News

It was only a matter of time until this happened. A class action has been filed against Lorillard at the Orange County Superior Court for Blu eCigs’ “claims” that e-cigarettes are safer and healthier than tobacco cigarettes.

It's been jam-packed with research this week, from studies leading to claims that vaping will cause lung cancer to ones finding little to no risk of passive vaping, but there's also been the usual selection of new pieces of legislation, excellent blog posts from the community and some serious nonsense spouted about e-cigs. It's the Week in Vaping.

Taxes on vaping have been proposed in many states already, and as a post by Americans for Tax Reform shows, four states and several localities have already approved taxes. Many other states have bills pending, and even more will undoubtedly impose them in future. So where is vaping being taxed? And, most importantly, what are the likely consequences of taxes on vaping?

It’s time for the Week in Vaping. This week, flavors are luring teens into vaping (they aren’t), vaping impedes quitting (it doesn’t), indoor vaping bans are necessary for public health (they aren’t) and Public Health England were just hypnotized by the tobacco industry into saying e-cigarettes are much safer than cigarettes (of course!).

A news story is making the rounds about carelessly discarded spent e-cig cartridges causing motorists some trouble by puncturing their tires.

Oklahoma Senator Rob Johnson’s proposed bill to impose a small tax on e-cigs, formally ban their sale to minors and require any vendors to be licensed seems like a harmless and sensible piece of legislation on first reading about it. However, there is a darker vein lurking in the densely layered legalese and clunky phrases like “vapor products,” since the bill would also make it illegal to buy e-cigs online and for sellers in the state to buy their products from anybody other than Oklahoma-based distributor or wholesaler.

The Welsh government has announced that it will ban vaping in enclosed public places under a new public health law, igniting much debate about the pros and cons of such a decision. It's argued that vaping could pose a health risk to bystanders and may re-normalize smoking, but are these concerns justified?

On November 8, California voters decided to say a firm ‘yes’ to Proposition 56, which will increase the excise tax on cigarettes and other products containing nicotine by a hefty margin.

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) in the UK has recently announced that it will regulate e-cigarettes (as well as other nicotine-containing products) as medicines from 2016 onwards. This move is a huge step forwards for the e-cig industry – despite some concerns – but what will the legislation mean for UK vapers? And is the FDA likely to pursue their regulation in the same vein?

We’ve written a letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg – who has already received a “protect the children” call from the Attorneys General – putting forward the case for e-cigarettes and suggesting how they should be regulated.

Researchers are spying on your tweets, a judge in New York has been smart enough to declare that vaping is not smoking, more evidence-based rationality emerges from the UK and journalists are given a much-needed dose of common sense on the (non) issue of “e-cigarette battery explosions” – it’s the Week in Vaping.

The AHA comes out in support of the FDA’s proposal, and even advocates further actions such as including vaping in smoke-free air laws and increasing taxes, but manages to hold this view despite conducting a fairly reasonable analysis of the evidence beforehand.

With a pair of “think of the children!” studies, taxes, regulations, more vaping bans, a suicide tied to e-liquid and some great blog posts, it’s been a typically busy week for e-cigarettes. But keeping up isn’t easy, so we’ve collected the most important stories from the last seven days for your rundown of the Week in Vaping.

Along with the usual repetition of myths and the hyping of battery explosions, there have been a couple of positive stories published in mainstream media outlets this week, and some lively debate about whether schools should allow students to vape if they’d otherwise be smoking. The Week in Vaping covers all these stories and more!

New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg has proposed new legislation which, if enacted, would effectively ban the sale of flavored e-cigs and redefine “tobacco products” under the law to include them.

The recent revelation that Five Pawns’ extremely expensive e-liquid may be riddled with diacetyl (DA) and acetyl propionyl (AP) brings an important issue to the light once again: the flavorings we inhale might not be good for us. So, what’s the deal with DA and AP in e-liquid? Which are the worst offenders based on the tests available? And can we even trust the results?

Getting caught with an e-cigarette in some schools can get you suspended, tested for drugs and lead to “possession of drug paraphernalia” being marked on your school record. This means that for some students in states such as North Carolina, New Jersey, Washington and Connecticut, you’re better off being caught with cigarettes in school than e-cigarettes.

The FDA, which claims to stand for “science-based regulation,” seems incapable of drawing even the most basic of conclusions: e-cigarettes, regulated or unregulated, are vastly safer than tobacco cigarettes and should be treated as such.

New York City Councilman Costa Constantinides introduced a bill on Tuesday proposing a ban on all flavored e-cigarettes, flatly claiming, “These flavors are direct marketing to children.