CASAA and YOU! A Re-post in Appreciation & Support

We only just became aware last night that tonight (Tuesday, Nov. 1) the Alameda, California City Council will be voting on an ordinance that would prohibit “smoking,” including the use of electronic cigarettes, in all indoor workplace, all outdoor public places, multi-unit rental housing (including balconies and porches), and all new common interest properties. This is a new low.  If this passes, it will be the first successful ban on the use of e-cigarettes in one’s own home ever passed.  We would greatly appreciate that our California members write a public comment in opposition or attend tonight’s meeting.  To see previous CASAA recommendations for writing public comments, see here. Public comment can be sent to [email protected].  If you’d like to call the City Council members at their offices tomorrow, that info can be foundhere.  The proposed ordinance can be found here.   The council will meet at 7 p.m tonight in the third floor council chambers at City Hall, 2263 Santa Clara Ave in Almaeda.  Public comments of 3 minutes long will be accepted.  All you need to do is show up a few minutes early and sign up. Even if you are from 8 hours away from Almaeda, a public comment would still be greatly appreciated.  Feel free to e-mail it to us at [email protected], or post it in this thread on ECF. …»

IMPORTANT MESSAGE! Comments will be accepted on this legislation until November 1, 2011. Indoor Use Ban: http://www.scribd.com/doc/69364868/New-Bedford-MA-Health-Department-Proposed-Ban-on-E-Cigarette-Usage Sales Restrictions: http://www.scribd.com/doc/69363347/New-Bedford-Health-Department-Final-Draft-Amended-Youth-Access-Regulation-for-Nicotine-Delivery-Products These Ordinances would: Ban the use of electronic cigarettes, regardless of whether or not they contain nicotine, in places where tobacco cigarette smoking is prohibited Rightfully ban e-cigarette sales to minors, but enact vague regulations on the sale of ‘nicotine delivery products’ out of their original packaging.   Read More: http://www.casaa.org/cta/article.asp?articleID=207&l=a&p=…»

Interesting tobacco harm reduction post from the Tobacco Truth blog The New England Journal of Medicine on September 29 published a commentary (here) promoting “total abstinence” with behavioral therapy and medicines, a strategy that has failed to help over 90% of smokers who tried to quit. The article, by Michael Fiore and Timothy Baker of the University of Wisconsin, reflects the nation’s dual obsession with smoking as a disease and nicotine- and tobacco-abstinence as the only cure…. Read full story: http://rodutobaccotruth.blogspot.com/…»

Write the Cattaraugus County Board of Health and tell them how you feel about this! By Rick Miller Olean Times HeraldALLEGANY – A leader in enforcing New York’s Clean Indoor Air Act, the Cattaraugus County Health Department is turning its sights to electronic cigarettes. Dr. Kevin Watkins, Cattaraugus County public health director, recommended to the Board of Health Wednesday that they consider regulating the electronic cigarettes, which are not covered under the Clean Indoor Air Act. He also asked that herbal cigarettes be covered. Dr. Watkins said the issues could be addressed at the same time Health Department officials are updating the county’s Sanitary Code….»

Three Democrat Senators, who vehemently oppose tobacco harm reduction, sent a letter urging the FDA to “swiftly” expand tobacco regulations. They want the agency to apply Chapter IX of FSPTCA to all cigars, pipe tobacco, hookah/shisha, dissolvables, e-cigarettes, e-liquid and other tobacco products, criticize companies for marketing exponentially less hazardous smokefree alternatives to smokers, grossly misrepresent health risks/benefits and marketing of smokefree products.  http://www.cspdigitals.com/tobaccoenews/tom-letter.pdf Senators Send Letter to FDA on Other Tobacco Products This is extremely important and it is a prime reason of why harm reduction advocates need to submit comments to the FDA and attend TPSAC meetings!…»

Please take this simple, two-question survey on this issue. We’ll send a detailed report of the survey directly to the DOT, and we’ll report the results to you in our newsletter and here in on the Huffington Post. The survey will only take a minute or two of your time. Click here to take the survey. Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kate-hanni/dot-proposes-ecigarette-b_b_1018004.html…»

