Why I Think the FDA's Imminent Ban on Flavored E-Cigarettes is Unlawful
I expect the FDA to announce soon that it is banning the sale of all flavored e-cigarettes, with the exception of tobacco and probably mint and menthol as well.As you know, when an executive agency issues a regulation, it is required by the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) to go through a formal rule-making process, which at a minimum requires that the agency publish the proposed rule in the Federal Register, allow public comment on the rule, and then respond to the comments before actually issuing the rule. This process can take one to two years.The question you may be asking is: How can the FDA ban flavored e-cigarett...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - November 3, 2019 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

I Expect FDA to Announce Flavor Ban This Week, But Vapers Save Mint and Menthol E-Cigarettes
Due to the outcry from the vaping community, it appears that mint and menthol will be excluded from a ban on flavored e-cigarettes that I expect the FDA to announce this week. I also do not expect menthol cigarettes to be included, since that would actually cause a decline in cigarette consumption (while a flavored e-cigarette ban will increase cigarette consumption, and therefore, federal government revenue). Moreover, it is easy to take a stand against the weak vaping industry but takes actual political courage to stand up to the large cigarette companies.Theonly reason why I think mint and menthol will be excluded from ...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - November 3, 2019 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

Sales Data Show that Massachusetts Vaping Product Ban Has Already Caused Severe Harm as Vapers Migrate to Smoking in Large Numbers
Sales data reported by PiperJaffray for the four weeks ending October 20 (when the Massachusetts emergency ban was in effect for 25 of the 28 days) and the four previous weeks (mostly before the ban went into effect) were compared to sales data for the previous year. The PiperJaffray analysis revealed that there has been a substantial shift from vaping to smoking in the state. This indicates that as I predicted, ex-smokers in Massachusetts who were reliant on e-cigarettes to stay smoke-free are now returning to smoking in large numbers.Nationally, there was very little difference in the rate of decline in cigarette sales b...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - October 30, 2019 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

Analysis Reveals that 44% of State Health Departments are Not Explicitly Warning Youth Not to Vape THC and Three States are Committing Public Health Malpractice
This is part 1 of an analysis of the health warnings that state health departments are issuing to the public regarding the outbreak of vaping-associated respiratory illness. Here, I analyze the warnings issued by the first 25 states (Alabama through Montana).For each state, after briefly summarizing the warning, I categorize the warning based on three criteria:Is there an explicit warning not to vape THC?Does the warning inform the public that THC vape cartridges are playing a major role in the outbreak?Does the warning mention THC at all?Based on the warning and these three criteria, I then classify the state health depar...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - October 24, 2019 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

New CDC Report Out Today Makes it Even Less Likely that Store-Bought Nicotine E-Cigarettes are Playing Any Role in the Outbreak
A newreport published today in theMMWR summarizes the results of the most detailed investigation to date of cases of the outbreak of vaping-associated respiratory illness, focusing on the 83 confirmed cases occurring in the state of Utah. The key findings of the report are as follows:92% of the patients for whom product use was ascertained admitted to using THC vapes (only 3 out of 53 - 6% - did not).Of the THC products tested, 89% contained vitamin E acetate oil.No abnormalities were found in any of the nicotine e-liquids tested.The report concludes that “unregulated THC-containing cartridges play an important role in t...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - October 22, 2019 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

Tennessee Department of Health Appears to Have Deliberately Blamed E-Cigarettes for a Death It Knew Was Caused by THC Carts
Yesterday, I revealed that the Tennessee Department of Healthreported its first death from vaping-associated respiratory illness as follows: "The Tennessee Department of Health has reported one death in a patient with serious respiratory disease associated with use of electronic cigarettes or other vaping devices. This is the first such death reported in Tennessee. "As it turns out, it appears that this death was not caused by electronic cigarettes, but byTHC vape carts.I suggested that the health department ' s reporting of the death as being associated with the use of " electronic cigarettes or other vaping devices " wou...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - October 18, 2019 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

Tennessee Department of Health Tragically Misleads the Public in Order to Falsely Blame a Death on E-Cigarettes
Sadly, Tennessee recently experienced itsfirst death from vaping-associated respiratory illness.Here ' s how the Tennessee Department of Healthreported it:" The Tennessee Department of Health has reported one death in a patient with serious respiratory disease associated with use of electronic cigarettes or other vaping devices. This is the first such death reported in Tennessee. "So which one was it? Was it the use of " electronic cigarettes " or was it the use of " other vaping devices. " If the Tennessee Department of Health truly wants to prevent further cases of this illness, it is incumbent upon the agency to inform ...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - October 18, 2019 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

The CDC is Still Misleading the Public about the Cause of the Respiratory Disease Outbreak: Why?
Last Thursday, CDC finally revised itswarning to the public about the vaping-associated respiratory disease outbreak to state clearly that vaping THC-containing products is playing a major role in the outbreak. It stated that:" The latest national and state findings suggest products containing THC, particularly those obtained off the street or from other informal sources (e.g. friends, family members, illicit dealers), are linked to most of the cases and play a major role in the outbreak. Therefore, CDC recommends that you should not use e-cigarette, or vaping, products that contain THC."In addition, CDC finallyrecommended...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - October 14, 2019 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

Like the Telephone Game, CDC's Lack of Clarity is Becoming Completely False Facts at the Local Level
Do you recall thetelephone game? Players sit in a circle and the first person whispers a phrase into the ear of the second person, who whispers it to the third person, and so forth, until it gets to the last player, who then repeats the phrase that they heard. Typically, the phrase changes substantially from the beginning because a series of small, progressive changes add up to a completely different phrase at the end.The only way to prevent this is for the first person to deliver such a clear message that it cannot be mistaken.In this commentary, I show how the lack of clarity by the CDC and other health groups in communi...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - October 14, 2019 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

News Headline Shows How Misinformation About Respiratory Disease Outbreak is Spreading
The featured headline of a newsarticle published yesterday atNorthJersey.com (theNorth Jersey Record) was: " Vaping with JUUL Damaged NJ Woman ' s Lungs, Left Her Hospitalized. "The headline of the article itself read: " ' My Lungs Were Chemically Burned ' : NJ Victim Speaks Out Against Vaping. "These headlines certainly give the impression that this unfortunate 21-year-old woman developed acute respiratory failure due to her use of JUUL.If true, this would be an absolute disaster because there are an estimated 7 million JUUL users.This is no doubt going to contribute to the public ' s belief that electronic cigarettes sol...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - October 11, 2019 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

Utah Department of Health Concludes that THC Vape Cartridges are Causing Respiratory Disease Outbreak; Issues Specific Warning against Use of THC Oils
Unlike most other state health departments, which are conflating the respiratory disease outbreak associated with black market (and a few legal dispensary-sold) THC vaping products and the general problem of youth e-cigarette use, the Utah Department of Health has issued areport which unequivocally concludes that vaping marijuana is causing severe respiratory illness, which has now affected 71 residents in the state.Unlike the CDC and many state health departments, which are doing everything they can to undermine the observed connection between outbreak cases and marijuana vaping, the Utah Department of Health concluded th...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - October 7, 2019 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

CDC's Communications are Likely Making this Outbreak Much Worse
A newsurvey released yesterday by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago found that the public believes that vaping nicotine-based e-liquids is much more harmful than vaping THC e-liquids.While 54% of the public believes that vaping nicotine is very harmful, only 38% believe that vaping THC is very harmful. And while just 16% of the public does not believe that nicotine vapes are harmful, an amazing one-third (33%) of the public does not believe that vaping marijuana carries any risk.These data are shocking in light of the fact that we are a good two months into an outbreak of severe respi...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - October 4, 2019 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

New Mayo Clinic Study Further Implicates Contaminated THC Oils in Respiratory Disease Outbreaks and Refutes Claim that Store-Bought Nicotine E-Liquids are Involved
Astudy published yesterday in theNew England Journal of Medicine by a team of researchers at the Mayo Clinic provides further evidence that contaminated THC oils are likely playing a major role in the vaping-associated respiratory disease outbreak and makes it even less likely that store-bought nicotine e-liquids are playing any role at all. Here is the key evidence provided by the paper:1.The overwhelming majority of patients admitted to vaping THC oils.Approximately 76% of the patients studied who reported on product use admitted to vaping marijuana (13 out of 17 patients). Because urine THC testing was either not conduc...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - October 3, 2019 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

The “Other” Youth Vaping Epidemic: Why Has It Been Ignored?
While the CDC and many health groups have been obsessed with youth e-cigarette use, an even more troubling epidemic has been spreading among our nation ’s youth. In contrast to the e-cigarette use explosion, which has not caused any significant disease or deaths, this other, ignored epidemic has caused hundreds of youth to develop life-threatening respiratory failure and has been responsible for 13 deaths.What is this “other” vaping epidemic?It ’s not vaping of e-cigarettes. It’s the vaping of marijuana.In my analysis of data from the 2018 National Youth Tobacco Survey, I found that the majority of youth who curr...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - October 1, 2019 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

To Protect Youth from Progression to Cigarette Smoking, Truth Initiative Wants to Ban the Fake Ones But Let Real Cigarettes Remain on the Shelves
In anop-ed piece published byCNN last Friday, the president of the Truth Initiative bemoaned the " epidemic " of vaping among our nation ' s youth, arguing that electronic cigarette use leads to smoking. She citedresearch which shows " that young people who vape are more likely than their peers who don ' t vape to smoke traditional cigarettes in the future. "And what does the Truth Initiative propose should be done to prevent a massive youth migration to cigarette smoking?A. Ban or severely restrict the sale of cigarettes.B. Ban or severely restrict the sale of both cigarettes and e-cigarettes.C. Neither of the above.The a...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - September 30, 2019 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs