E-Cig Vaping News

We’ve long since said goodbye to advertising that promotes cigarettes. This year, a new directive will come into force in the UK that entirely changes the look of all cigarette packets. It is this law that has been fought by the big tobacco companies in the hope it could be overturned. However, a case at the Court of Appeal in early December 2016 was lost by the big tobacco companies, including Imperial Tobacco and British American Tobacco.

They fought against the measures that will soon see all cigarette packets looking much the same. The new packaging must be plain from May this year, with the onus given over to health warnings on each pack. Roughly two-thirds of the pack’s surface (65%) must be taken up by health warnings of the dangers of smoking cigarettes. The only mention of the brand name of the cigarettes will be on the underside of the pack.

Aiming to make cigarette smoking less appealing

While the additional regulation has infuriated tobacco companies, the idea is to discourage younger people from starting to smoke to begin with. At present, there are health warnings on packets that will hopefully discourage people from smoking or encourage them to give us. However, some people might still be swayed by seeing a brand name or colour scheme they recognise as being smoked by someone else.

Imagine what a row of the new cigarette packets will look like when they are launched in May. All you would see if presented with them would be a series of health warnings – not conducive to encouraging you to smoke. Clearly, tobacco companies are worried about their bottom line, if fewer people take up smoking in the future.

Could this also encourage more smokers to switch to vaping?

You may already be aware of the increased number of vaping shops that have been popping up all over the country. While the vaping industry is also being regulated this year, it would seem to be in a less stringent fashion than the tobacco industry.

We wonder if the plain packaging, minimal brand information and large health warnings will drive even more people towards trying vaping for the first time. After all, before now, people had no real alternative other than trying patches or chewing gum. Vaping has already helped thousands of people quit smoking altogether. Could the industry be boosted still further by the new cigarette packets we will start seeing this year?

The meeting of the Nottingham City Health and Wellbeing Board on 30th November 2016 turned out to be encouraging for those who work in the area and have switched to vaping to help them quit smoking. John Wilcox, a member of the board and an insight specialist, urged employers in the city to examine the rules they have in place for smoking and vaping.

In many cases, organisations treat vapers and smokers in the same way. Sometimes, vapers find they must go and vape in the same area being used by smokers. This is hardly conducive to getting healthier, since they’ll be inhaling harmful smoke from other smokers.

87% of councils treat vapers and smokers just the same

While the attitude shown by the Health and Wellbeing board at Nottingham City Council is encouraging indeed, it is not supported by most other councils around the country. A huge 87% of these councils have the exact same policy in place for both smokers and vapers. Nearly one-third of councils require vapers to vape in the same area used by smokers – thus leading to the situation mentioned above.

There is still some uncertainty around vaping when it comes to employers and their attitudes towards it. While some allow vaping, others restrict it in the exact same way they do smoking.

Public Health England encourages vaping in workplaces

Even Public Health England got in on the act last year, releasing a statement encouraging employers to support those who were trying to quit smoking by switching to vaping. Suggestions included the need to set up a separate area for vapers, as well as possibly encouraging more breaks to ensure vapers can vape when they need to.

Will other councils and businesses follow suit in supporting vapers?

It is far too early to say, even though Public Health England found vaping is 95% safer than smoking. There is clearly still some uncertainty surrounding the habit, despite many successful quitters saying vaping was the method they used to help them stop.

As long as employers view vaping in the same way they do smoking, little will change. As time goes on and more people switch to vaping, quitting smoking as they do so, we think the chances will be better that more employers will make positive changes in the workplace.

What do you think? Is your employer supportive of vaping?

If you live or work anyway in Gloucestershire, you’re likely to have come across one or two vape shops recently. In fact, if you regularly visit Gloucester city centre, you’ll have walked past many more than that.

It’s not often a totally new kind of shop pops up where you live. But we reckon a lot of you will live somewhere that has welcomed at least one vaping shop in the last year or so. This is a new industry that has a huge target audience – and since many people will probably try and quit smoking for the usual New Year’s Resolution, we think business might be booming early in 2017.

And that can only be good news for the vape shops in Gloucestershire and beyond. There is nearly a dozen of them in the city centre alone, with more to be found if you head out into the surrounding areas of the city. this can only be good news if you happen to be switching to vaping for the New Year, or you simply want to speak to someone or check out the goods before you buy.

How long will this explosion in vaping shops last?

Well, there must be a saturation point, but we’re not sure that has been reached countrywide yet. There’s a chance it could be getting close in Gloucester, but beyond that there’s a good chance many other shops will be popping up as we go deeper into 2017.

Vaping has become more popular recently, leading to rising sales in the industry. Until very recently, you had to go online to buy whatever you needed. There was no such thing as a vape shop. It was only a matter of time before that changed, and it’s changed with a vengeance in Gloucester.