Public hearings have already took place on this proposed ordinance (and an e-cigarette user attended and spoke), so it is vital that e-mails are sent as soon as possible. Text: http://www.scribd.com/doc/69513527/Augusta-GA-Proposed-Smoking-Ban-With-E-Cigarettes This Ordinance would: Ban the use of electronic cigarettes, regardless of whether or not they contain nicotine, in places where tobacco cigarette smoking is prohibited. Read full Call to Action:  http://www.casaa.org/CTA/article.asp?articleID=206&l=a&p=…»

by Kevin Libin Smokers should be so lucky as to have the political influence that heroin junkies clearly enjoy. When the Canadian government was pursuing its court challenge against Vancouver’s Insite safe injection clinic for heroin users-which it recently lost at the Supreme Court-dozens of doctors and scientists rose up to protest. Stephen Hwang, a top researcher at the University of Toronto, called the government’s hostility to Insite “an alarming example of a recent trend towards the increased politicization of science.” Tobacco harm reduction is a much simpler matter than all that. You don’t even need clinics. What you do need is to acknowledge that there’s a stubborn portion of the population that-as above-is hard-core addicted to nicotine and that rather than writing them off or pretending that lecturing them will make them kick, our public health is better off by working to minimize the risks their addictions pose to their health and safety. And there are ways to do that. Promoting smokeless tobacco is a big one, since so much of the mortal danger that nicotine addicts risk comes from the carcinogens in smoking. E-cigarettes, or tobacco vapourizers, are another major improvement over smoking. And in Sweden, where millions of smokers have switched to a under-the-lip pouch of tobacco called snus, lung cancer rates and heart disease rates have fallen to some of the lowest in Europe. Just as with Insite, there is solid evidence showing that these lower risk products lead to increases in public health. As a 2007 paper published in the International Journal of Drug Policy concluded: “Applying harm reduction principles to public health policies on tobacco/nicotine is more than simply a rational and humane policy…It has the potential to lead to one of the greatest public health breakthroughs in human history by fundamentally changing the forecast of a billion cigarette-caused deaths this century.” Yet all of these products have been dismissed out of hand by numerous public health groups who have determined, with the same resolve and naivetй as the War on Drug types, to wipe all tobacco off the face of the earth. The American Cancer Association, the American Heart Association, and even the American Lung Association have ruled out promoting Tobacco Harm Reduction through comparatively safer products. Since, they say, all these products may still potentially contain some health risk-no matter how vanishingly minimal-they are condemned as unsafe substitutes. Link to full article:  http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/10/14/kevin-libin-doctors-favour-junkies-over-smokers/…»

First clinical study on e cigarettes just presented at the International Meeting of SRNT in Antalya    Researchers from the University of Catania (ITALY), presented the results of their study on electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) to the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco in Antalya, Turkey last week.  A report on the clinical trial results, which showed that switching to an e-cigarette may assist smokers to reduce or eliminate cigarette smoking in 55% of cases, will be published soon in BMC Public Health. “Cigarette smoking is a tough addiction to break,” said Professor Riccardo Polosa, the principal investigator of the study. “Therefore, improved approaches to smoking cessation are necessary. E-cigarettes may prove to be a safe alternative to traditional cigarette smoking. They provide a coping mechanism by replacing some of smoking gestures, to help smokers remain abstinent during their quit attempt or to reduce cigarette consumption.” Read Full Article: http://www.casaa.org/news/article.asp?articleID=197&l=a&p= …»

Former Smokers: Share your best quitting tips with The Doctors for a chance to be featured in USA Weekend magazine! E-cigarettes were favorably reviewed by the television show, the Doctors, back in 2009 before all the controversy. Now, the show is asking people who recently quit smoking to share what worked. If all the folks who posted a story in this sub-forum were to submit their story to the show, the sheer volume of numbers would guarantee that they would take another look at e-cigarettes and tell the story from the consumer’s viewpoint instead of the viewpoint being promoted by those who want us to “quit or die” (e.g., AMA, FDA, ALA, AHA, ACS, CFTK, ASH, etc, etc.) BTW: Even if you haven’t fully quit smoking, if you have reduced the number of cigarettes per day by 50% or more, that’s worth talking about, too, especially if you are working toward eventually reducing to zero cigarettes per day. Recent research shows that reduction can be a step toward eventual complete quitting, and some folks just need more time than others. http://thedoctorstv.com/main/tell_us_form/1965…»

