On December 15, New Jersey Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill introduced the Clarifying Authority Over Nicotine Act of 2021 — a bipartisan bill designed to give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the authority to regulate synthetic nicotine products just as it regulates nicotine products made or derived from tobacco. In a press release,...
truth®, the proven-effective and nationally recognized youth smoking, vaping and nicotine prevention campaign from Truth Initiative, revealed its latest youth e-cigarette education effort "It's Messing with Our Heads," exposing nicotine's role as a contributor to the worsening youth mental health crisis and the tobacco industry's on-going attempts to distort public perception about the...
As the Food and Drug Administration begins to issue rulings on the marketing and sale of e-cigarette products, health researchers are seeking more information on what influence, if any, social media use might have on vaping, especially among college students. In a first-of-its-kind study, Associate Professor Hong Xue and Professors Alison Cuellar and Lawrence...
Young people who use e-cigarettes are more likely to take up tobacco cigarettes, according to an international review of research into vaping. People under 20 who used vapes were more than three times as likely to have ever smoked tobacco cigarettes, and more than twice as likely to have smoked cigarettes in the previous...
You’ve seen the big white label at gas stations, grocery stores and even pharmacies. “Warning: This product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that each day, 1,600 youth try their first cigarette, which for some is the first step toward a nicotine addiction. Elizabeth Minder, a...
Juul Labs has agreed to pay North Carolina $40 million to settle the first of a spate of lawsuits brought by states and localities claiming the e-cigarette company’s marketing practices fueled widespread addiction to nicotine among young people and created a new public health problem. The settlement, which was announced on Monday morning, allows...
DJ Khaled, Halsey and other musicians are selling electronic cigarettes to young people through product placement in music videos that receive hundreds of millions of views, a pair of new studies report. Overall, music videos identified as featuring e-cigarette product placements during a four-month period in 2018 received more than 1.6 billion total views...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products is partnering with Marvel Comics for a vaping prevention campaign targeting teenagers. The effort, from FCB New York, falls under their ongoing tobacco prevention platform, “The Real Cost,” and comes to life through a 16-page comic book called “The Mind Control Menace.” The comic looks...
A letter published by the New England Journal of Medicine finds that disposable e-cigarettes spiked in popularity among kids. Disposable e-cigarettes are thrown away once the vape juice is gone and are usually cheaper than refillable e-cigarettes. Twenty-seven percent of highschool kids surveyed said they had used a disposable e-cigarette in 2020. Less than three percent...
More Hawaii high school students are trying vaping and getting hooked, with the rate of daily vaping more than doubling over two years, while use of alcohol and cigarettes is dropping. Statewide, a whopping 30.6% of public high school students said in 2019 they had vaped at least once in the past 30 days,...
There is growing evidence that more young vapers want to quit—and that social media can help them do it. New data reveal that 60% of the young e-cigarette users surveyed want to quit within the year. Of those who want to quit vaping, having a support system on social media (43.6%), following along...
A new study offers strong evidence that kids who use e-cigarettes are more likely to take up smoking or smokeless tobacco, researchers say. Teen boys who vaped were almost three times as likely to start smoking as other teen boys with similar risk profiles and more than two times as likely to try smokeless...
According to a 2019 Gallup poll, nearly one in five 18-to-29-year-olds vape regularly — that's more than twice the national average — and it's not difficult to see why. Vaping products have been designed to lure young people, and vaping is considered to be less harmful than smoking. However, that doesn't mean it's...
Instead of being a safe alternative to smoking, vaping may serve as an enticing gateway to the cigarette habit for some teens, new research shows. It's known that teens who use electronic cigarettes are more likely than their peers to take up the real thing. But the question of cause-and-effect has remained: Perhaps those...
Most kids and teens know that cigarettes are addictive. But they might not think the same is true for e-cigarettes. “When kids start vaping, most have the impression it won’t be hard to stop,” says Tracy Smith. “They may not think it’s as addictive as other tobacco products.” In fact, they soon learn,...
The National Association of Attorneys General is asking several major Hollywood talent unions to help “protect young audiences from tobacco use” by limiting its exposure in streaming shows. The letter, sent earlier this month, requests support from the Directors Guild of America, Producers Guild of America, Screenwriters Guild of America, Screen Actors Guild-American Federation...
Using e-cigarettes triples the chance of a non-smoker taking up regular cigarettes, a review of the public health impacts of vaping has found. Researchers led by the Australian National University’s national centre for epidemiology and population health examined 25 research studies on e-cigarette use and smoking uptake from around the world as part of...
www.getvapefree.com, an innovator in digital health educational content, announced today that it is offering its treatment program for free to nicotine-addicted e-cigarette users for a limited time to do their part in the fight against COVID-19. The COVID-19 pandemic has made a bad situation far worse. A recent study from Stanford Medical School found that...
E-cigarettes are now the most popular product used for smoking cessation in the United States, ahead of all U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved cessation aids combined, from nicotine patches and gum to prescription medications. However, two recently published analyses of a large nationally representative longitudinal study report that e-cigarettes are not effective...
