back in the summer of 2016 and I suggest you go read When Vaping Is Criminalized – it will make your blood boil.

Source

…and finally…Tom Hardy and Vaping

It’s a little known fact that since I too grew a beard myself and ‘hunky’ Brit actor Tom Hardy have never been seen in the same room…

[dream on Neil dream on lol]

It’s also a little known fact the screen star appears to be a bit of a vaper.

This photo popped up on my Twitter timeline – quite why I have no idea I don’t tend to follow celeb tweets [I don’t know who half of them are lol] but I thought it was worth a share.

Particularly as that tank he has looks like my original Nautilus [after I broke both pieces of glass] – another thing we have in common lol.

I think the guys over at Vape Beat suggested he might be vaping on an SX Mini of some sort – what do you reckon?

Anyway judging from the date of the photo – which comes from his Instagram page – he’s probably updated his set-up now.

However being a bit of an intrepid reporter type guy I did checkout his latest Instagram posts [felt a bit weird lol] and here he is with some bloke [probably very famous but I have no idea who he is] still using the caged Nautilus but I still can’t quite make out his mod – any ideas?

Anyway I hope the ladies enjoyed those photos – oops given we live in a PC world [not the computer shop] I hope some blokes enjoyed them too.

Good to see no matter how famous and rich you are and with all those high end atties out there the old school Nautilus still reigns supreme.

Now where did I leave mine…

And no I’m not auditioning as a writer for OK or Heat – there was a shortage of funnier bits of vaping news this week lol

Link to Tom Hardy’s Instagram

*Shuffles Papers*