It’s easy as 1-2-3 to get involved and make a difference! Here are three ways you can help just by clicking a link and completing a form online. Sign the Petition at Whitehouse.gov Recognize electronic cigarettes as an effective alternative to smoking and support job creation in this new industry. Electronic cigarettes have just begun to capture the attention of the American public, 24% of whom are regular cigarette smokers. This new technology has shown promise in reducing the adverse health effects associated with smoking, while delivering an experience that can satisfy the cravings which make quitting so difficult. It’s no secret that smoking accounts for nearly $100 billion dollars in healthcare costs annually- not to mention the productivity lost when smokers fall ill or pass away due to smoking related diseases. The administration’s support for this emerging technology would pave the way for reducing the societal costs of smoking, while creating jobs in a new sector which has grown significantly in the past two years. Support job creation and deficit reduction by signing now! https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/%21/petition/recognize-electronic-cigarettes-effective-alternative-smoking-and-support-job-creation-new-industry/57vtB0QK Join Popvox and OPPOSE the Bill to Raise Taxes on all Tobacco Products What’s your position on the Saving Lives by Lowering Tobacco Use Act? Click OPPOSE Please create an account at Popvox and OPPOSE this bill. It is a camouflaged attempt to increase the tax on safer alternatives to tobacco, including e-cigarettes, to the same as or more than cigarettes, and to increase that tax every year – inserted within a disabilities education Act amendment in order to hide it. Please create an account – login – OPPOSE the Bill. Thank you. https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/112/s1403 Former Smokers: Share your best quitting tips with The Doctors for a chance to be featured in USA Weekend magazine! E-cigarettes were favorably reviewed by the television show, the Doctors, back in 2009 before all the controversy. Now, the show is asking people who recently quit smoking to share what worked. If all the folks who posted a story in this sub-forum were to submit their story to the show, the sheer volume of numbers would guarantee that they would take another look at e-cigarettes and tell the story from the consumer’s viewpoint instead of the viewpoint being promoted by those who want us to “quit or die” (e.g., AMA, FDA, ALA, AHA, ACS, CFTK, ASH, etc, etc.) BTW: Even if you haven’t fully quit smoking, if you have reduced the number of cigarettes per day by 50% or more, that’s worth talking about, too, especially if you are working toward eventually reducing to zero cigarettes per day. Recent research shows that reduction can be a step toward eventual complete quitting, and some folks just need more time than others. http://thedoctorstv.com/main/tell_us_form/1965…»

Q: How many vapers does it take to get the attention of the White House? A: 5,000! On September 27th, Eric Swick, of Cohoes, NY, started an online petition through a website called, “We the People.” You can read the petition in its entirety by clicking the link below, but its message is simple: “We petition the Obama Administration to recognize electronic cigarettes as an effective alternative to smoking and support job creation in this new industry.” Q: Will you sign? A: . . . The organizations that want e-cigarettes regulated out of existence hope your answer is no. They hope you aren’t paying attention. They hope you don’t care enough to get involved. We think they’re wrong (as usual). We believe you will not only take a few minutes to sign the petition, but that you’ll ask your family and friends to sign it, too. (They’ve witnessed the positive change e-cigarettes have brought into your life, after all, and you don’t have to vape to sign!) There are a number of things that make this petition unique: 1) The website is sponsored by the White House; 2) 5,000 signatures requires the White House to issue an official response; and 3) The petition started only three days before the required number of signatures for an official response was raised from 5,000 to 25,000–so this is our only chance to be recognized with at least 5,000 signatures. Time is of the essence, though. We have only until October 27th to get the needed signatures. Click this link to sign the petition now: https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/recognize-electronic-cigarettes-effective-alternative-smoking-and-support-job-creation-new-industry/57vtB0QK You have to register an account using a valid email address, and only one signature per email address is allowed. Some people have experienced minor difficulties with registration (e.g., the “captcha”), but please don’t give up. In all, registration and signing won’t take more than a few minutes. Once you’re registered, you can sign the e-cigarette petition and do searches for other petitions on any number of issues you care about. Incidentally, the privacy policy (which you can read on the website) states explicitly that individuals will not be identified or tracked by signing. Even if this petition doesn’t get our ideal response, our sheer numbers will send a message loud and clear to Washington that we fully expect our representatives to address our concerns; i.e., we want to keep our liquids, our nicotine strengths, our online sales, and our flavors. Imagine the impact tens of thousands of signatures would have! So, please, if you haven’t signed the petition, do so now. If you have signed, ask others to do the same. CASAA members have already achieved so much. Together, we can achieve so much more….»

