Vape News Headlines:
Free Vape Kits For UK Smokers? – New Jersey Vape Ban – US Gov Study Shows Flavours NOT the Reason Kids Vape and Vaping Is Like Swimming With “Man Eating Piranhas”
UK Should Supply FREE E-Cigs To Smokers
Two leading UK charities are recommending free vaping starter kits to be given to smokers looking to quit.
Cancer Research UK [CRUK] and Action on Smoking and Health [ASH] call for the move in a joint report.
As it stands at the moment, just 11% of the UK’s stop smoking services offer free starter kits and this needs to increase says the charities.
The call comes after cuts to the cash strapped services show over 9% slashed from their budgets equating to a loss £8 million over the last couple of years.
The report says:
Local authorities which do not currently provide e-cigarette starter packs as part of their cessation offer should consider doing so to give local smokers the best possible chance to quit.
Potential removal of the Public Health ring-fenced grant could mean tobacco funding is severely decreased beyond 2020.
Even if this is not the case local authority budgets are under extreme pressure and this could impact public health budgets in the near future where difficult decisions will have to be made.
The report shows that:
- In a quarter (23%) of local authorities, GPs did not prescribe any Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT). Smokers should be offered a choice of combination NRT or varenicline, alongside behavioural support, to give them the best possible chance of quitting.
- In a fifth (21%) of local authorities with specialist stop smoking advisers, these advisers received fewer than two days’ training. Ensuring specialist staff have adequate training in line with nationally recognised standards is essential if they are to provide effective support to smokers.
- The 1 in 10 local authorities that only offered a stop smoking service through primary care were the least likely to be targeting groups with a high smoking prevalence (e.g. routine and manual workers or people with mental health conditions), despite this being key to reducing inequalities in smoking.
- 2% of local authorities offer only telephone stop smoking support.
Deborah Arnott, Chief Executive of ASH, said the tobacco industry should be asked to pay for such services adding:
To fund the support smokers need to quit, the Government should impose a ‘polluter pays’ charge on the tobacco industry which could raise at least £265m annually.
This could adequately fund stop smoking services, local authority enforcement against the illicit tobacco trade and underage sales, and adequately funded public health campaigns to reduce smoking.
Kruti Shrotri, Policy Manager at Cancer Research UK said:
Smoking is the biggest preventable cause of cancer and every year smoking related illness costs the NHS £2.5bn.
The tobacco industry makes over £1.5bn of profits each year in the UK, and the government should make it pay for the mess it’s made so smoking can be a thing of the past.
The report also states smokers quitting by using e-cigarettes are twice as likely to be successful if they use e-cigarettes.
Read the Many Ways Forward report.
New Jersey Vape Ban Bill Passes
As we all expected and as I wrote in Sunday’s Vape News, the New Jersey vape ban has been passed.
The vote on the new vaping legislation was pretty overwhelming with the Senate at 22-15 and the Assembly at 53-11.
Governor Phil Murphy is expected to sign off on the bill on January 21st and the legislation will come into law 90 days after that date.
Pro vape groups including Gregory Conely, President of the American Vape Association, say all is not lost and are urging vapers and vape shops owners to fight on.
Greg tweeted:
…if vape shop owners get fired up and work cooperatively over the next 90-100 days, we can potentially get a bill through to keep vape shops open.
The new law also means that vape products that remain on sale will see a tax increase of a staggering 50% and an adult signature will be required for any vape related deliveries bought online.
As we have seen in neighbouring state New York – there’s always a chance of an appeal being successful through the courts.
Not sure how they can fight what is a democratic process, but of course we all wish them well.
Flavours NOT Behind Reason Kids Vape
Curiosity is the number one reason for American youngsters to take up vaping a US Government report states.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] shows that flavours aren’t even number two in the reasons why – indeed over 75% of US ‘kids’ don’t even take flavours into consideration!
The report comes as over two dozen US senators have signed a letter slamming the Trump administration for not banning all flavours – to protect the children!
That letter, sent to the new Commissioner of the FDA, Dr. Stephen Hahn, now looks particularly silly if a little outdated particularly the line:
Leaving them on the market will place millions of children at risk of addiction.
As the newly confirmed FDA Commissioner, you have the opportunity, and the obligation, to take meaningful action to address the ongoing youth vaping crisis.
FDA’s recently announced compliance policy fails to prioritize children, families and the public health ahead of industry objections.
The CDC survey blows a hole in the argument that flavours are the reason kids take to the vape as you can see from the results shown above.
Jacob James Rich is a policy analyst at the Reason Foundation and he says this means the current swathe of flavour bans are pointless:
Flavors happen to be a very important factor when adults are making their decisions on whether they’re going to switch from combustible-dangerous-carcinogenic cigarettes to vaping.
If you look at the surveys for teen use, and when you ask them why they’re using, ‘curiosity’ by far is the number one reason why they’re using them and flavors happen to be way, way down the totem pole—only [about] 23 percent of teens say flavors even enter any sort of consideration when they are choosing to vape.
As to if this report will make any difference one doubts – politicians appear deaf and more than a little dumb when it comes to the true facts surrounding vaping in the states – particularly when it comes to the so called ‘teen vape epidemic‘.
and finally…Vaping and “Man Eating Piranhas”
According to one local UK politician, vaping is the same as jumping into a tank of man eating piranhas lol.
Councillor James Foreman from South Tyneside reckons the two choices – smoking or vaping – are both deadly:
I’m not happy with the statement that smokers would be better off vaping after you pooh-poohed the idea of [vaping causing] deaths in America.
I think the jury is still out, it’s like there’s two pools, one filled with sharks and one with man-eating piranhas – you haven’t got a chance with the sharks, so you take the piranhas, but they’re both wrong because there’s still a chance of dying.
To me, one death is too many and if people are dying vaping why are we saying ‘you could be the unlucky one?
He made his comments after local health officials said many health organizations now backed vaping as a much safer alternative to smoking.
And of course as we all know – vaping nicotine products hasn’t killed a single person in the USA – that was down to contaminated THC cartridges.
Last week it was vaping is more dangerous than parachuting without a parachute – now it’s the same as jumping into a tank filled with piranhas – and they wonder why we think politicians are so ignorant and out of touch…
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More Vape News on Sunday!