Mind you, start looking somewhere like London and you’ll find many more than that. It’s not unusual for businesses to start popping up in areas where none exist – and where there is a demand for the product and service.

Will the Tobacco Products Directive reduce the number of shops?

It could do. The new rules were introduced in May 2016, and by May this year (2017) all products for sale must adhere to the new rules. This means all old stock must be sold or scrapped by that date.

While e-cigarettes with no nicotine in them won’t be covered by the directive, those containing up to 20mg per ml of nicotine will be. It remains to be seen whether any shops will cease to trade because of the rules, but this could happen due to competition too. There must be a limit to the number of vape shops that can trade successfully in any one place. We doubt Gloucester has reached that limit yet, or will do soon. But we will be watching to see whether it is this or the TPD that makes a real difference to how many vaping shops we see in our towns and cities this year.

Vaping has changed how many smokers have given up the habit. Indeed, some have given up permanently with the aid of electronic cigarettes, after having failed in the past.

So, when the UK is told by the World Health Organisation to ban all vaping in all public spaces, it makes us sit up and take notice. Thousands of UK smokers have given up the habit thanks to vaping, and if we follow the WHO advice and ban vaping in public, we’re only going to make it more difficult for smokers to stop in the future. After all, if it’s just as difficult to vape as it is to smoke, there could be less incentive to stop in the first place.

Public Health England supports the use of vaping as a smoking cessation tool. Indeed, they have encouraged councils and other bodies and businesses to provide spaces for people to vape in, instead of having to use the same areas smokers do.

It seems the WHO has bought into the theory that teenagers could start smoking after trying vaping first. However, many studies have already considered this supposed link and found no evidence this takes place. Since vaping has helped many people quit smoking, and many others are switching every day, it seems counter-productive to demonise vaping. It may not be 100% safe, but it is generally accepted to be 95% less harmful than smoking, per the latest figures.

What’s your opinion on this statement from the World Health Organisation? Do they have the interests of vapers at heart? It doesn’t seem so. Would you be more likely to continue smoking if vaping was made difficult to do? Tell us your thoughts below and let us know how you reacted to this news.

There have been plenty of studies focusing on teenagers and their attitude to vaping. But why are they vaping to begin with? Are they vaping as many adults vape, so they can quit smoking before it becomes a lifelong habit? Or are they trying it as a gateway to move on to smoking cigarettes instead?

The beginning of November saw the release of a study that indicated over a third of US 10th grade students started vaping and then moved on to smoking. This is higher than the percentage of students who don’t vape.

The report has hit the headlines in a big way. It has also led many experts to call for tighter controls over the purchasing of vaping products, as well as where they can be used in public. Are we sleepwalking into a future where teenagers start vaping en masse, before eventually giving up the habit in favour of cigarettes instead?

It was inevitable we would see a kneejerk reaction to the report. However, it turns out the evidence pointing to significant numbers of pre-teens and teenagers vaping before turning to smoking is sparse.

What does the study really say?

There are several facts to be aware of here. Firstly, only six months’ worth of data was used in the study. Secondly, only a little over 3,000 adolescents were questioned as part of the study. Longer-term studies are needed to see if the figures hold up – and even if they do, they are not as dire as many headline writers have made out.

Of the 3,084 pupils who took part, 1,009 confirmed they had tried vaping on at least one occasion. However, the pupils were also asked how many days they vaped for within the last 30-day period. A mere 133 pupils said they had done so on one or two days within that period. Those confirming they had vaped for anything over three days numbered 146.

What is the real percentage at play?

A study focusing on around 3,000 people (of any age or demographic) should be regarded as small. The main conclusion everyone has pounced on here is that 15% of those who vaped often had become smokers by the time the study ended. In contrast, only 1.2% of those who had never tried vaping had started smoking.

So, this tells us that vaping is a clear gateway to start smoking, is that right? Well, not necessarily. If kids have an interest in smoking, they might start vaping first to try it out before switching to cigarettes. On the other hand, they may go straight to cigarettes. Conversely, the kids who have no interest in smoking aren’t likely to go out and try vaping in the first place. The connection between the two is a lot cloudier (a lot smokier, if you will) than many researchers and so-called experts like to point out.

What can we conclude from this study?

The only thing we can conclude with any certainty is that more studies are needed. Moreover, these studies need to last longer and involve a lot more kids to reach any real conclusions over the connection between vaping and smoking. Perhaps some kids smoked initially before trying vaping to help them quit. How many of them ended up failing and going back to smoking?

It is too easy to draw big conclusions from a small study, when those conclusions could be wrong. Overall, the evidence shows that smokers are quitting more easily with the aid of electronic cigarettes, so we shouldn’t let them go up in smoke just yet.

Let us know your thoughts below.

