Tag Archives: e-cigarettes

e-cig bans, e-cig flavourings

Federal ban on e-cig flavourings happening any day now?

Hey, it’s an update. Just haven’t had time lately.

This report from USA Today suggests that a federal ban on flavoured e-cig products is going to happen “very soon.”

This has been building up for months, partly because of the genuine alarm over the rapid increase in teen use of vaping products and partly over the hysteria over vaping illnesses and deaths the past few weeks (though most of those illnesses appear to have been from marijuana vaping products, not nicotine vaping products.).

In anticipation for the upcoming ban, Juul, one of the biggest  has already stopped selling menthol-flavoured vaping pods.

When it happens, I will have ZERO sympathy for the industry. For years, they got away with marketing their products to teenagers, for years they got away with enticing kids to vape addictive nicotine  through candy flavourings like bubble gum,

It’s a shame for people who have legitimately quit smoking via e-cigs, lord knows I’ve talked to enough of them over the years to accept that their dedication to the power of e-cigs is sincere, but this is what happens when you have an utterly unregulated industry operating with zero oversight … golly, the bottom line becomes vastly more important  to them than the social good. Call me an SJW. Whatever.

I’m guessing what this means is that e-cigs will have to be unflavoured from now on? Not sure on that.

It’s also possible that these flavourings will simply be banned from minimarkets and convenience stores and that only vape shops will be allowed to sell them … which was an idea (and a GOOD idea) originally proposed a year or two ago that the FDA dropped. Vape shops are more strictly regulated than convenience stores and are more stringent about keeping minors from coming in the door.

From the USA Today article:

A sign of the imminent ban announcement came Monday, when the Office of Management and Budget said it concluded its review of the rule and cancelled upcoming meetings with industry and consumer interests. (White House spokeswoman Kellyanne) Conway also said an announcement was coming soon. (Yes, that Kellyanne Conway).

On Tuesday, the FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published findings highlighted in September when Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced the planned ban. E-cigarette use among high school students more than doubled from 2017 to 2019 to 27.5%. About 5.3 million middle and high school students used e-cigarettes this year, up from 3.6 million in 2018.

Another study, also published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found after Juul stopped selling mango and other flavors in November, high school students simply switched to mint.

e-cigarettes and kids, e-cigs, Juul

The rise and possibly fall of Juul? — Juul under investigation

Ro, ro, Shaggy.

Wow, this really interesting. This story blew me away. Apparently, some state and federal agencies and some state attorneys general looking into the company’s marketing practices. Could this be the fall of mighty Juul?

The attorneys general of Washington, D.C. and Illinois (and four other states) are investigating just how Juul became so popular with teens, literally within months of Juuls hitting the market.

I know one thing Juul did was very smartly (in an evil way) use Instagram and other social media to market Juul to mostly young people … who are on Instagram. I also know they totally came out of NOWHERE to completely dominate the e-cig market (they control about 75 percent of the market).

From a Los Angeles Times article:

A senior Illinois law enforcement official described to the Associated Press a wide-ranging inquiry being conducted by the office of Illinois Atty. Gen. Kwame Raoul that is centered on whether Juul violated state consumer fraud laws and other statutes by designing and marketing its products to appeal to underage teens. The official was not authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity.

Marrisa Geller, a spokeswoman for District of Columbia Atty. Gen. Karl Racine, confirmed in an emailed statement that an investigation of Juul is underway. She said Racine is concerned about “the dramatic increase in the use of vaping products by district youth” as well as the policies and practices employed by e-cigarette manufacturers to prevent minors from using their products.

The attorneys general in Colorado, Connecticut and Massachusetts have announced investigations of Juul related to concerns over underage use of its products. North Carolina’s attorney general filed a lawsuit against Juul in May, asking a court to limit the company’s sales and marketing in the state.

I’m wondering here just how much shit Juul is actually in, but it sounds like possibly a lot. It sounds like there could be RICO statutes involved. This trouble isn’t going  to go away anytime soon and it certainly begs the question of whether this might be the beginning of the end for the company.

Interestingly, Juul actually donated $3,000 to the election campaign of the attorney general of Illinois, but he refused it on ethical grounds. Good for him.

Juul also has a bottomless pit of financing to fight the attorneys general. Remember, they are partly owned by Altria, which owns Philip Morris and Marlboro cigarettes.

I’ll definitely be keeping on eye on this story to see if anything comes of it.

e-cig bans, e-cigarettes, e-cigs, Juul, San Francisco

Juul prepares to fight San Francisco

Remember the douchy Juul CEO who is so awfully, terribly sorry that teenagers use his product?

