Top 10 Vape Stories of 2018

It's hard to believe, but it's been 12 years since the earliest versions of the e-cigarette first made their way into commercial production. Vapor products have been widely available in the US for nearly a decade, and four years have passed since the Oxford Dictionary named 'vape' its word of the year in 2014.

We've come a long way, baby.

Of course, the vape world isn't resting on its laurels. Time's arrow marches forward and 2018 has been as eventful a year as any in the vapor canon to date. Let's take a look at some of the biggest developments in vaping since the calendar swung to 2018.

FDA Crackdown

Obviously, the biggest news of the year comes from the halls of the US Food and Drug Administration. After the appointment of what was initially seen as a vape-friendly commissioner, the FDA did a 180 and cracked down on the industry in response to what it called an underage vaping epidemic.

In the biggest enforcement campaign in its history, the FDA took aim at cigalike manufacturers including the wildly-popular JUUL brand. JUUL and its Big Tobacco-backed competitors were given 60 days to submit convincing plans to curb underage use. At the same time, more than a thousand warning letters were hitting the inboxes of vapor product retailers and manufacturers. Alleged violations included selling vapor products to underage decoys, marketing to youth, and introducing new products without explicit approval.

FDA chief Scott Gottlieb also proposed ‘solutions’ that could potentially devastate the industry, including a complete ban on flavored liquid. Following that threat, tobacco giant Altria (parent of Marlboro cigarettes and the MarkTen vapor brand) proactively removed some flavors from its product line before completely discontinuing the MarkTen product altogether. JUUL announced it was pulling its fruit- and sweet-flavored pods from stores entirely, restricting sales to its online  portal.

In mid-November, the FDA settled (for now) on a partial flavor ban—only tobacco- and menthol-flavored liquids can be sold in convenience stores, gas stations and any other establishments that allow minors to enter. All the other flavors will remain legal, but can only be sold by online sites using age-verification technology or by retailers who restrict store access to legal adults.

The FDA story is by far the biggest development in vaping this year, and it's far from over. This is one we'll be following for some time to come.

JUUL: Goliath Turned David?

The FDA’s crackdown was largely attributed to the explosive growth of San Francisco-based JUUL, an offshoot of the popular cannabis vaporizer company Pax Labs. The brand launched in 2015 using a then-unique salt based nicotine extraction method that allowed users to consume up to ten times as much nicotine as a traditional vaporizer by reducing the harsh 'throat hit' associated with conventional nicotine extracts. That powerful punch, combined with its sleek styling and ease of use, proved a winning combination.

By mid-2018, following JUUL’s  $16 billion valuation, the company's dominance over its tobacco-backed competitors was sealed. The only problem was, it wasn’t only investors that were excited about JUUL; teenagers had taken a special liking to the product as well.

JUUL has long insisted its products are intended only for use by adults attempting to quit smoking, but the company has twice shifted its advertising strategy, abandoning twenty-something models for older ones before moving onto testimonial-style ads featuring only middle-aged tobacco quitters. It's struggled to maintain that positioning on social media, where teenagers actively pledge their allegiance to the brand with the hashtag #juuling. The FDA even conducted a raid of JUUL headquarters in late September, seizing more than a thousand pages of documents as part of an investigation into whether the company knew kids were attracted to its product.

To combat the public relations nightmare, JUUL unplugged from social media and more than doubled its political lobbying budget. It's also looking to fast track approval of a new Bluetooth-enabled device that can be locked down to prevent underage use. In November, the stunning news broke that Marlboro-maker Altria might be buying a stake in Juul, which would end its claim to be the only major vape player independent of Big Tobacco.

The JUUL saga is far from reaching its conclusion. Will the company recover from the underage use scare and maintain its dominance of the cigalike field? That's a story we'll definitely still be talking about in 2019.

Snuffing Out Teen Vaping

A silver lining to the stormy underage vaping cloud is that parents, government bodies and other advocacy groups are starting to take quick and powerful action.

Both the FDA and the anti-tobacco advocacy group Truth Initiative have launched comprehensive anti-vaping campaigns. The FDA's targets teens in school bathrooms, the very place they're most likely to sneak off and vape during school hours.

Other positive developments: warning labels have become much more robust and widespread throughout the industry, and e-liquid manufacturers have largely begun to tone down their colorful and often cartoonish packaging, which vapor opponents have long argued are designed explicitly to appeal to children. Shops and e-tailers who've sold to underaged customers are being hit with stiffer fines and penalties, while reputable online vendors double down on more vigorous age verification technologies.

A growing number of cities and states are raising the minimum age to purchase tobacco and vapor products from 18 to 21, and a long-nascent campaign to make that national policy is gaining momentum. Proponents argue that if you haven't started consuming nicotine by age 21, there's a 95 percent chance you never will, so a 21 minimum smoking age makes good sense.