Boston, MA Call to Action (Indoor Use Ban) The Boston Public Health Commission has proposed the Clean Air Works Workplace Smoking and E-Cigarette Use Restrictions Regulation Link: a prohibition on the use of e-cigarettes in the workplace These regulations would: Ban electronic cigarette use anywhere that smoking is banned. Read Full Call to Action: http://www.casaa.org/CTA/article.asp?articleID=200&l=a&p= Boston, MA Call to Action (Prohibit online sales) The Boston Public Health Commission has proposed an amendment to the Tobacco Control Regulation Link: a prohibition on the sale or distribution of unregulated nicotine delivery products to minors and an increase in fines for violation. These regulations would: Potentially prohibit internet sales (any non-face-to-face sales) of any electronic cigarette or nicotine liquid. Read full Call to Action: http://www.casaa.org/CTA/article.asp?articleID=201&l=a&p=…»

Meeting starts 7:30pm EST/ 6:30pm CST/5:30pm MST/4:30pm PST Webinar link: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/join/475654518/106671952 Register here: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/475654518 Contact CASAA at [email protected] or contact Thad Marney at 503-882-7769 if you have any technical issues….»

CASAA opposes S.1403 because it would tax products that are up to 99% safer than smoking at the same rate as cigarettes. As cigarette prices go up, these safer alternatives need to remain less expensive, thus providing an additional incentive for smokers to make a life-saving switch. Read Full Call to Action: http://www.casaa.org/CTA/article.asp?articleID=191&l=a&p=…»

CASAA advisor Bill Godshall, of Smokefree Pennsylvania, reported this week that a new study published in the Harm Reduction Journal, “Trends in beliefs about the harmfulness and use of stop-smoking medications and smokeless tobacco products among cigarettes smokers: Findings from the ITC four-country survey” found that 5 out of 6 smokers in North America inaccurately believe smokeless tobacco to be as hazardous as cigarettes – due, he said, to a 25 year US law requiring misleading package labels and campaign of deception by health agencies, organizations and professionals. “Interestingly, this survey also found that a higher percentage of smokers in the UK and Australia (than in the US or Canada) correctly believe that smokeless tobacco is less hazardous than cigarettes, even though snus and many other smokeless tobacco products are banned in the UK and Australia, while being legal to market in the US and Canada,” said Godshall. “That’s because health agencies, organizations and professionals in the US and Canada have engaged in a decades long campaign to deceive smokers to believe that smokeless tobacco is as hazardous as cigarettes,” he said. “Smoking has more than twice the risk of causing oral cancer as smokeless tobacco and Swedish-style snus and dissolvables have reduced levels of TSNA’s that are below levels known to cause cancer,” CASAA Director Thad Marney explained to readers. Dr. Gilbert Ross, of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), emphatically agreed with the study’s conclusion in a statement posted on ACSH’s web site. “With the advent of the FDA’s regulation of tobacco products – including smokeless tobacco – in the U.S.,” Ross said, “the opportunity may soon present itself to provide the kind of public education that is so clearly needed.” He also points to the authors’ assertion that manufacturers have failed to inform consumers of the benefits of smokeless tobacco: “It’s the government that won’t allow them to properly inform the public,” he says. “Ironically,” said Godshall, “if any cigarette company had ever mislead smokers or the public to believe that smokeless tobacco was as hazardous as cigarettes, abstinence-only prohibitonists and government health agencies would have viciously attacked the cigarette company for lying.”…»