Well, while researching douche-bro, I found out he’s preparing to go to war with San Francisco.

San Francisco a few weeks ago was the first major city in the U.S. to ban sales of e-cig products.

Ironically, Juul, the No. 1 e-cig company in the world (it is actually partly owned by Altria, which makes Marlboro cigarettes), is based in San Francisco.

Douche-bro CEO Kevin Burns, who is so awfully sorry teens use his product after his company aggressively marketed Juuls on social media for years, said Juul is not leaving San Francisco.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

  • As San Francisco officials prepare to consider a bill that would suspend the sale of e-cigarettes in the city, the CEO of Juul Labs — the controversial, homegrown company that sells the majority of e-cigarettes in the U.S. — said he’s committed to keeping the business and its fast-growing workforce in San Francisco.

“Yes, we’re staying,” Juul CEO Kevin Burns said Thursday in a wide-ranging interview with The Chronicle’s editorial board. “San Francisco is our home. We want to be in San Francisco. We have 1,200 employees in San Francisco, a huge talent base in San Francisco. We want to be a resident, and I’m hopeful we’ll find a way to be a resident.”

And beyond that, Juul is going to fight the city’s ban on selling vaping products. The company is sponsoring a sneaky voter initiative that is being presented as an anti-tobacco initiative. What it really is is a backdoor attempt to override San Francisco’s ban on e-cigarette sales.

From the Chronicle:

Juul wants to place an initiative on the November ballot that would essentially override [San Francisco’s e-cig sales ban], if it is passed, by ensuring that e-cigarettes could continue to be sold in San Francisco. The ballot measure is being framed as an attempt to further restrict tobacco sales to minors, but most of those restrictions are already in place under state law.

Tobacco industry critics say Juul has used deceptive language, trying to frame the initiative as the last word in tobacco regulation in San Francisco by including the words “Comprehensive regulation of vapor products … the provisions of this initiative may only be amended by a vote of the people.”

Juul said the ballot measure, if passed, would prevent the Board of Supervisors from enacting an e-cigarette ban in the future — but it would not negate tobacco laws the city has already enacted, such as a ban on flavored tobacco that voters passed last year.

Oh, sneaky, sneaky, sneaky bastards, using the same sneaky doublespeak techniques that their overlord Altria and Philip Morris have used for years.

e-cigarettes, e-cigs

UPDATE: Man dies from vaping illness

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It appears at least one person has died in the surge of vaping-related illnesses, mostly in the Midwest.

An Illinois man who came down with a sudden respiratory illness after vaping died. All told, at least 193 lung illnesses have been identified as being related to vaping. There are dozens more cases under investigation that might be tied to this outbreak.

It appears that there was a contaminated or purposely poisoned batch of vaping fluid. And it appears it was being sold on the streets. Reportedly, it’s both nicotine and marijuana involved, though all the stories I’ve read seem to be hinting that this is mostly happening with THC vaping fluid.

From an NBC News story:

In Wisconsin, a 26-year-old man started to feel ill and was hospitalized after taking a couple of hits from a new vape cartridge. Dylan Nelson of Burlington, Wisconsin, eventually had to be put into a medically induced coma after his lungs started filling with liquid.

He has since been released and is recovering.

His brother, Patrick DeGrave, said that Nelson purchased the cartridge off the street and not from a reputable shop.

“You don’t know if you’re buying something from a middleman that picked it up from a dispensary or if you’re buying it from somebody who has tampered with it and made their own mixture,” he said. “You literally don’t know what you’re inhaling into your body.”

e-cigarettes, e-cigarettes and kids, Lung disease, Teen vaping

Teens getting mysterious lung disease from vaping

Long time since an update. I have been very busy and spend most of my spare time outdoors, hiking and trying to get back in shape this summer.

So, there’s a TON to catch up on. I will try to do this over the next few days.

First things first

Mysterious vaping illnesses

At least 150 teenagers around the U.S. have been admitted to emergency rooms with some mysterious lung disease caused by vaping.

They weren’t necessarily vaping tobacco; some of the teens were vaping marijuana.

The one common thread between all the illnesses. All of the victims were vaping. The other common thread, most of them appeared to have bought their vaping products on the street rather than legally through a store.

From an NBC News article:

“One patient came in with full respiratory collapse and essentially had to be on life support,” said Dr. Jacob Kaslow, a pediatric pulmonary fellow at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt in Nashville.

Kaslow told NBC News that his hospital has treated four cases of vaping-related respiratory illness over the past six months. Tracking the cases has been tricky, as patients tend to have a variety of symptoms, including severe pneumonia and coughing up blood.

“We’re only discovering this now because we’re asking, ‘is there any history of vaping or electronic cigarette use?'” said Kaslow.

No deaths have been reported. But some patients have developed severe, progressive lung disease, and have required ongoing mechanical breathing assistance.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is working with states to try to pinpoint an e-cigarette ingredient, e-liquid, device or purchase method linking all of the cases.

It’s unclear whether there was some kind of contamination of the devices or e-liquids that led to the 149-plus cases.

Some patients reported buying their vapes off the street.

“The evidence continues to point to street-bought vaping cartridges containing THC or synthetic drugs as being the cause of these illnesses,” Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association, wrote in a statement to NBC News.

So, again, lots of questions about vaping and the contaminants that are found in vaping fluids. This isn’t the first illness tied to vaping. Vaping is already believed to be tied to a disease known as “popcorn lung” (the name comes from the fact that it was first tied to workers in popcorn factories).

e-cigarettes

San Francisco considers completely banning ALL e-cig sales

 

The city of San Francisco has HAD it with vaping!

San Francisco is considering banning the sales of ALL e-cigarette products, Period.

The city has been leading the charge against vaping. San Francisco has already banned the sales of fruity e-cigarette flavours. That ban was upheld by San Francisco city voters. Now, a San Francisco County Supervisor.

From an NBC News article:

San Francisco Supervisor Shamann Walton introduced legislation banning the sale of e-cigarettes in the city unless they get an FDA review. Supporters say that if the measure is approved, it would be the first such prohibition in the country. Its chances are not clear.

“We have people addicted to nicotine who would have never smoked a cigarette had it not been for the attractive products that target our young people,” said Walton, a former president of the San Francisco Board of Education.

Anti-tobacco activists say e-cigarette makers target kids by offering products in candy flavors and using marketing that portrays their products as flashy gadgets.

San Francisco was the first city in the United States to approve an outright ban on the sale of flavored tobacco and flavored vaping liquids, which voters upheld in 2018. The city prohibits smoking in parks and public squares and doesn’t allow smokeless tobacco at its playing fields.

The FDA has been talking about cracking down on e-cigarettes because of the exponential increase in teen vaping use. However, FDA administrator Scott Gottlieb, a strong opponent of vaping and the tobacco industry, recently resigned (and I believe he was forced out by the tobacco industry and the GOP), throwing FDA efforts to regulate e-cigarettes into flux.

e-cigarettes, e-cigarettes and kids, e-cigs, FDA

FDA releases new rules on e-cigarettes, banning fruity flavours

Even with FDA chief Scott Gottlieb stepping down, the agency went ahead this week with its new rules regulating the sales of e-cig products — the big change being the banishment of most fruity flavours.

From now on, only menthol-flavoured cigarettes will be allowed.

Sales of e-cig products will also be restricted to “adult areas” in stores. I have no idea, and I think few people do, how exactly this would work. It sounds like it could literally be a storage closet in the back with a curtain. This was a huge step back from the  proposal put forward by Gottlieb a few months ago. He originally proposed that e-cig sales would be restricted solely to tobacco shops, not convenience stores. I liked that idea, because there’s about 1/10th as many tobacco shops as convenience stores.

But, the convenience store industry balked at that and now we have this hybrid policy that no one knows how is going to work.

Unfortunately, with Gottlieb stepping down and a very pro-industry Trump administration in power at the moment, I remain cynical whether the FDA will actually go through with these regulations. Don’t be shocked if this all gets mysteriously dropped in the next few weeks. Gottlieb was a huge advocate (in the Trump administration, weird, huh) against teen smoking and teen vaping. Teen vaping has in particular skyrocketed the past five years, as the largely unregulated vaping industry was absolutely brazen about using  friuity, kiddie flavours like bubble gum and Sprite and marketing their products to teens very much like the tobacco industry did 30 and 40 years ago.

e-cigs, FDA, Scott Gottlieb, Teen vaping

Scott Gottlieb was totally not forced out at the FDA or anything

Well, you could knock me down with a feather….

FDA Administrator Scott Gottlieb announced this week that he is resigning his position to… get this … spend more time with his family.

Yup, that really actually is his excuse. And this came a couple of weeks after he insisted he wasn’t going anywhere … which was a pretty big clue that he was on his way out.

And he was totally not forced out by Republicans or by the tobacco industry because … he insists he was not forced out by Republicans or the tobacco industry. Repeatedly. So, that’s the end of discussion.

