Nicotine News & Views - Building Bridges
Apr 20-26, 2025
I think I finally get what it means!
At one time, I thought what I wanted to do in the nicotine space was to help build bridges. However, after watching opposing sides hammer away at each other, I began to believe a bridge is not what was needed, because each side was trying to drag people to their side of the bridge. It made me realize that taking sides isn’t what would help save lives.
After spending last week at ATNF, I realized that is not what bridges between people are for. Bridges are a way to connect people to information and each other. It was witnessing connections being made that made me finally understand what it means to build a bridge.
It all started with going out to dinner on Tuesday with a group of people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives. I had the wrong impression of one of those people, and it was a lovely surprise to learn I was wrong. I now look forward to interacting with that person in the future. It appears to me that the person who organized that dinner and selected the guest list is a master bridge builder!
While attending ATNF, I discovered the opportunity to be a bridge builder. It gives me joy to be a helper, and it makes me feel helpful to foster those connections. From someone needing sources of information on smoking harm reduction for healthcare providers, to connecting two people who want to help veterans, to introducing someone to a person they had a mistaken impression of, to introducing one person to someone else who could get them the data they were seeking, my toolbox was filled with the needed construction materials to help build those bridges.
There was a time in my life when bridge building was impossible because I feared conflict. It still makes me uncomfortable. The only thing I knew how to do if I disagreed with someone was to fight them. To try to use my words to drown out theirs. This never led to resolving the differences; it only widened the divide.
I’ve spent the last four years trying to learn a better way of communicating with others. It started with learning how to listen. Then, I had to learn how to stop fighting and open my mind to differing viewpoints. I didn’t know before all of this that there’s a difference between being “right” and “winning.”
One of the treasures of the many things I’ve read or listened to was a piece on Heterodox Academy’s website written by Jonathan Haidt. It made me think about viewpoint diversity. The piece linked to a video of a sermon by rabbi Angela Buchdahl. Please take 20 minutes to listen to her tell the story about the value of a third opinion.
It was a surprise to learn that I can’t know how to be helpful in the nicotine space until I clearly define what my goals and trade-offs are. The biggest surprise was learning that somewhere between my opinion and someone else’s is the third opinion mentioned in Buchdahl’s sermon. It is that third opinion that is the bridge. A bridge that will connect and help the most people.
Last year, I asked my readers if they would build bridges and plant seeds with me. While the sentiment came from my heart, it has twice the meaning now that I finally understand what bridge building means.
It is not the crossing that counts; it’s the connecting, the bridging of a variety of perspectives that matters. I hope to meet more people at the center of the bridge, rather than trying to drag them to my side kicking and screaming.
Until next time…
PS: Thank you, Claudio Teixeira, for your eloquent piece about how I’m approaching the Great Nicotine Debate. I doubt I would have ever coined the phrase “Radical Kindness.” I love it! It reminds me of one of my heroes, Valarie Kaur, who talked about Revolutionary Love. I highly recommend her TED Talk.
Jonathan Foulds - “In a study of 9,856 mental health facilities and 14,620 substance use treatment facilities in USA, fewer than 45% of facilities offered tobacco cessation pharmacotherapy. More had vape-free policies than smoke-free policies! This was 2023!” [Emphasis added]. (Link to his source here.)
Clay Co. Commission bans the sale of vaping products at certain stores. “The Clay County Commission voted 4-1 to ban the sale of vaping products at county-licensed stores starting June 1…At the same time, the ordinance allows the sale of flavored tobacco products including menthol cigarettes, nicotine pouches, cigars and chewing tobacco.” [Emphasis added]
Public Health Against Public Health. “In March, from Poland to Thailand, passing through Luxembourg and Paraguay, a global wave gained strength: the push to ban or severely restrict cigarette alternatives. Yet, while governments tighten regulations with no solid scientific basis, science keeps insisting: harm reduction is not only possible — it’s urgent.” [Emphasis added]
Vape sales to be banned across Terengganu starting August (Malaysia). “State Local Government, Housing and Health Committee chairman Datuk Wan Sukairi Wan Abdullah said the decision, made at Wednesday’s state executive councillors’ meeting, was a proactive measure to curb the sale and use of vape products, which may have negative health effects on the younger generation.” (It remains legal to smoke tobacco there.)
