Vaping Duckie’s Rants and Ravings.
I know it’s been a while, but I got some things for you.
THE FDA MAY BAN FLAVOURED VAPOR PRODUCTS IN CONVENIENCE STORES
The FDA is considering prohibiting the sales of some vapes in convenience stores, says FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb. The agency might also restrict online sales, as Gottlieb has already threatened, in an effort to stem what Gottlieb regularly calls an “epidemic” of teenage vaping.
“We have a sense of where we’re going to be heading from a policy standpoint,” Gottlieb told CNBC’s Squawk Box program. The FDA has given JUUL and tobacco industry vaping manufacturers a deadline to submit plans to reduce teen use.
“We have a problem with access. These products are too accessible to kids,” said Gottlieb. “And we have a problem with appeal. These products are too appealing to kids right now. And it’s mostly the cartridge-based e-cigarette products. The open-tank products that you might find in a vaping store aren’t generally used by kids.”
That is a reversal from the concerns expressed by the agency in its 2016 Deeming Rule. In creating that document, the FDA carefully plotted a course to cripple and then destroy the open-system vaping market, while encouraging manufacturers to pursue products like pod vapes or cartridge-based systems. The plan would restrict sales in the places smokers are most likely to see (and buy) vaping products: stores that also sell cigarettes.
Gottlieb said that vape shops seem to be doing a better job than c-stores and other tobacco sales channels at verifying ID. “A lot of the sales we’ve seen going to minors are actually happening in the brick-and-mortar stores, the convenience stores,” said the FDA chief.
Gottlieb seemed to indicate that flavored products might be allowed in vape shops if they are “adult-only.” Such a requirement would require rulemaking by the agency, or legislation in Congress. The FDA would have to have an objective standard for which flavors — or flavor descriptors — would be allowed in traditional retail channels. They would also likely face lawsuits from retailers, who would object to an arbitrary rule that prevented only certain stores from selling legal products.
“We’re going to take steps to reduce access to these products among minors, some further steps,” said Gottlieb. “And we’re going to take steps as well to reduce their appeal, and that’s going to mean some restrictions on the flavored products. It’s really the flavored products that are driving the youth use. They’re the most popular products among kids.”
Of course, flavored vaping products are the most popular among adults too. But they have been targeted by tobacco control activists like the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, and bipartisan Senate legislation has been introduced that would essentially ban all flavors except tobacco. That would destroy the independent vaping industry.
An online sales ban would also be an existential threat to the vape industry. Gottlieb was cagey on how the agency would approach internet sales. Federal restrictions on mail-order tobacco sales are currently limited to cigarettes and smokeless tobacco.
“It’s more likely that we’re going to put some restrictions on how they can be sold online if we continue to allow online sales,” said the commissioner. “We’ll have to do that through regulation, but we could potentially ban online sales until those regulations are in place. Most of these products are actually sold through brick-and-mortar stores.”
Host Becky Quick asked Gottlieb about the JUUL Labs inspection that was described in multiple news outlets as a raid, and she also used that word herself several times. She suggested that the FDA must have had suspicions that JUUL was concealing incriminating information about its marketing.
“Well, it’s not that unusual for us to conduct inspections and gather documents around manufacturing and marketing practices,” Gottlieb explained. He said that he has met recently with JUUL, and also with Altria and RJ Reynolds (now a division of British American Tobacco).
“We’ve had good discussions,” Gottlieb told the host. “They’ve put some good ideas on the table.”
A NEW STUDY FINDS THAT VAPING IS ACTUALLY HELPING SMOKES QUIT
I guess it takes this sort of thing to help get the point we’ve been trying to make come across?
A new study confirms previous research showing that vaping increases quit attempts by smokers, and leads to smoking cessation more often. The results provide more evidence that smokers who use e-cigarettes are more likely to quit smoking.
The study, by a team from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, was published in the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research. The researchers examined data on smokers aged 25-44 from two large U.S. government surveys — the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey (TUS-CPS), which uses U.S. Census Bureau data, and is sponsored by the National Cancer Institute and FDA Center for Tobacco Products.
The researchers looked at past-12 month quit attempts between 2006 and 2016, and attempted to find whether vaping was associated with population level changes in past-12-month quit attempts and successful smoking cessation.
The research shows that both past-12-month quit attempts and successful smoking cessation increased significantly in the years since vaping has become a common practice. It also showed that cigarette smokers who reported also using e-cigarettes at the time of the survey had made significantly more quit attempts in the last year.
The new study’s authors certainly had Glantz in mind when conducting their research.
The study is important because it adds to the body of evidence that smokers who try vaping are more likely to quit smoking than other smokers. Vaping360 covered several studies last year with similar findings, including research from the University of California-San Diego that also used TUS-CPS data, and a study from scientists at Columbia and Rutgers universities that used data from NHIS. Another study from Boston University researchers found that daily vapers were more likely to quit smoking than non-vapers.
These papers all refute the claim by anti-smoking (and -vaping) activists like University of California-San Francisco professor Stanton Glantz that vaping actually reduces cessation. Glantz authored a highly publicized “meta-analysis” in 2016, purporting to show that vaping is “associated with significantly less quitting among smokers.” That study was instantly debunked, but Glantz’s claim received a lot more press than the researchers who demolished it.