Op-Ed Blog Post from E-Cigarette-Forum.com  By Elaine Keller Frankly, I’m getting sick (literally) of doctors and “public health experts” trotting out the “First, do no harm” adage as their justification for aiding and abetting the murder of millions of smokers. “I can’t prescribe something that’s harmful.” Oh, really? I’d venture to say that a large percentage of the medications listed in the Physician’s Desk Reference are substances that often are harmful when used as directed, can be harmful if prescribed for a condition the patient doesn’t have, or are harmful when overused. Nowhere in the Hippocratic oath will you find the exact words, “First, do no harm.” Here is the pertinent sentence from the oath: I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.While not harming the patient is explicit, the first concern of anyone who provides medical care must be damage control. Old Joke: The operation was a complete success but the patient died. In Epidemics, Hippocrates expands on the idea of what it means to never do harm to anyone.He suggests that the goal should be a speedy recovery of health, and the avoidance of prolongation of the disease, or death, or relapses. The physician must be able to tell the antecedents, know the present, and foretell the future – must mediate these things, and have two special objects in view with regard to disease, namely,to do good or to do no harm. The art consists in three things – the disease, the patient, and the physician. The physician is the servant of the art, and the patient must combat the disease along with the physician. But what happens when the patient is shut out of the process? Often that means that the disease is misdiagnosed because the doctor is lacking pertinent information or does not understand (or does not value) the patient’s health priorities. The Tobacco Control Community has decided that the disease they intend to treat is “tobacco addiction.” Framed in that way, “take away the tobacco” is the only treatment possible. But what if, as Hippocrates suggests, we involve the patient in this process? What if the patient is more concerned about lung disease, cancers, and heart diseases that are not a direct result of the “tobacco addiction” but rather are direct results of the nicotine delivery method, smoking? What if the patient is also concerned about cognitive and emotional health, which are impaired when the patient follows the doctor’s orders and becomes nicotine-abstinent? Is it ethical for the doctor to impose his or her set of values on the patient and disregard the patient’s pain, distress, dysfunction, and premature death? Diagnosing the disease as “the health consequences of inhaling smoke” opens up a whole new world of potential treatment options. In Framing tobacco control efforts within an ethical context, B. J. Fox argues that the tobacco control community should more proactively frame its actions and base that frame upon ethical principles. “The tobacco control community lacks a comprehensive understanding of ethics,” he states. “In turn, this has allowed the tobacco control community to be defined by its desire to defeat the tobacco industry, at the expense of its desire to protect the public.” Framing tobacco control efforts within an ethical context — Fox 14 (suppl 2): ii38 — Tobacco Control Ethically, a doctor’s first priority needs to be damage control. Help the patient to stop the damage being done to his or her body, using whatever works! There’s plenty of time later on to worry about treating addiction–if that turns out to be necessary to protect the patient’s physical, cognitive, or emotional health. Moral health should be left up to the patient’s spiritual healers, not to medical doctors or public health officials. Read Original Blog Post>…»

Hello, I’m Bill Godshall, founder and executive director of Smokefree Pennsylvania, a nonprofit organization that since 1990 has been advocating local, state and federal policies to reduce indoor tobacco smoke pollution, reduce tobacco marketing to youth, hold cigarette companies accountable, increase cigarette tax rates, fund tobacco education and smoking cessation services, inform smokers that all smokefree tobacco/nicotine products are far less hazardous alternatives to cigarettes, and in 2007 I convinced Senator Mike Enzi to amend the FSPTCA to require picture warnings on cigarette packs. For disclosure, neither Smokefree Pennsylvania nor I have ever received any direct or indirect funding from any tobacco, drug or electronic cigarette company or trade association. It is important to recognize that Section 911 and other provisions of Chapter IX of the FSPTCA only apply to: cigarettes, cigarette tobacco, RYO tobacco and smokeless tobacco products. Although the FDA has stated that it intends to propose a regulation to apply Chapter IX to all currently unregulated tobacco products, Section 911 does not apply to small cigars, large cigars, pipe tobacco, hookah/shisha tobacco, electronic cigarettes, e-liquid, tobacco skin cream, tobacco water and at least two dissolvable tobacco products…. Read Full Article> Video: …»

Check out CASAA’s YouTube channel for videos on tobacco harm reduction, smokeless tobacco and e-cigarettes. If you have any videos you’d like to share, post a link in the comments area below, send us a link on Twitter or post them on our Facebook page! CASAA on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/CASAAmedia?feature=mhee…»

