Vape News In Brief: August 16th, 2018 Edition

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*VNIB* is a semi-regular column in which we take a look around the globe, searching for news, science, and the occasional pop culture reference related to vaping and the life of vapers. Today, let's talk about…

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The FDA, which has issued a press release announcing new proposed guidelines for evaluating vapor products seeking market approval. You can find the first of two new guides (another is coming in the fall) here. We're not technical writers (or readers), but a couple things stand out – mainly a directive for future studies to only focus on the effects of nicotine if nicotine content in a device is significantly greater than in a cigarette, and another suggesting that current smokers who continue to smoke while testing a tobacco alternative product are not ideal study participants. These are both important milestones, as it's long been known that vapers who dual-use, or don't quit smoking, reap virtually no health benefit from vaping – this, and a focus on exploiting the dangers of nicotine while ignoring its presence in other tobacco category products while attacking e-cigarettes, have been major stumbling blocks preventing scientists from producing meaningful findings in the past. We'll be looking for someone a bit more fluent in legalese to break this all down, and when we find her we'll post a link post haste…

This isn't necessarily a new occurrence, but after yet another house fire caused by a careless smoker, fire department officials in the UK are repeating their plea to residents to give up smoking for vaping.

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'Sin taxes' have long been seen as a way to discourage what governments view as bad behavior – now, the UK is considering following the Australians' lead</a> in imposing taxes that could drive the price of a pack of cigarettes beyond the American equivalent of $25. If you were paying more than a dollar every time you lit up, but your government was at the same time encouraging you to consider vaping, would that be enough of a push to switch?

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According to new figures, the Irish are the third-biggest vaping population on the planet. They slot in behind the Japanese (who only use heat-not-burn tobacco technology because conventional vaping is banned in Japan) and the UK on vapor product spending per capita. The ranking lands Ireland a couple spots above the US, which still makes the top-10 cut.

Last week, we reported on anti-vapor advocates using a botnet to flood the FDA with fake letters advocating against vapers' rights. This week we've got a similar story with the roles reversed. It seems an army of Twitter bots may be accounting for as much as 70% of conversation on the site related to vaping, much of it positive. Fake testimonials are never a good look, regardless of who's employing them.

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In breaking news, we bring you this: people who may or may not be vapers have learned how to disable smoke alarms in order to smoke and/or vape in secluded places where the practice is otherwise prohibited. We shouldn't need to say this, but don't do that.

In another troubling development for Juul's global expansion plans, Israel is moving to mirror the EU in setting a 20 mg/ml cap on nicotine in e-liquids. Juul pods, which contain nearly three times as much concentrated nicotine, have already largely been pulled from Israel shelves, but the legislative move was nonetheless seen as a blow the company appears to be gearing up to fight in court. Meanwhile, Juul is also developing some recipes that don't rely on as heavy a nicotine dose.

Yet another Juul take: in this one, we take a look inside one Vice reporter's fruitless quest to invest in what's inarguably the biggest vaping firm out there at the moment. It's interesting as much for a look into the financial machinations of US markets as for anything strictly vape-adjacent…

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It's here: the FDA is now requiring warning labels similar to those long found on cigarettes to be appended to e-liquid packages. The example this piece provides, simply stating that nicotine is addictive, doesn't on its face seem too offensive. We'll be watching to see how this one goes.

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A different take: Banning e-cigarettes could harm public health, or so say vapor advocates in India, where the government is angling to do just that.

We'll leave you with this: is nicotine actually harmful? This is a topic we've covered before, but this science reporter does a much more comprehensive job than we've ever attempted. Short answer: nicotine is highly addictive and appears dangerous to use if you suffer from heart problems, but in the long run 'people smoke for nicotine but they die from tar.'

That's our link dump for this week, we'll have another coming sooner than never!