World News Roundup
Summary from some of the main news stories in the world of vape
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by Dave Cross
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For some, the juice flavour ban in San Francisco is really news as it’s just an extension of the brainless approach to harm reduction they’ve had going on over the last few years. The lies and corrupt scientists, the dodgy research papers and vilification on social media – it was all leading to a point where they’d be banning vaping bit by bit. You can find out more about it by watching the Regulator Watch video, but it’s the other people such action inspires that is the most problematic.
Hot on the heels of banning vaping from public areas, New York Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal was keen to display her ignorance to the world: “That kind of product is meant to appeal to kids. I don’t know many adults who would like to inhale bubble gum or strawberry vapour.” She is coming for the Big Apple’s gummy bear, cotton candy, and cookies and cream.
People Are Going To Have Sex
The managing director of a policy think-tank has likened Canadian vape legislation to attempting to control sex. Brian Lee Crowley of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute said: “The sorry truth is people are going to have sex. That includes teenagers. That’s why a government sex-education policy based solely on promoting abstinence would not only be laughable. It would rightly be condemned as irresponsible.”
“Alas this is exactly how governments in Canada want to protect us from the harms associated with tobacco. Abstinence is the only officially-approved message, despite the fact that technological advances are rapidly transforming the tobacco landscape.”
Anant Jangwal is equally incredulous of official measures over vaping. The Indian entrepreneur is “on a mission to start a widespread vaping culture in India and make the nation tobacco free by 2030”.
“I learnt about the benefits of e-cigarettes/vaping when my colleague, a chain smoker consuming a pack a day for the past seven years, suddenly quit smoking. He had found a substitute. He started purchasing e-cigarettes from New York after a medical practitioner recommended him. All the reports [from Europe] prompted me to try and implement the idea in India.”
Jangwal will need a lot of luck to overcome the pervading attitude in government circles – one that is replicated in places like Guam and Korea. Many of these nation’s have seen fit to adopt World Health Organisation directives lock, stock and barrel, in order to cling on to revenue streams coming into their countries. You don’t have to look hard to see arguments in favour of banning products or levying crippling tax rates. Political voices supporting vaping in the region are few and far between.
It can’t be easy for vape businesses in the modern world, where it seems that everybody has an opinion that could jeopardise your company. How much worse would it feel to be attacked from within?
This is something the owner’s of McColl’s store in Blackpool understand. One employee, Steven Harker, had a gambling addiction and used memorized colleague’s till personal identification numbers to ring up £21,000 of bogus ecig sales. He made over one thousand transaction of starter kit purchases before being caught.
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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Parliament Fears Two
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs faced questions from a Conservative MP and, oddly, a member of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
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by Dave Cross
Harm Reduction For The Rich
The United Kingdom risks becoming a harm reduction country only for the wealthy, according to Michael Landl of the World Vapers’ Alliance
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by Dave Cross
Sacrificing Health For 2p Cut
Tory Government alienates vaping voters with its mission to cut tax by an unaffordable 2p to attract voters by placing a tax on vape products in the forthcoming budget
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by Dave Cross
Scotland Announces Single-Use Vape Action
A ban on the sale and supply of single-use vapes in Scotland is due to come into effect on 1 April 2025, under proposed legislation published today
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by Dave Cross