FDA Workshop – Scientific Evaluation on Modified Risk Tobacco Products CASAA Public Testimony by CASAA Vice President Elaine Keller, CASAA Advisor Bill Godshall of Smokefree Pennsylvania, along with other tobacco harm reduction advocates. The purpose of the public workshop is to discuss issues pertinent to the scientific evaluation of modified risk tobacco product (MRTP) applications. The workshop will feature 5 moderated panel discussions on the following topics: Assessing the Potential Effects of MRTPs on Individuals and PopulationsBenefit to Individual Tobacco Users Impact on the Health of the Population as a Whole Comparisons of MRTPs to other Tobacco Products Modified Risk Claims for Reduced Substance Exposure Consumer Perceptions of MRTPs Post-Market Surveillance and Studies of Commercially Marketed MRTPs  Read Elaine’s presentation here: http://casaa.org/news/article.asp?articleID=194&l=a&p= Watch home video of presentations on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/CASAAmedia#p/a/u/0/0XuSDCTRmT0 Recorded video will be posted here: http://www.fda.gov/TobaccoProducts/NewsEvents/ucm259201.htm Read first-hand accounts on ECF forum here: http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/legislation-news/216496-fda-host-modified-risk-tobacco-product-workshop-dc-aug-25-26-free-registration-still-being-accepted-4.html#post3969247 …»

By Kristin Noll-Marsh Wisconsin Vapors Blog In the 1980’s, public health groups began campaigning for “safe” sex. These campaigns promoted the use of condoms to reduce exposure to HIV and AIDS and continue to be used today to promote reduced exposure to other dangerous and debilitating sexually transmitted diseases (STD). Rarely are the public health benefits of reducing health risks via “safe” sex questioned, even though “safe” sex is a misnomer. A 2001 NIH panel of experts examined dozens of studies and found that proper and consistent condom use reduced the incidence of STDs by 18% to 92%, depending upon the disease in question. At best case, that still leaves an 8% health risk for “safe” sex practices. For the human papilloma virus (HPV) – which has been linked to cervical cancer, the fifth most deadly cancer in the world for women – the harm reduction is even less.  In reality, condoms contribute to “safer” sex, but do not cause sex to be 100% safe. This does not stop public health groups from promoting “safe” sex to the public and the majority of us agree that it’s better to be safer, even if it’s not 100% safe. Millions are still spent promoting safe sex practices, even though STDs rarely result in death. In fact, it’s reported that 80% of those infected with STDs are asymptomatic and not even aware that they are infected. The CDC reports that around 18,000 people with AIDS and approximately 4,000 women with cervical cancer die annually. On the other hand, the CDC and other health groups report that “tobacco use” (or more specifically, smoking) causes 440,000 deaths annually in the U.S. (including the highly debated second hand smoke deaths.)  Compared to smoking deaths, mouth cancer, the main health warning for smokeless tobacco use, contributes to only 8,000 deaths annually. However, according to the National Cancer Institute, researchers have been unable to determine how many of those deaths are actually caused by smokeless tobacco use. Based on one 1981 study of female chew users in the southern U.S., the NCI reports that “users of smokeless tobacco are at four times the risk of developing oral cancer than non-users.” More recent research shows that smoking actually causes twice the risk of oral cancers (compared to smokeless) and factors such as alcohol abuse and dual use of smoking and smokeless seem to have reduced the link to oral cancer caused by smokeless use alone even further. In fact, the scientific research overwhelmingly shows evidence that smokeless tobacco carries very little to no health risks, at or less than 1% compared to never-users. In spite of knowledge of this widely known research and the ready acceptance of harm reduction practices for less lethal STDs, public health officials refuse to acknowledge the obvious potential health benefits of promoting harm reduction in the form of smokeless tobacco products. Read Full Story>…»

