Thinking 'bout THR News & Views
December 25, 2024 - January 2, 2025
Motivators
Can the messaging people are exposed to help them stop smoking? Do certain types of messaging encourage quit attempts? Do some result in more or less smoking cessation?
Do some messages have unintended consequences? Does the timing of messaging matter? The SNW team is proud to announce the creation of a new page focusing on the positive outcomes and unintended consequences of messaging. Please let me know if you have suggestions for them to add to the page. The SNW team would love to do a thorough job of answering the above questions.
Until next time…
PS: In loving memory of my Grandfather. I wish he didn’t smoke two packs of cigarettes a day. Gramps left us too soon. He once told me there was only one New Year’s resolution worth making: always put forth the effort to try to do the right thing.
An opportunity to use my voice to raise awareness and to help people.
Savannah Maddox discusses a bill she plans to introduce on day 1 of Kentucky's 2025 General Assembly Session. She hopes to right a wrong.
Michael F. Pesko. (Thread) New paper alert - flavor restrictions - smoking.
Sarah Jackson. (Thread) 20 minutes of life per smoke!! - New editorial alert.
Jonathan Foulds. (Thread) 2024’s most important finding in addiction research.
Jeffrey Weiss talks about the transition from 2024 to 2025 and what that might mean in the nicotine space.
QMUL Stop Smoking Services. Free Vapes!
Jukka Kelovuori. 2024’s Good News Stories. (Note where the ones he picked out are on the master list..)
[EN subs] LOOKING AHEAD TO 2025 | Francisco Ordoñez gives us his New Year's Wishes!
Department of Health and Social Care. What would you do if you could add an extra day to your life?
POUCH ACT. "We saw that some states were getting into an area of restricting those freedoms of purchase."
Publicly funded US research will have to be published without delay under new policy. “Research funded by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) will have to be made publicly available without a period of delay,1 under the agency’s new public access policy.
The policy, which is open to consultation until 21 February 2025, has been designed to accelerate access to publicly funded research results as part of the institute’s commitment to transparency and accessibility.”
A Content Analysis of Nicotine Descriptors on the Front of Vape Packaging in the United Kingdom. The front of vape packaging communicates important product information to consumers. There is inconsistency in how nicotine content is currently displayed. Future research should examine how best to display nicotine content to promote consumer understanding and informed decision making. (Note: As a former vape shop owner, I agree this isn't very clear for consumers. A universal standard for communicating nicotine content would be helpful. ~Skip)
Belgium will ban sales of disposable e-cigarettes in a first for the EU. “E-cigarettes often contain nicotine. Nicotine makes you addicted to nicotine. Nicotine is bad for your health. These are fact,” Vandenbroucke added.”
Misinformation By Parents Against Vaping E-Cigarettes Appears to Be Part of a Longer-Term Campaign of Deception. “This story shows how misinformation can spread rapidly over the internet and eventually come to dominate public "knowledge." This is why it is so important for public health organizations like PAVE to be honest and accurate in their communications.” (Note: PAVe has changed their messaging!)
Most Egregious Statement About Electronic Cigarettes for 2024. "Q: What looks cute, smells good, but is designed to kill? A: A vape!"
Community Notes is a program that aims to create a better-informed world. It empowers people on X to collaboratively add helpful notes to misleading posts. As notes are voted helpful or not helpful, they are made public or removed from public view. The notes were public when I looked at the following tweets.
Dr Tejas V Patel. (Claims vaping doubles the risk of heart attacks.)
Bergman, Davis’ POUCH Act Preserves Freedom of Choice, Seeks to End Unprecedented Effort to Ban Tobacco Alternatives. “For decades, Americans have chosen to reduce their consumption of traditional tobacco products for health and safety reasons. However, tens of millions of adult consumers continue to use nicotine, and many have chosen to use less harmful alternatives to combustible tobacco, like nicotine pouches and electronic cigarettes.” (You can track the bill here.)
Surgeon General Report Misses Opportunity for Much-Needed FDA Reform. “For the sake of public health, CTP simply cannot continually fail to meet its statutory requirements, particularly given that its staff has more than doubled over the past decade. Although additional resources may be helpful – one thing that is holding them back is any sense of urgency to help adults who smoke move away from combusted cigarettes.”
Economists Document the Harms of Vapor Bans. “This adds further confirmatory evidence to findings from other studies that use economic analysis to examine what happens when these policies are implemented and evaluated. Vaping may come down, but smoking (a far greater harm) goes up.”