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that 48.3% of Hawaii's high school students and 30.6% of middle school students have tried e-cigarettes. The report was released as part of its Youth Risk Behavioral Surveillance System (YRBSS) which monitors six categories of health-related behaviors that contribute to the leading causes of death...
Addictive e-cigarettes have made inroads among American teens, and government campaigns to prevent vaping among the young are everywhere. But a new survey suggests another focus: Helping teens already hooked on vaping to quit. The survey of nearly 500 12- to 17-year-olds who vape found that almost half (44.5%) said they were "seriously thinking about...
Washington State is now suing California-based e-juice company called “E-Juice Vapor” accusing it of selling vaping products to minors. The state’s controversial 120-day flavors ban expired in February of 2020, but other regulations are still in place. One law is that sellers must verify a customer’s age before selling to them. “Bottom line, they’re violating...
A new study conducted in mice suggests that farnesene, a molecule responsible for the green apple flavoring used in some vape devices, is not only rewarding in itself, but may also increase the rewards felt when consuming nicotine. The study is one of just a handful to look at the effects that vape...
Around Thanksgiving 2019, two months after Governor Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order that banned sales of flavored vaping products in New York, Taobi Silva thought he’d give the vape business another shot. Rob Ermolovich, the owner of a shop called Fluid Vapor and a local e-liquid manufacturing business, had given Silva a call,...
A new study from researchers at the University of California indicates that the use of e-cigarettes and marijuana may go together, especially for underage smokers. There has been a significant increase in the use of both products. More Underage Users The study used data from 2017 to 2018, analyzing it for pot and e-cigarette use...
Cartoon imaging remains common in social media promotions of vaping liquids, even as use of the products has exploded among teens and young adults, new research finds. An investigation of 1,936 Instagram posts promoting e-liquid vaping products found that 1,608 (83.1%) were promotional, 142 (7.3%) included one or more cartoon images, and 44 (2.3%)...
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has sent warning lettersTrusted Source to 10 companies about selling flavored, disposable e-cigarettes that especially appeal to young people without having proper approval. “Despite suspending in-person activities — such as retail compliance checks and vape shop inspections — due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our enforcement against unauthorized e-cigarettes...
Attorney General Maura Healey is suing an online e-cigarette company called “Puff Bar” for selling disposable flavored tobacco products in Massachusetts in violation of state law, her office on Thursday. The complaint, filed in Suffolk Superior Court on Wednesday, alleges that Puff Bar and Cool Clouds Distribution, Inc. continued advertising and selling disposable flavored...
A shadowy e-cigarette company that has reaped millions of dollars by exploiting a loophole to sell kid-friendly, flavored nicotine products says it is suspending sales in the U.S following revelations about its owners. Puff Bar, a California-based marketer of disposable e-cigarettes, announced the sales suspension Monday on its website. In a phone call with...
According to a study by Truth Initiative, nearly two-thirds – 62% – of young vapers say they are more interested in quitting vaping now compared to before the coronavirus pandemic. The study says 57% worry that their vaping puts them at risk of serious illness from COVID-19. The study shows that 52% of young...
In recent months, mystery has surrounded the ownership of a controversial e-cigarette company that has reaped millions of dollars in sales of flavored, kid-friendly nicotine products by exploiting a loophole in federal regulations. The company, Puff Bar, has even reveled in the mystery, saying on its website, “But who makes Puff Bar? Everyone wants...
A popular e-cigarettee manufacturer, already being sued by the state of Minnesota for allegedly fueling a youth vaping epidemic, is now accused of trying to legitimize its business by recruiting public health researchers—a practice critics say is ripped directly from the Big Tobacco playbook, 5 INVESTIGATES has found. Juul Labs Inc. faces investigations and...
Trust might not be a word commonly associated with one of the most controversial companies in America. Still, it’s a word used often by K.C. Crosthwaite, CEO of embattled e-cigarette maker Juul Labs Inc. Crosthwaite took the helm of Juul last September when the company was at the center of a public-health crisis that...
Juul Labs Inc., the U.S.-based e-cigarette maker that’s fighting a global backlash against vaping, is considering entry into the tightly regulated Japanese market. Haruhiko Hirate, formerly a corporate officer at Tokyo-based Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., was hired to lead the effort, Juul said Tuesday in a statement. He was named representative director and chairman of...
Hate the smell of cigarette smoke? You’re in luck. Duke’s tobacco-free policy went into effect Wednesday as part of an effort to create a more “healthy living and working environment” for the community, according to the Healthy Duke website. The policy prohibits “all tobacco-related products,” according to the website, from cigarettes to e-cigarettes and...
Canadian provinces that allow retail displays promoting e-cigarettes had nearly three times the teen vaping rate, a new study found. Until May 2018, e-cigarettes weren't widely available in Canada and it was illegal to advertise those containing nicotine. When the law changed, Quebec and Manitoba adopted their own restrictions, including bans on retail displays...
The e-cigarette company, which has quickly eclipsed Juul, has advertised its products as a break from “parental texts and WFH stress.” House lawmakers asked the Food and Drug Administration this week to ban Puff Bar, the fast-growing e-cigarette that has quickly replaced Juul as the vape of choice among young people. The disposable devices come...