If making it easier to smoke tobacco isn’t bad enough, what are your thoughts of making it worse to use a nicotine pouch than it is to use an illicit substance?
FIVE YEARS?! Pouch users in France could face jail time under new law. “Under the new law, which would apply later this year, personal possession and use of nicotine pouches would be banned across the country; as would transporting pouches through the country in a clear breach of EU law on the free movement of goods. Anyone caught with them could face a jail term of five years, according to the French Public Health Code; on the basis that they are “venomous substances”. The penalty for using narcotic drugs, like cocaine and heroin, is a maximum of one year in prison….In addition to the lengthy jail term, French Courts would also have the power to impose fines of up to €375.000 on anyone caught with nicotine pouches, even if it’s for their own use. The maximum fine for using narcotics like cocaine and heroin is €3,750.”
Now visible - anyone can vote on these:
Parents Against Vaping Mom Warns Parents After 17-Year-Old Daughter Develops ‘Popcorn Lung’ from Secretly Vaping.
Spreading misinformation:
$28 Billion and 68 Dead: The Real Cost of Vaping. “Despite glossy ads and social media hype, vaping is fueling a new health crisis among youth—marked by cancer, coma and addiction.” (The article is tweeted here.)
Pushing back against misinformation:
New Zealand Researcher Claims that Using E-Cigarettes Coats the Lungs With Oil. “The problem with this claim is that neither propylene glycol nor glycerin is or contains any oil. Both are in fact water-soluble or water-miscible substances that are water-based, so they don't coat the airways of the lung with oil. Propylene glycol is in fact an alcohol, not an oil. Glycerin is also an alcohol (technically a polyol, or "sugar" alcohol), not an oil. So to dispel the false claims out there, using e-cigarettes is not going to coat your lungs with oil. There is no oil in virtually all, if not all, e-liquids. And if anyone finds an e-liquid with essential oils in it then they should report it immediately so that it can be taken off the market.”
Safer Solutions: Clearing the Air Around Vaping-Related Lung Injuries. “In order to discuss and debate appropriate measures for improving public health, we need a shared set of facts and a shared sense of reality. It is long past time to clear the air of confusion about EVALI so that we can accurately assess the relative risk of nicotine vapes compared to smoking and explore their role in helping some adults who smoke switch to safer behaviors.”
Events that will be discussing misinformation, misperceptions, and disinformation (Please let me know if there are more):
FDLI Annual Conference May 15-16, 2025, Washington, DC, US
E-Cigarette Summit May 19, 2025, Washington, DC, US
GFN June 19-21, 2025, Warsaw, Poland
Guides for Healthcare and Social Services Professionals. (Updated Apr 23, 2025)
Dutch universities, scientific institutes team up to protect scientific data in U.S. “The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), the umbrella organization for Dutch universities UNL, and the IT organization for higher education Surf are working together to map out how they can ensure continued access to data on American servers. Databases with scientific literature are often hosted in the US and are indispensable for researchers worldwide. Dutch higher education is also worried about collaboration projects with Americans.”
Joe Gitchell “…I have concerns (editorial/peer review are imperfect gatekeepers, yet more burdens on overworked/unpaid volunteers, enforcement mechanisms, etc), and I'd like to think that a more robust solution would be to upskill/upskeptic the demand side (vs supply side) of information…”
Jeff Weiss - “…The scope of the illicit market problem is not a function of lax enforcement. It is a reflection of the fact that there is enormous demand on the part of current smokers for alternatives and in particular for flavored products. In the absence of authorized ones, they are making the understandable decision to opt for whatever is available rather than continuing to smoke…”
Paul T. Harrell - “…The Virginia Tobacco Control Program (TCP) is 100 percent funded from a CDC grant through OSH. We are waiting for information on the continuation or elimination of our grant with current funding concluding on April 28th, 2025. The impact of this potential loss of funding would be particularly devastating to Virginia, that unlike other states, does not receive any state funding….”
Jessica Shortall “480,000 Americans still die from smoking every year. Quitting is extremely hard; every year, more than half of adults who smoke try to quit but fewer than 8% actually do so. Is our answer just going to be "quit or die?" Or can we use every tool at our disposal, including reduced risk tools? These tools can help people switch away from smoking, which is by far the most harmful way to consume nicotine. The bipartisan Congressional Tobacco Harm Reduction Caucus has the opportunity to "help millions of Americans who would benefit from an effective off-ramp from smoking."
