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Clive Bates on Bloomberg, bad vaping research & more – Tobacco Harm Reduction News

April 2, 2021 Tobacco Harm Reduction News

Clive Bates’ break down of the Bloomberg Philanthropy war on vaping. Heads Up Indiana, West Virginia and Alabama! VApril has started. Filter Mag questions Dems demand for FDA flavor ban. Reg Watch special 2 part series. Questionable vaping research and more!

Scroll to the bottom of this post for a link to the audio/video versions of this post!

COMMENTARY // Clive Bates

“Public health advocates should be working out what system of incentives would expedite this [industry transition to low risk alternatives],  but the tobacco companies are just too useful as the bad-guys in the story to do that.”
~ Clive Bates, The Counterfactual

 

READ MORE: Holding the Bloomberg anti-vaping propaganda complex to account

TAKING ACTION // VApril

April 1st is the first day of VApril, the “the largest campaign worldwide to help smokers successfully switch to vaping!”

FIND OUT MORE: Welcome to VApril 2021

HEADS UP! // Indiana

Senate GOP budget (to be unveiled next week) likely to impose new tax on low risk vapor products with no cigarette tax increase, which Sen. Bray Rodric says brings them “into parity” with cigarettes, completely ignoring harm reduction!

READ MORE: Senate Republicans Won’t Include Cigarette Tax Hike In Budget

DO MORE: If you live in Indiana, join the CASAA Indiana Facebook Group

HEADS UP! // Alabama

HB273 allows sale of vapor products that taste like candy, desserts & other sweets, but confusingly PROHIBITS telling consumers what the flavor is on the label or in ads. It also bans depiction of “mythical creatures” & unicorns??

READ MORE: Alabama House passes bill designed to curb teenage vaping, regulate state’s vape industry

DO MORE: If you live in Alabama, join the CASAA Alabama Facebook Group

HEADS UP! // West Virginia

Proposed income tax overhaul predicted to get over 4X more revenue from the tobacco & low risk vapor products purchased mainly by low-mid income residents ($86 mil) than luxury items purchased by wealthiest residents ($20 mil).

“But tucked into the bill…is a hike in the e-cigarette tax, to 75 cents per milliliter. In other words, a 100 milliliter bottle would carry a tax of $75.”

READ MORE: WV Governor Bids to Make Smoking Much More Affordable Than Vaping

DO MORE: If you live in West Virginia, join the CASAA West Virginia Facebook Group

CASAA MEDIA // Spreading the Truth

Do you have a YouTube video about how vaping has changed your life? Share the link with us on one of our social media accounts and we will feature it on our channel’s testimonial playlist. Our voices are stronger together! And if you haven’t yet, be sure to share your story with our CASAA Testimonial Project at casaa.org/_testimonials/!

PUBLIC HEALTH POLICY // Contradicting Science-based Policy

Last week, a group of United States Congress members demanded that the FDA remove flavored vaping products from the market by halting the PMTA review process.

In a letter to acting FDA commissioner Janet Woodcock and director of the FDA Center for Tobacco Products Mitch Zeller, they wrote that “flavored e-cigarettes are putting a new generation of kids at risk of nicotine addiction and the serious health harms that result from tobacco use.”

One way to understand this letter is that for all the repeated efforts of lawmakers, legislators and abstinence-supporting campaigners to ban flavored vapes, they probably won’t get what they want. Not completely, anyway. These legislators appear, in short, to be doubling down—should the FDA approve PMTAs for vaping products and e-cigarettes, it would not be the solution prohibition-minded campaigners have been fighting for. Some of those devices will be readily and legally available—with a federal government, under pressure to present science as science after years of COVID-related misinformation, admitting that they’re safer alternatives to combustible cigarettes..”
                                                                                                                   ~Alex Norcia, Filter Magazine

READ MORE: Why Are Congress Members Demanding That the FDA Halt Its Evaluation of Flavored Vapes?

PUBLIC HEALTH POLICY // Reversing Bad Policy

Kudos to KY lawmakers for eliminating at least one unfair tax! And although they said JUUL and flavors are driving the “teen vaping epidemic,” anti-vaping zealots now claim losing the extra tax on already pricey and unflavored hardware will “attract kids.”

READ MORE: Tax removed from e-cig hardware sold separately from liquid

RESEARCH // Exposing Bad Science

Another vaping study exposing the complete lack of consideration for the benefit of harm reduction over abstinence and a fundamental ignorance of the products their subjects are using vs. available alternatives. 

What about open systems and choosing to lower nicotine strength to quit on their own as additional factors?

And then there’s this: “There is an urgent need for development of interventions to help individuals quit vaping, regardless of their cigarette smoking status.”

READ MORE: Most US adults who vape want to quit, study finds

READ THE STUDY: JAMA: Interest in Quitting e-Cigarettes Among Adult e-Cigarette Users With and Without Cigarette Smoking History

RESEARCH // Science As Anti-Vaping Propaganda

CDC releases study of vaping among US workers, not only based on old data from before its EVALI malfeasance, but also filled with lies about effectiveness and risks, and is seemingly designed to give employers ammunition to hassle workers who vape.

READ MORE: https://www.safetyandhealthmagazine.com/articles/21049-vaping-among-us-workers-up-slightly-cdc

READ THE STUDY: Prevalence of Electronic Cigarette Use Among Adult Workers — United States, 2017–2018

PUBLIC HEALTH POLICY // Philanthropic Colonialism

Watch this special two part series on Regulator Watch, with Brent Stafford, looking at how billionaire philanthropist Michael Bloomberg is funding organizations that “have made concerted efforts to eradicate low-risk nicotine products, such as vaping, in low and middle-income countries.”

PART ONE

PART TWO

CASAA MEDIA // Podcast

Catch up on past tobacco harm reduction news with Alex and Logan on the CASAA podcasts on SoundCloud every Monday and now live on YouTube and Facebook every Saturday at 3:30 PM.

SoundCloud:

YouTube: