by Steve Birr Proponents of a new tax on electronic cigarettes are blaming the devices for tobacco use among children and claim they are contributing to the “tobacco epidemic.” Proposition 56 in California will hike the state’s tobacco tax from 87 cents to $2.87. The ballot would also allow the state government to begin taxing…
by Steve Birr Anti-tobacco advocates are launching an advertisement campaign centered on dead children in support of raising the tobacco tax and applying it to electronic cigarettes in California. A coalition of healthcare and cancer groups are joining together to dump 5,600 toe tags, used for dead bodies in a morgue, from a body bag in front…
By Guy Bentley One of the nation’s leading e-liquid manufacturers is taking the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to court over regulations that could wipe out 99 percent of the industry. Nicopure Labs LLC filed a lawsuit in the federal district court in Washington, D.C. Tuesday against the FDA’s “deeming” regulations. The part of the regulations that…
Guy Bentley A Swiss study claiming vaping can lead to smoking and harms current smokers’ chance of quitting suffers from “fatal” flaws, and the paper’s conclusions are misrepresentative, according to a leading public health expert. “We found no beneficial effects of vaping at follow-up for either smoking cessation or smoking reduction,” the authors conclude in the…
Guy Bentley The year 2015 played host to the most intense campaign of misinformation and lobbying against e-cigarettes yet, perhaps due to exploding popularity over the last year. Public health activists, prohibitionists, and journalists have jumped on the bandwagon of the war against vapers, reporting headline-grabbing excerpts of dubious studies and advocating regulatory clampdowns and…
Guy Bentley A study making headlines across the world claiming two e-cigarette products “damaged cells in ways that could lead to cancer,” is under fire from a leading public health expert. Conducted by a research team at the University of California, San Diego, the study investigated how e-cigarettes may contribute to the development and progression of…
Guy Bentley E-cigarettes could be the most important factor in hundreds of thousands of people quitting smoking, according to a study published in the International Journal of Public Health. France’s 2014 Health Barometer, using responses from 15,635 people, aimed to investigate the relationship between tobacco and e-cigarette use. The research found that just over a…
Guy Bentley Reports of high levels of a potentially deadly chemical in e-cigarettes have been greatly exaggerated and are part of a trend toward the demonization of vaping, according to a leading tobacco control expert. Diacetyl, a chemical linked to the severe respiratory disease bronchiolitis obliterans, commonly known as “popcorn lung,” was found in 39 of 51…
Guy Bentley Ex-smokers are four times more likely to use e-cigarettes than current smokers, while those who’ve never taken a puff of tobacco are unlikely to ever start vaping. A new paper by Rutgers School of Public Health and the Schroeder Institute slays a number of popular myths surrounding e-cigarettes. The paper uses some of the latest…