BACK TO THE FUNDAMENTALS | GFN SCIENCE FAQ: PART 2. “In the second part of our science special, Roberto Sussman takes us through the fundamental physics of vape aerosols to help explain the difference between cigarette smoke and e-cigarette vapor!”
#344 – AMA #70: Nicotine: impact on cognitive function, performance, and mood, health risks, delivery modalities, and smoking cessation strategies. “In this “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) episode, Peter dives deep into nicotine—a topic increasingly debated both scientifically and publicly. He clarifies the critical differences between nicotine and tobacco…
VSML South Africa: Ep. 15 - The Pragmatic Approach to Harm Reduction with Clive Bates. “In this fiery episode, we sit down with Clive Bates – a global heavyweight in the harm reduction space – to unpack the politics, science, and spin behind safer nicotine alternatives.”
Court Issues Opinion on Flavored Tobacco Sales Ban. “On April 9, 2025, the Oregon Court of Appeals released its opinion upholding Multnomah County's ordinance to end the sale of flavored tobacco and nicotine products.”
Attorney General Ellison wins court order banning sales of vapes disguised as highlighters. “Minnesota Attorney General Ellison today announced that a Ramsey County court has entered an order that bans High Light Vapes, along with its owner and a related entity, from doing business in Minnesota. High Light Vapes agreed to the order as part of a settlement of Attorney General Ellison’s January 2025 lawsuit against the company.”
I Learned About Medicine From That: The Wizard of Oz Revealed. “I’m not here to indict public health or medicine. The system gets it right sometimes. But the fact that it can get it so wrong makes my heart ache because behind the tables of data we study are real people and I’m still the same now as I was as a kid: I want to save their lives.”
A Cup of Tea With My Anti-Vaping Neighbor. “I think it’s interesting to know your opinion, as you’re the only one, apart from my son, who has something positive to say about e-cigarettes. But you must realize, your voice is small compared to all the news articles that I come across. You’re the only person who has written about vapes being good, as far as I know.”
Achieve Life Sciences Announces Cytisinicline Phase 3 ORCA-3 Trial Publication on Smoking Cessation in JAMA Internal Medicine. “Results from the ORCA-3 study show that cytisinicline significantly increased the odds of smoking cessation compared to placebo. Cytisinicline also reduced nicotine craving which led to decreased nicotine intake, even among those who continued smoking, as evidenced by both lower craving scores and reduced cotinine levels, a well-known metabolite of nicotine.”
Michael Bloomberg Won His Vietnam War on Vaping. “Jonathan Foulds, a professor of public health at Penn State and smoking cessation expert, wrote on social media that Vietnam’s decision, “to leave cigarettes as the monopoly legal source of nicotine is to negligently cause excess deaths. This is public health ignorance at its worst.”
What We Can Learn from New Zealand’s Pragmatic Approach to Vaping Policy. “A recent study by researchers at the University of Queensland published in the journal Addiction provides compelling evidence for what many of us have long argued: a risk-proportionate regulatory framework that provides adults who smoke access to smokefree alternatives, coupled with accurate science-based information about those products versus cigarettes, can lead to faster declines in smoking rates.”
Denver voters will weigh in on flavored tobacco ban after ballot petition found sufficient. “If voters reject the ban, it would roll back a near-unanimous vote of the City Council in December to prohibit sales of nearly all flavored tobacco and nicotine products in the city. Council members sided with public health and children’s advocates who argued the products lure young children into using an addictive product.”
The UK will Start Taxing E-cigarettes in June but is Still Pro Tobacco Harm Reduction, For Now. “For years the UK has served as a forward-thinking exemplar of Tobacco Harm Reduction (THR). Public Health England and the Royal College of Physicians is the source of the oft-cited (though not uncontroversial) claim that e-cigarettes are 95% safer than cigarettes and the UK is home to the HQ of the prestigious Cochrane library which produces the gold-standard reviews that have consistently reported that the use of nicotine e-cigarettes surpasses the efficacy of ‘usual treatment’ (NRTs) for the purposes of smoking cessation.”