Here's to hoping that all of these changes affect a meaningful drop in teen nicotine use. Not only is underage vaping illegal, nicotine has been proven to negatively affect the development of adolescent brains, hard-wiring them to be receptive to lifelong addiction. And if we don't get a handle on the problem soon, responsible adults risk losing their ability to choose vaping.

A Tasteless Movement Brews

It all started in San Francisco. Back in 2017, the city's elected officials passed a blanket ban on the sale of flavored tobacco products including e-liquids. Despite an uproar from the vapor community, the ban was placed on the 2018 primary ballot and passed overwhelmingly. The move sparked other Bay Area municipalities including San Mateo, Palo Alto, Oakland and Berkeley to consider similar measures.

The California granola crowd isn't alone—the US Congress has entertained the idea, as has New York's state legislature (where a ban is expected next year.) The FDA has threatened to eliminate cigalike flavor pods entirely (a move beyond the impending ban in convenience stores) if youth vaping rates continue their dramatic rise. (In related news, the FDA in November moved to ban menthol cigarettes.)

While these moves are portrayed as a means of 'saving the children,' they ignore the fact that 96 percent of adult vapers prefer a flavor other than tobacco or menthol in their liquid, and that more than three-quarters say finding a flavor they enjoyed played a major role in their successful attempts to quit smoking.

Like everything else we've mentioned, this is still very much a live issue that could go either way—if you haven't already, consider contacting your legislators and letting them know how choosing vaping (and  having a choice in vape flavors) has helped you. One easy (and free) way to amplify your voice is to join a vape-advocacy group like the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association (CASAA.) Check out some of the good work they're already doing on your behalf here.

Vape Technology Marches On

Undeterred by a US government decree that vapor tech must remain frozen in 2016 indefinitely, our friends in Shenzhen, China (home to about 90 percent of the global vapor hardware manufacturers) have continued to evolve.

This year we've seen advances including the world's first adjustable-power pod mod, along with some much-welcome improvements in disposable coil technology including experiments with steel mesh replacing coiled wire and different wicking materials that promise improvement over the long-dominant organic cotton.

Also, are we nearing the end of the road for 18650 batteries? While long the industry standard for replaceable batteries, chemists appear to have wrung just about as much power as can be expected out of the form factor and are looking to the 21700 (3 mm wider and 5 mm longer) cell for future improvements in both power output and storage. We're seeing more mods that are ready to accept these new cells for future expansion but are also retroactively-compatible with older batteries for now.

We're even getting our first peeks at vaping-related artificial intelligence. For far too long (read: a couple of years), it seemed manufacturers were focused on one-upping each other in what could be called the Wattage Wars. Sure, you can push 300 watts of power to your coil, but if you're changing batteries more often than a newborn's diaper, roasting wicks like they're in a bonfire, and not getting a cloud that's any warmer or denser than you'd get at a fraction of the power, what's the point? While some of these new features (voice-responsive dancing lights) may end up looking silly in a few years, we've got to applaud manufacturers for pushing the envelope.

Unfair Trade

While the Wattage Wars may have cooled, a trade war between the US and China is heating up.

the White House in September slapped a 25 percent tariff on electronics imported from China, including vapor devices. While this duty hasn’t made a noticeable impact on the vape prices yet, it's only a matter of time before importers finish selling off their pre-tariff stock and pricing begins to creep up on new vape gear hitting American shores.

Given that manufacturing costs would undoubtedly be much higher here at home (and that FDA rules would prohibit much of today's popular gear from being built in the US at all), there's no getting around the fact that mod prices will be on the way back up in 2019 after years of being driven down by innovation and competition.

Scientific Strides

2018 was a significant year for vape science, as we're finally reaching the point where mid-term studies that examine the effects of vaping over a period of years are beginning to be published. It'll still be years or even decades until we have reliable long-term data, but what we're learning now will hopefully lead to further refinements of e-liquids and hardware to reduce any risks they pose. A few things we learned this year...

In January, researchers at New York University found that if a majority of American smokers switched to vaping over the next decade, 6.6 million premature deaths could be prevented. The study was the first of a handful reinforcing the notion that while nicotine is what makes smoking addictive, the byproducts of lighting tobacco on fire and inhaling the smoldering ash are what cause the deadly damage from smoking.

On the value of longer-term studies, this one followed more than 200 vapers for two years and found no discernable health impacts.

In perhaps one of the biggest reversals from an erstwhile vaping opponent, the American Cancer Society softened its stance on vapor products. The group now acknowledges, with caveats, vaping as a means of reducing the harm inflicted upon American lungs by combustible tobacco.

We learned that e-cigarettes might (eventually) help smokers quit. This is because smokers who try vaping are more likely to try quitting. And even though most quit attempts sadly end in failure, the  bright side is that vaping encouraged people to attempt quitting more often. And the more times people launch serious attempts to quit, the likelier it becomes that they'll find success.