What is the one thing that seems almost inevitable when you give up smoking? If you said weight gain, you wouldn’t be alone. Plenty of ex-smokers find they put on weight when they quit, and there is a good reason for it. Smoking speeds up your metabolism, which in turn means you burn calories faster. Even though quitting is good for your health, you can put on weight if you eat the same amount of food you did when you smoked, because your metabolism will return to normal.

But you don’t need to accept weight gain as inevitable – not according to a new study. And the good news is vaping can help stop those extra pounds from piling on.

Avoiding the dreaded 5kg weight gain

The average weight gain experienced by an ex-smoker over the first 12 months after quitting is 5kg. That’s about 11lbs, and not far off a stone. But it turns out vaping could help avoid that gain.

A new study has suggested electronic cigarettes containing nicotine could help prevent the gain. Since we know nicotine speeds up the metabolism, this makes sense. People using e-cigs have far greater control over the amount of nicotine in the liquids they choose. This means they can start at a high level and gradually reduce it as they quit cigarettes and stick to vaping instead.

Tapering off gradually means the body’s metabolism won’t be affected in such a stark way. Instead, the change can be made gradually, which can make it easier to stay away from the cigarettes and quit permanently.

More to do with your hands too?

The study, published in Nicotine and Tobacco Research, also suggested people may be better-occupied by the process of refilling their e-cigarettes with different liquids and trying different flavours. Some people have more than one e-cigarette so they can keep them all topped up with their favourites. Maintaining the equipment and making sure they have everything they need occupies their time and takes their mind away from food – another step in the right direction.

Oftentimes, ex-smokers look for something else to do with their hands. Some resort to eating as it feels like an alternative to smoking. But vaping provides that something, and it could be used as a weapon in helping prevent the weight gain so many people dread.

What’s your experience with vaping and weight gain? Has it helped you avoid that dreaded 5kg?

Plenty of controversy has been stirred up over vaping in recent months. It has been banned in many public places and workplaces, and now it has emerged councils could unwittingly be breaking the law.

A recent report has revealed that while councils have designated smoking areas for smokers to use, 90% of them expect vapers to use these same areas. This holds true even though vapers do not smoke, and are therefore being exposed to harmful cigarette smoke by being asked to use the same areas.

The report also revealed these councils have not differentiated between the two groups of people – and this could open the way for legal challenges concerning the situation. Vapers are not smokers. If they are asked to vape in the same area smokers are using, the councils concerned are not keeping the two separate. This contravenes the law regarding smoking in designated areas other people do not have to enter.

Enfield Council in North London stood out as the only council that encourages its workers to vape in the premises. It looks unlikely many other councils will follow suit. Perhaps it will take a court case or two to change things, we suspect.

While the research only explored councils, it makes us wonder how many other workplaces are failing to differentiate between smoking and vaping. Employers may want to sit up and take notice of the situation. It may take just one court case being brought against an employer for the floodgates to open.

Since many smokers have switched to vaping to help them quit the habit, it seems crazy to ask vapers to vape in the same area as smokers. We’ll be watching to see how this situation develops – and who blinks first.

Nicotine is usually demonised thanks to its ability to damage the body. Links have been made between nicotine and and heart and circulatory issues and respiratory disease as well. So it might come as a surprise to learn that a recent body of research has indicated nicotine might potentially have the ability to protect against the decline of our cognitive abilities. Furthermore, the study seemed to indicate brain functions could also be improved by nicotine consumption.

It’s very important, however, to point out that the study was preliminary in nature. No one knows whether those results would be borne out in a larger-scale study. No doubt such a study will be funded, but we’re a long way from calling nicotine a new ‘wonder drug’.

The lead researcher for the study, Dr Ursula Winzer-Serhan, did however state that the study ensured the nicotine was consumed without cigarettes being involved. Thus, it was consumed on its own rather than being paired with tobacco, which is of course usually the case with cigarettes. The study used three groups of animals, and those groups received either low, medium or high doses of nicotine in the water they drank each day.

It’s also important to note that Dr Winzer-Serhan made this statement: “We’re not encouraging people to smoke.” Well said. But does this mean those who vape – thus taking in nicotine and not tobacco smoke – could be getting some unexpected benefits from doing so?

Stopping smoking is something many people try to do each year. Many fail, and many more are achieving success by using electronic cigarettes to help them quit the habit. The fact that our brains age as we get older is something most of us accept – that’s just the way it is. But this curious study has shown there is the potential to halt that ageing process.

Let’s be clear here – nicotine is addictive. Furthermore, some will rightly be concerned that animals were used for this study. However, the results seem to show that while nicotine is addictive, it could potentially have some benefits for us in some situations. We are probably many years away from confirming this, but vapers should be pleased there could be a chance their switch from cigarettes to e-cigs could be beneficial in more ways than one.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you think nicotine could be good for you in this way?