Harm Reduction Strategy: How England Is Reducing Smoking Rates. “In 2019, England set a goal of becoming a smoke-free country by 2030, meaning fewer than 5% of smokers. To achieve this, it has opted for a combination of restrictions on traditional tobacco and the promotion of less harmful alternatives such as vaping (electronic cigarettes). The data shows that this strategy is having an effect: in less than six years, from 2019 until now, the percentage of smokers has dropped from 13.9% to 10%. Four percentage points in less than six years, not bad, right?”
Latest CDC Data Confirms E-Cigarette Use Correlates with Declines in Smoking. “Technically, e-cigarettes fall under the FDA’s tobacco regulatory authority due to a 2011 court ruling and 2016 deeming regulations. However, conflating e-cigarettes with combustible tobacco products misrepresents their harm reduction potential. Millions of adults rely on these products to stay smoke-free, yet public health authorities continue to obscure this reality.”
Attorney General Bird Leads Charge to Crack Down on Illegal Chinese E-Cigarettes that Target Kids. “Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird today announced that she is leading 27 other states and Guam in asking the Trump Administration to continue combatting the flood of illegal Chinese e-cigarettes into the U.S. that target kids.”
Attorney General Raoul Announces JUUL Settlement Funds to Bring Truth Initiative's National Youth Vaping Prevention and Cessation Programs to Illinois. “Attorney General Kwame Raoul today announced $24 million from the 2023 Juul Labs settlement will support efforts by Truth Initiative, the country’s largest nonprofit public health organization dedicated to preventing youth and young adult nicotine use and addiction, to provide Illinois youth with vital resources for vaping prevention and cessation through Truth Initiative’s EX Program, the Vaping: Know the Truth curriculum, and a targeted media campaign.”
18 Senators write HHS leaders asking for details on cuts to tobacco programs and specific plans to meet legal obligations. “On April 22, 2025, 18 Democratic senators wrote HHS Secretary Kennedy and the leaders of the FDA and CDC expressing concern about Trump Administration decisions to decapitate and cut the FDA Center for Tobacco Products and shut down the CDC Office on Smoking and Health…”
Late Tax Hike Panic In Indiana. “Taxes on vapes would go up as well, making live-saving alternatives to smoking more costly.”
Vape registry slipped into bill for Attorney General budget has business owners worried. “We love freedom in North Dakota. It kills me inside that our freedoms are being taken away from us, and we don’t even get a voice. We didn’t even get a chance to voice our concerns about this, the way it was put into the bill.”
Weaponised academia. “The main conclusion of my paper is that the strategies and ‘tactics’ that supposedly constitute the corporate or tobacco playbook are bog standard public affairs techniques that everybody who engages in the policy-making process uses, not least ‘public health’ groups themselves.”
Durbin, No. 2 Senate Democrat and Anti-Tobacco Crusader, to Retire. “Motivated by the death of his father due to smoking, Durbin was a leading advocate for the Tobacco Control Act that gave the FDA authority over tobacco products…In recent years, he turned his attention to e-cigarettes and flavored tobacco products.”
More news:
Truth Initiative and Blip Join Forces to Make Quitting Nicotine Easier for Young Adults. “Through this new partnership, individuals who enroll in EX® Program, Truth Initiative’s free, proven-effective digital quit program, will receive 25% off Blip’s FDA-approved nicotine gum and lozenges. Together, these proven cessation approaches double the chances of quitting successfully.”
Final thoughts…
It is my season of renewal and hope. It is nice to experience warmer weather and rain. In the last two days, the grass has turned from brown to green. Soon, the dandelions will bloom, and the bees will have their first food of the season. There are buds on the crabapple trees and lilac bushes. I love the tapestry of color they will give as they help erase winter’s chill from our minds. In a couple of more weeks, we’ll have leaves on the trees up here in the Great North Woods. In about a month or so, it will be warm enough to sit outside at the park and work on advocacy things instead of being cooped up inside!
Notes:
I create these newsletters as a personal project. They are not affiliated with any current or past employers or groups with which I volunteer. I receive no financial compensation for my efforts to create these newsletters.
My blog, Skip's Corner, has an X/Twitter account. My personal accounts are on BlueSky, LinkedIn, and X (Twitter).
New hashtag
#RadicalKindness