Single cigarette takes 20 minutes off life expectancy, study finds. “Smokers are being urged to kick the habit for 2025 after a fresh assessment of the harms of cigarettes found they shorten life expectancy even more than doctors thought.”
Tobacco Report Prioritizes Stubborn Ideology Over Public Health. “The surgeon general’s report, supposedly on health disparities related to tobacco use, is a troubling example of ideology overtaking evidence-based public health policy. Despite its claim to focus on reducing disparities and death and disease, there is little in the report suggesting that it will. Most significantly, the report fails to consider one of the most critical tools for saving lives: harm reduction.”
Could the FDA's Approach to Vaping Cause an Increase in Smoking? “To date the FDA has only approved a few dozen of the over one million vaping product applications it has received. If this trend continues, the FDA regulatory process is likely to cartelize the industry, and may jeopardize the public health benefits of vaping products.”
10 healthy (and realistic!) New Year’s resolutions. “7. Stop smoking
The long-term damage that smoking does is well documented, but improvements can be made as soon as you quit. If the prospect of going cold-turkey is too daunting, ask your GP about vaping, nicotine patches or smoking cessation support sessions.”
Tobacco Control: Mimicking the Tactics of Big Tobacco. “Efforts to combat smoking have defined public health for decades, but recent shifts to include harm-reduction tools like vaping, snus, nicotine pouches, and more have revealed a troubling irony: some tobacco control advocates now employ tactics eerily reminiscent of Big Tobacco. Denial, doubt, and discrediting dissenters hinder progress and marginalize consumers.”
Vietnam developing punishments for vaping after ban. “People manufacturing and trading banned goods can be fined up to VND1 billion ($39,315) and be jailed for up to five years in accordance with Vietnamese law.”
2024: A Year of Progress and Challenges in Tobacco Harm Reduction. “Here’s to a tobacco harm-reduced 2025, where science, ethics, and compassion triumph over misinformation and fear.”
Vaping kits to be made free for smokers to help them quit. “Costello said New Zealand needed to reinvigorate its stop smoking efforts and to target the right people, if the country was to get the smoking rate below 5 percent by the end of next year and achieve the Smokefree 2025 goals.”
Kentucky vape shops trying to adjust to House Bill 11. “Mazab moved from Michigan about two years ago to open this shop. It was his dream and now he's having to remove about 80% of his inventory as a result of House Bill 11.”
Manage stress, ditch sugary drinks, stop vaping: 10 healthy New Year’s resolutions. “Drink alcohol in moderation…Talk with your doctor about how to quit using tobacco and e-cigarettes (or vaping).”
IGA Supermarket’s staggering $180m loss as illegal tobacco trade booms. “If our sales were down due to people giving up smoking, that’s terrific and should be applauded. But it’s not. It’s just that people have surged to the illicit market in the past five to 10 years.”
Flavored vape ban takes effect in Rhode Island. “The ban on the sale or "possession with intent to sell" flavored vape products went into effect on New Year's Day.”
More news: Vapers Digest December 30.
Reasons for Vaping Among US Adolescents. “The most common reason cited for vaping among high school students is anxiety or stress relief.”
Vaping & Young People: Be Clear about Vaping. “B Clear About Vaping is a campaign created by students from Carshalton Boys Sports College. Its goal is to educate and empower young people to make informed decisions about vaping. The campaign addresses key issues like peer pressure, appealing flavours, and misinformation that can influence young people's choices.”
My reporting on youth vaping in Sacramento was transformed by community engagement. “A bigger health crisis: Teen vaping is part of a much larger public health issue. The lack of mental health support and gaps in health education are driving teens to vape. If we want to make a real impact, we need to address these underlying problems.”
Following Lawsuit, IA Holds Off Enforcement Of Anti-Vaping Legislation. “The state was supposed to issue a response by Thursday but has asked for an extension. The Department of Revenue will now wait to enforce the law until a judge rules on an injunction request by the plaintiffs.”
Flavored vape restrictions won’t go into effect as scheduled — Here’s why. “A federal judge granted a temporary restraining order against the State of Utah, delaying restrictions on flavored e-cigarettes until the court makes a decision on a complaint filed against the state and other entities by the Utah Vapor Business Association.”
Notes:
I create these newsletters as a personal project. They are not affiliated with any current or past employers or groups I do volunteer work with. 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).