Gottlieb was a total anomaly in the Trump Administration, someone who actually was doing his job. Someone who wasn’t terribly controversial and who didn’t completely dismantle the agency he was put in charge of.

Honestly, for two years, I’ve been scratching my head at it. Trump has clearly put pro-industry, pro-business, anti-regulatory shills in charge of many federal agencies. And it’s clear that their role is to simply dismantle that agency.

Gottlieb was the outlier. He actually was fairly anti-tobacco industry and he was particularly anti-vaping industry (and I don’t differentiate  much between the vaping and tobacco industry because the tobacco industry has a controlling interest about 75-80 percent of the vaping industry)  was using the FDA to crack down pretty harshly on the vaping industry, mostly over the huge increase in recent years in teen vaping.

Gottlieb had gone so far as to threaten to completely ban vaping products completely. He didn’t follow through with that threat, but he did propose a bunch of new regulations toward vaping products, including rules that vaping products can only be sold in areas completely closed off to minors. He also proposed banning menthol cigarettes.

So, I wasn’t surprised when he suddenly announced this week he was resigning.

Hah, the kicker? He actually boldly announced two months ago he wasn’t going anywhere. That told me right there that there was political pressure coming down on him because he was too anti-industry for Republicans’ taste.

This New York Times article goes to great length to highlight Gottlieb and the Trump Administration’s denials that he was forced out by Big Tobacco and Republicans. He denies it a little too much, frankly. Yeah, because the Trump Administration ALWAYS tells the truth about these things, right? And the “I wanted to spend more time with my family” is the oldest excuse in the book.

From the article:

Dr. Gottlieb has been subject to increasing pressure from some Republicans in Congress and his former associates in the conservative movement for his tough stance against youth vaping and traditional cigarettes. A coalition of influential conservative groups recently asked the White House to block some key parts of the F.D.A.’s strategy to prevent youths from vaping. Republican Senator Richard Burr blasted the commissioner on the Senate floor for his proposal to ban menthol cigarettes.

Dr. Gottlieb said these protests had no role in his departure.

“There’s no intrigue here,” he said in an interview. A senior White House official said Dr. Gottlieb was not pressured to leave and that the President was “very fond” of him.

Dr. Gottlieb said these protests had no role in his departure.

“There’s no intrigue here,” he said in an interview. A senior White House official said Dr. Gottlieb was not pressured to leave and that the President was “very fond” of him.

Gottlieb’s proposed regulations were in the “pending” stage. Expect them to remain there … or to be dropped entirely. From the article:

Dr. Gottlieb said he planned to advance the F.D.A.’s pending tobacco regulations before he leaves. And he was confident, he said, that the agency’s guidance on restricting flavored e-cigarettes would be issued before he left. He acknowledged, however, that he could not predict the fate of his proposals to ban menthol in cigarettes and reduce nicotine to nonaddictive levels in cigarettes.

Industry analysts expressed optimism that those initiatives would, in fact, now end.

“We think this major development will be broadly viewed as a positive for the tobacco industry, although this introduces some uncertainty,” Bonnie Herzog, a managing director of equity research at Wells Fargo Securities, wrote in an email to clients. “We believe his resignation calls into question whether or not the FDA will in fact enforce harsher regulations around youth e-cig usage/access, cig nicotine limits and a cig menthol ban given he was the champion behind these initiatives.”

So, I expect little or nothing to be done about vaping, teen vaping, menthol cigarettes for the next two years. Gottlieb was the wrong guy, in the wrong administration, to make it happen.

Uncategorized

More mixed bags for e-cigs … study suggests e-cigs increase risk of stroke

It’s been such a mixed week for e-cigs, with one study showing e-cigs are more successful than nicotine patches and gum for helping people quit, yet the American Lung Association ripping the FDA as a “failure” for doing nothing to stem the tide of teen vaping.

Well, this week another study came out that e-cigarettes, while perhaps safer than cigarettes, are still not completely harmless.

In what is admittadly a pretty limited study, a new survey by the American Stroke Association shows that e-cig use is associated with a higher risk of strokes and heart attacks.

From an NPR story:

“There’s a certain notion that e-cigarettes are harmless,” says Dr. Paul Ndunda, the study’s author and an assistant professor at the School of Medicine at the University of Kansas in Wichita. “But this study and previous other studies show that while they’re less harmful than normal cigarettes, their use still comes with risks.”

This study relied on a behavioral factor survey from the CDC and looked at 66,000 e-cig users. It found a 71 percent higher risk of stroke, 59 percent higher risk of heart attack and 40 percent higher risk of heart disease.