Can e-cigarettes help people stop smoking? All clinical research to date has found that electronic cigarettes show promise in helping smokers become abstinent from smoking.  Camponneto, et al learned about e-cigarettes from two patients who stopped smoking and remained abstinent for more than 6 months after taking up an electronic cigarette.  The authors comment, “This is outstanding in consideration of the fact that this result was accomplished by highly addicted smokers who repeatedly failed professional smoking cessation assistance without the support of recommended nicotine dependence treatments and smoking cessation counseling.” Bullen, et al conducted a randomized cross-over trial with 40 subjects and found that the product “alleviated desire to smoke after overnight abstinence, was well tolerated and had a pharmacokinetic profile more like the Nicorette inhalator than a tobacco cigarette.” The findings by Darredeau, et al reported at the 12th SRNT Europe conference, suggest that regardless of nicotine content, electronic cigarettes may provide an effective means of relieving acute tobacco craving in at least some smokers. Population surveys indicate that electronic cigarettes are much more effective than currently available smoking cessation treatments.  Heaver, et al, surveyed over 300 e-cigarette consumers and found that 79% were using the e-cigarette as a complete replacement for smoking, 17% had significantly reduced the number smoked, and only 4% still smoked as much as before. The most recent published survey by Etter and Bullen surveyed 3,587 subjects, median age 41, of which 2,850 used e-cigarettes with nicotine, and 112 used e-cigarettes without nicotine.  Among 2,896 daily users, 2,234 (77%) no longer smoked at all, and the median duration of smoking abstinence was 152 days. Are e-cigarettes safe? Read Full Story>…»

Star and Reynolds correct inaccurate claims about dissolvable tobacco products, CO Board of Health to hold public hearing August 17th. “Hopefully, there will be people at the hearing who will tell us what the issues are,” said Dr. Chris Urbina, executive director and chief medical officer of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. “There’s no data; it’s a fairly new product.” Only, dissolvable tobacco products are not new. Star Scientific of Glen Allen, Va., introduced the Ariva dissolvable tobacco lozenge in 2001 and Stonewall lozenge in 2003, and the products have been available in Colorado for awhile, said Sara Troy Machir, vice president for communications and investor relations.”Actually, there is data on dissolvables,” she said. “I could send you five studies, done by people funded by NIH (National Institutes of Health), on toxins in dissolvables.” (Read what NIH calls “the first published chemical analysis of dissolvable tobacco” here Read Full Article>…»

by Kristin Noll-MarshWisconsin Vapers Blog The ALA posted an article titled “Is There an Easy Way to Quit?” on it’s web site today, which is filled with typically deceptive ANTZ tactics. Making statements such as  smokeless tobacco has “28 cancer-causing agents” and “increases the risk of developing cancer” and that e-cigarettes contain “cancer-causing agents and toxic chemicals” found in anti-freeze is not only leaving out key information, it relies upon questionable “science” and sensationalism to deceive the reader…. Read Full Article>…»

An Observational Piece Several months ago in an observational piece about the critical role that science will be playing in terms of tobacco, nicotine and alternative product regulation, I indicated that I was planning on doing something concerning the increasing confusion over the various uses of words and terms in the tobacco, nicotine and alternative products environment. As with the other observational pieces I have done, this piece is designed to make some observations, to generate further discussion, and to hopefully initiate some new thinking. The FDA’s acquisition of regulatory authority over tobacco products (and it previous existing authorities over therapeutic nicotine replacement products), the importance of science in setting regulations, and the obvious fact that we are in a ‘new era’ of tobacco, nicotine and alternative product regulations, make it important at this juncture that we clearly define our terms and reconsider how we might best approach policy decisions in the coming months and years. I have been in ‘tobacco control’ (I am not even entirely sure what that means in today’s environment) for more than 30 years. In the early years it was relatively simple to use terms – it was a ‘war’ between two interests, good and evil. We in public health wore the white hats of course and the tobacco industry wore the black hats. The tobacco industry, later to be branded BIG TOBACCO, was relatively easy to define. We knew their deceitful and deceptive practices. We knew how extensive their influences were and the extent to which their money influenced decision- making. We knew that they worked hand in hand following well laid out strategies. We considered any one associated with tobacco, including tobacco farmers, retailers, advertisers etc. as a part of the tobacco industry. Today while these two extremes continue to exist there is a much larger ‘gray’ area that has emerged — an area that often goes unrecognized by those who remain severely polarized and content on keeping the old ‘ tobacco wars’ of the 80’s and 90’s alive…. Read Full Story> …»