Few are repeating Glantz’s conclusion anymore, but his study created lingering doubt for some observers. The new study’s authors certainly had Glantz in mind when conducting their research. And they took aim at his conclusions in their own summary.
“These trends are inconsistent with the hypothesis that e-cigarette use is delaying quit attempts and leading to decreased smoking cessation,” the authors conclude, directly addressing Glantz’s claim. “In contrast, current e-cigarette use was associated with significantly higher past-12-month quit attempts and past-12-month cessation. These findings suggest that e-cigarette use contributes to a reduction in combustible cigarette use among established smokers.”
SOUTH PARK DID AN EPISODE ABOUT VAPING.
The long-awaited premiere of the South Park vaping episode was last night on Comedy Central, and it was modestly funny, but not the all-out attack on the hyperbole of the JUUL moral panic leaders we might have hoped for. I for one was rooting for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and the FDA commissioner to get the full South Park treatment.
That didn’t happen, but the episode did have funny moments. Cartman and Butters had formed a “vape syndicate” (one of three in the school), selling vapes and e-liquid to classmates, but falling into debt to their sixth grade suppliers.
When Kyle discovers that they’ve been selling to kindergarteners, including his brother Ike, he investigates, and is enraged to find five-year-olds vaping on the playground.
“Relax, bitch,” says one vaping tot. “Try some Gummy Bear Surprise.” To the show’s credit, they don’t take the easy way out and target JUUL, although Butters’ coat is packed with suspiciously JUUL-like pods.
There is a dual plotline with Randy buying a cannabis farm, and a war between “traditional” cannabis and an evil Big Vape company buying up the pot farms. The writers have a keener eye for the pretensions of the weed people than the vaping (or anti-vaping) characters though, showing Randy wearing 100 percent hemp clothing, and drinking hemp milk.
The best we could do for an embed is the trailer for the episode (above). But the full version should be available to watch starting today on the South Park Studios website. It’s worth watching — but it isn’t even in the same ballpark as their classic 15-year-old tobacco control episode.
A 2003 episode titled “Butt Out” lampooned the authoritarian bent of tobacco controllers — especially the win-at-all-cost tactics of the California anti-smoking movement. That effort earned the South Park creators allegiance from libertarians, whether they really wanted it or not. Unfortunately the episode is not available to watch free on the South Park Studios site.
In that episode, the South Park creators took swings at school anti-smoking propaganda (it’s so awful it makes the kids start smoking), at tobacco control’s insistence that tobacco companies (who are no longer allowed to advertise) are driving teen smoking uptake with expensive marketing, and at Stanton Glantz — or at least a Glantz-like character who appears in the guise of a wealthy, entitled, gluttonous Rob Reiner.
The episode took all the qualities of tobacco controllers that vapers know and don’t love and skewered them like a moldy kabob
According to an interview with the show’s creators, transcribed in Christopher Snowdon’s blog, they really were attacking Rob Reiner, and not Glantz. But the parallels are uncanny, and the idea that a grossly overweight, sedentary middle-aged man would lecture other people about their health plainly screams Glantz. The movement to ban smoking in public places and then private businesses began in California, and Glantz was one of that movement’s architects.
“This is how we get rid of smokers,” says Glantz/Reiner, as his fellow tobacco controllers lurch about the room, hissing like zombie vampires. “We go state to state and do things like these bogus studies, and make expensive commercials to get the public on our side and force cigarette smokers to stop.”
“Wow!” says Cartman, in love with the idea of tobacco control. “It’s like smoking brings a lot of people just a little bit of joy, and you get to take that away from them. You are so awesome.”
“You kids need to understand something,” lectures Glantz/Reiner. “Sometimes lying is okay — like when you know what’s good for people more than they do.” The episode took all the qualities of tobacco controllers that vapers know and don’t love and skewered them like a moldy kabob. It was beautiful.
WHAT’S THE TL;DR, DUCKMAN?!
Basically, it’s like this; After sending out warnings to JUUL and other cigalikes that are generally available OTC in convenience stores to do something about youth use of their products, Scott Gottlieb and the FDA are now going after the stores themselves to take the products out and move them to B&M vape shops.
A new study by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis basically found that vaping ACTUALLY DOES help smokers quit. Basically, they looked at past-12 month quit attempts between 2006 and 2016 and looked at what helped the smokers quit. It was vaping.
South Park took aim at vaping, and the bigger companies like Glanz. From what I can tell, it was a lot like the Butt Out episode, and making fun of Rob Reiner. It’s cool, though, guys. It’s all in fun.
WHATCHU VAPIN’ ON, DUCK?!
Smoant Battlestar with the Velocity 2.0 on it. Got some Dual Aliens at .1. juice is Sweet Mal.
We’re still working on new flavours, and making juice for friends of mine. We created some new flavour recipes,and we’ve got a lot more coming!
Given the bigger role I was cast into for the label, I’ve not been able to do much for any of my vaping outlets, so I’m sorry to all of you, but I’m trying to re organize the scheduling so that i can do this more often.
That’s all I got this time, keep it here and as always; KEEP ON VAPIN’ STRONG! QUACK QUACK!