(OK, I’m going to be honest here … while I’m sure these figures are accurate, my first question is how many of these e-cig users are smokers and former smokers … the increased risk of stroke and heart disease could be from the smoking more than the e-cigs.)

The study does get into this to a degree, to be fair.

From NPR:

Ndunda found e-cigarette users are twice as likely to also smoke conventional cigarettes, compared with people who don’t use e-cigarettes.

To see the health effects of e-cigarette use alone, Ndunda and his colleague Dr. Tabitha Muutu compared people who had only used e-cigarettes — not conventional cigarettes — to nonsmokers.

“Even in that group there was a 29 percent higher risk of stroke and a 25 percent higher risk of heart attack,” Ndunda says. Taken together, these two analyses point to an additive effect of e-cigarette and conventional cigarette use.

So, Ndunda admits in the aritlce that the study has its limitations because there’s so many factors at play here — e-cigs, mixing e-cigs and cigarettes, and my point, the pre-existing damage experienced by former smokers from their decades of cigarette use.

Anyway, this survey strongly suggests it’s probably a really, really bad idea to mix e-cigs and cigarettes together. That if you’re going to use e-cigs, you really have to quit cigarettes to actually have any health benefit.

e-cig bans, FDA, Uncategorized

FDA chief threatens to completely remove e-cigs from the market

The war between FDA chief Scott Gottlieb and the e-cig industry continues to escalate with Gottlieb last week threatening to just say “Fuck it” and completely take e-cigs off the market.

To wit, the Food and Drug Administration has come out harshly against the e-cig industry beginning about six months ago because of the skyrocketing increase in teen vaping rates.

So, the FDA came out with a series of rules regarding e-cigs, including some restrictions on fruity flavours and the requirement that e-cig products only be sold in areas open to adults. The FDA didn’t get into marketing of e-cig products.

These rules weren’t as strong as what *I* had hoped for, at the very least, I liked an idea that was floated to restrict e-cig sales strictly to tobacco shops, but that got dropped, likely because of pressure from the industry.

Anyway, Gottlieb said he has met with industry representatives and he remains unimpressed with their response so far.

This is a quote from a Gottlieb tweet:

I still believe e-cigarettes present an opportunity for adult smokers to transition off cigarettes and onto nicotine delivery products that may not have the same level of risks. However, if the youth use continues to rise, the entire category will face an existential threat

Also, from an NBC News article:


“I’ll tell you this. If the youth use continues to rise, and we see significant increases in use in 2019, on top of the dramatic rise in 2018, the entire category will face an existential threat,” Gottlieb told a meeting.
“It will be game over for these products until they can successfully traverse the regulatory process.”

Gottlieb said he has met repeatedly with the vape industry. “I find myself debating with tobacco makers and retailers the merits of selling fruity flavors in ways that remain easily accessible to kids,” he said.

Last November, Gottlieb said he was starting the process to limit sales of flavored e-cigarettes, as well as to ban menthol in combustible cigarettes.

“I have questions about whether they are living up to the very modest promises that they made,” he said. “It matters if the e-cig makers can’t honor even modest, voluntary commitments that they made to the FDA.”

I’m curious if the industry is taking these threats seriously? Juul very quickly shut down its social media presence, but it might be too little, too late to slow down teen vaping use … or to satisfy the FDA.

Gottlieb said the dramatic rise in e-cigs is sabotaging the success public health advocates have had in cutting the teen smoking rate.

From a Yahoo article:

“This progress is being undercut — even eclipsed — by the recent, dramatic rise in youth vaping. A few years ago, it would have been incredible to me that we’d be here, discussing the potential for drug therapy to help addicted youth vapers quit nicotine,” he said Friday.

Gottlieb cited statistics about the large use of e-cigarettes by young people, saying that between 2017 and 2018 there was a 78 percent increase in e-cigarette use in high school students, and a 48 percent increase among middle schoolers. That means the total number of middle- and high-school students using e-cigarettes rose to 3.6 million — 1.5 million more than used the product the previous year. He added that more than a quarter (27.7 percent) of high-school-age e-cigarette users use the product regularly, and more than two-thirds (67.8 percent) are using flavored e-cigarettes. 

“Youth use of e-cigarettes has become an epidemic,” Gottlieb said, adding, “It could be ‘game over’ for some [of] these products until they can successfully traverse the regulatory process. I think the stakes are that high.” Gottlieb also noted that e-cigarettes can be a helpful tool for adults trying to quit smoking traditional cigarettes, and said he hopes to avoid removing e-cigarettes from the market because of the good they can serve in that regard. 

Stay tuned. Gonna be a rocky year on this issue likely.