Vape News in Brief – June 14th, 2017 Edition

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It's that time again, where we take a spin through the events and news taking place throughout the vape world over the course of the last week. Diving right in…

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In case you've missed it, even researchers paid by Big Tobacco are admitting that vaping doesn't cause DNA damage like smoking does. On the other end of the spectrum, though, the University of Tennessee claims that vapor might be as bad as inhaling an unfiltered cigarette. Neither of the studies included detailed information on how they're collecting their samples, however, and previous US-based studies that were designed to intentionally burn wicking material so that silica or cotton smoke rather than actual vapor was tested. Still, the latter results give cause for pause.

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San Francisco this week will consider a proposal to ban all flavoring in tobacco – this includes e-liquids, regardless of whether or not they actually contain tobacco derivatives. It's still a toss-up on how things will pan out, but even the San Francisco Chronicle, the city's paper of record, is getting on board with the opposition by publishing an op-ed decrying the push to decimate access to a product that's widely considered far safer than actual tobacco.

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Here's a nice little piece that lays out some of the more compelling reasons vaping is preferable to smoking. Bonus tidbit – recent research suggests a full 8 million people have successfully quit smoking thanks to vapor products!

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While San Francisco ponders the issue of a flavor ban, across the bay in San Leandro, a similar measure recently died on the vine. Click through to the full story to learn why.

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File under 'cool, but creepy' – according to this report on hacking corporate security, blowing a vapor cloud under an electronically locked door will trigger the motion sensors on the other side to unlock and allow passage. Apparently you can also spit whiskey at the door, though we're not sure how that works or why whiskey, specifically.

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Here's another good read on the benefits of harm reduction via e-cigarettes versus insistence on the demonization of all nicotine users. In this piece, we learn that 6 million of those 8 million people cited earlier who've quit using tobacco thanks to vaping reside in Europe, where vaping science is much more advanced and policy is less reactionary than in the U.S. That's just sad.

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Disheartening: the entire state of Rhode Island (which encompasses about the land mass of a moderately-sized recreational vehicle or a large taco truck, but is still home to about a million residents) is set to start treating vaping in a similar manner to smoking. This story is being repeated time and again across the country, but it's never good news to see misguided propaganda prevail.

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Here's a new one – posing as a police officer, a New York man allegedly stole $200 worth of vape hardware by convincing workers at a convenience store they were peddling illegal merchandise that was subsequently forfeit. Even if the inventory was far better than what we're used to finding at our local bodega, it's hard to imagine the jail time is worth it.

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This is likely the best piece you'll encounter on last month's vaping summit in DC. Read it. Please.

Even though they've got a comparatively relaxed vaping scene regulation-wise, there's still plenty of grousing about new EU laws that do bizarre things like limit the size of retail liquid bottles to 10 ml and the capacity of tanks at 2 ml.

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Meanwhile, things are going even worse for vapers in India, where the government is still considering a total ban on all vapor products. But in a country where 30% of adult men still smoke, calls from the scientific community are being made in favor of a more neutral approach.

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More from the wide world of science – researchers at the Penn State College of Medicine say that vaping doesn't appear to be as addictive as smoking. In testing former smokers who'd converted to vapor products, most said they didn't feel as dependent on their vapes as they did cigarettes, and were less anxious about not being able to vape for extended periods. Make no mistake, nicotine is addictive in any form, but the news is at least promising.

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That's it for now, see you again next week!