This story on flavor extracts in e-liquid is just one of a handful of studies to emerge on the topic. We've learned a lot about flavors this year—some of it good, some not so great. Some fruit flavors, for example, have been found to increase free radicals in the bloodstream, while vanillas have instead reduced the spread of the harmful molecules. Our hope is that new ground broken this year will lead to research on how to modify flavors to limit their negative impacts, and to steer liquid mixers away from any harmful compounds.

Continuing a years-long trend, sensational stories regarding the health risks of vaping continue to arise and are just as quickly (but often more quietly) debunked. Take this one about a case of wet lung reportedly tied to vaping. While widely reported as a risk of vaping, it turns out that the malady described isn't actually a medical condition, nor has it ever been definitively linked to vaping.

Earlier in the year the National Institute of Health gave a $1.4 million grant to Georgia State University—it's the first of several high-profile expenditures this year funding long-term research that will give us a much richer understanding of the implications of vaping. We look forward to seeing the results in 2019 and beyond.

Vaping Victories (in Other Countries)

While the US continues pursuing more stringent anti-vapor regulation, other countries have embraced vaping.

England has wholeheartedly committed to vaping as a way to get people to stop smoking. The UK has instructed British doctors to advise patients that vaping is less harmful than smoking, advocated for hospitals to provide smokers with e-cigarettes to ensure a smoke-free environment, recruited local fire departments (who've naturally long decried the fire risks of smoking) to conduct quit-assistance programs, and replaced cigarettes with e-cigs in the nation's prisons.

Other countries, meanwhile, have run with the UK's findings. Vapers in the Philippines cited UK research to argue for relaxed vaping laws. New Zealand, in one of the boldest vape-friendly moves, went from barring vaping to encouraging its use as part of a push to make the island nation smoke-free by 2025.

Russian officials are also advising smokers to switch, while Icelandic doctors credited vaping for contributing to a 40 percent drop in smoking over just three years. Switzerland reversed a long-standing ban on vapor products containing nicotine.

That said, it’s not all good news for international vapers. Australia is still fighting a years-long battle to legitimize vaping in the eyes of the law. Malaysian vapers have struggled with confusing, often conflicting laws that could lead to heavy fines or even imprisonment, and Hong Kong is exploring a controversial plan to ban vaping entirely. Other countries issuing strict vaping bans this year include Cambodia, Lebanon, Vietnam and parts of India.

The Smoke Dissipates and the Fog Spreads

Despite setbacks at home, and thanks to more liberal views developing abroad, the state of vapor is strong. As with every previous year dating back to the beginning of the decade, 2018 is poised to be the strongest on record for vaping worldwide.

Smoking rates have continued to fall at a record pace, particularly among young adults, who despite their fondness for vaping are abandoning combustible tobacco far more quickly than previous generations. In the early 2000s, a full third of Americans aged 18 to 29 were smokers, that number has fallen by more than half, to 16 percent, meaning smoking rates among young people are now lower than those for people age 30 to 64, which marks a remarkable shift in the demographics of smokers.

More than nine million Americans are current vapers, and nearly one in four who recently quit smoking are using e-cigarettes.

Global findings paint a similar picture—40 million adults have quit smoking in recent years, and the number of vapers is rising. Europe expects 55 million people will be using vapor products by 2021, and the US, UK, and Japan recently spent a combined $16.3 billion on vaping (spending across the entire globe in 2013 was just $4 billion).

The future awaits...

Much of the news, good and bad, that we’ve seen in the world of vaping directly ladders back to one inherent conflict embedded in vaping: the need to protect children from nicotine and the need to prevent the harm cigarette smoke causes to adults. Both sides count ardent supporters armed with compelling facts among their ranks, making it difficult to know what the truth is and where the chips will fall.

At this point it's no stretch to suggest that the FDA's Gottlieb is the world's most influential individual when it comes to the future of vaping. Gottlieb is a bit of a wild card; he came to his post shortly after divesting himself of his holdings in a chain of vape shops and made waves by granting the vapor industry an extension to comply with agency regulations.

Since then, he's come down hard on vaping, driving flavored products out of convenience stores and compelling manufacturers to pull non-compliant devices from shelves. He's suggested that a complete flavor ban is not off the table, but has mysteriously ignored the exceedingly high nicotine content in new-generation cigalikes, while continuing to push for reduced nicotine in conventional tobacco products. Frankly, it’s confusing and makes the tea leaves hard to read.

As we have over the course of the last few years, you can count on the Breazy news team to continue watching and reporting developments in this and other vape-related sagas in the year to come. But this is a time when vapor advocates need more than your attention, they need your voice. The best thing you can do to protect your right to vape in 2019 and beyond is to join an advocacy group like CASAA—it takes just a few minutes, it's free, and doing so gives you a chance not to just read about vape news, but to help shape it.

Happy vapor trails, everyone. See you in 2019.