Pod-based e-cigarettes may be more addictive than other tobacco products, according to an analysis published Monday by JAMA Pediatrics. JUUL pods and other similar products deliver nearly 60 percent more nicotine than conventional cigarettes, researchers found in the review of existing studies on vaping devices. The pod-based devices are designed to deliver high doses of...
Vaping is most heavily concentrated in U.S. schools with a higher proportion of white students, schools in the South and West, and schools where more students smoke cigarettes, a new University of Michigan study shows. Overall, more than one in 10 American middle and high school students report having used e-cigarettes within the last...
Last March Jasmine Khouja and colleagues published “Is e-cigarette use in non-smoking young adults associated with later smoking? A systematic review and meta-analysis” in Tobacco Control. This is the most comprehensive meta-analysis to data and convincingly shows that youth and young adults (up to age 30) who initiate nicotine use with e-cigarettes are,...
Tobacco and e-cigarette companies are exploiting the COVID-19 crisis to advertise their harmful and addictive products on social media, undermine minimum age purchase restrictions meant to protect youth and make unproven and illegal health claims, according to new analysis published by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. The analysis includes tactics from big tobacco companies,...
The battle to keep tobacco out of the hands of children and teenagers has used laws and public health programs such as the Truth Initiative. However, a new study in Pediatrics indicates that the battle may be lost when stores sell tobacco to children and teenagers, even after seeing proof-of-age identification that shows...
The danger of vaping for teens and young adults took on a frightening tone last year, when more than 1,000 people who use electronic cigarettes were hospitalized with respiratory problems, including 55 who died. Covid-19 may prove even more alarming as researchers dig into the causes of what hospitalized and killed young people during...
Chris Trotman, a social worker in Maryland, lives with sickle cell anemia. But he also struggles with a habit that is affecting his health: vaping. "I want a stronger vape and I know that's bad because I know I'm supposed to be quitting," the 25-year-old told "Good Morning America." "I'll probably hit this thing...
Why is vaping so popular? Why do some estimates and vaping statistics put the number of future users as high as 55 million by 2021? Ever since the first e-cigarette was introduced, vape products have been hailed as a more discreet, more affordable, and safer alternative to smoking. Even the most vocal opponents can’t...
While research has shown that vaping in teenaged years is tied to smoking later in life, a new study found that depending on which vaping devices a teen uses—vaping pens vs. modified e-cigarette devices—the young person may wind up smoking far more. The study, “E-Cigarette Product Characteristics and Subsequent Frequency of Cigarette Smoking,” in the May...
E-cigarettes (vapes) first made headlines due to skyrocketing sales and popularity. Then reports of serious illnesses and deaths related to vaping tobacco and other substances began mounting in summer 2019. By mid-February 2020, the CDC reported more than 2,800 cases of lung injuries requiring hospitalization across all 50 states, and 68 deaths. EVALI,...
Facing ire at home, the e-cigarette giant counted on international expansion to offset losses in the U.S., but the regulatory response abroad has been even stricter. In January 2019, the chairman of Altria, Howard A. Willard III, flew to Silicon Valley to speak to senior executives of Juul Labs, fresh off signing a deal...
Jason Flanders never listened to his mom’s warnings about vaping — until the Manhattan teen landed in the intensive care unit. “I was super sick,” he recalled. “I was in the hospital for 17 days.” Jason had been vaping since he was 15, but his age didn’t matter to the smoke shop in Chelsea where...
After years of declining nicotine use amongst teens, rates have once again surged amongst young people thanks to e-cigarettes. One in four high school students now vapes. To many teens, the devices look cool and sleek, not unlike how a cigarette seemed glamorous long ago. They can be easily concealed because they often look...
Plenty of time at home gives parents the chance to encourage kids to kick the dangerous habit. With schools closed, college dorms shuttered and social distancing in full swing, many families are spending more time together than they might have planned to. Experts suggest that it's an opportune time for parents to talk to...
Nicotine pods used for vaping need clearer labels to help young people understand what they are inhaling, a Stanford study concludes. Young adults don’t know what’s in the products they vape and often don’t know what brand of vaping products they use, according to a new study by researchers at the Stanford University School...
Juul Labs’ internal documents and statements by its founders reveal the e-cigarette manufacturer lifted trade secrets from Big Tobacco to market its highly addictive vaping products to youths as young as 8. The company’s deliberate marketing plan proved successful, doubling the size of the U.S. vaping market and dominating competitors in just three...
The latest trend of using a vape has gradually replaced cigarettes. Despite it is marketed and considered as a “safe” alternate of cigarettes, it is not. Last year reported a number of vape related injuries especially in middle and high school students who eventually got addicted to it. It led to the health...
Across the country, schools are struggling to curtail teen use of e-cigarettes. The sun is just about to make an appearance on a crisp February morning as a group of lethargic teens sits silent in a large room at R.G. Drage Career Center. One by one — almost if triggered by the one before —...
A coalition of 39 states will look into the marketing and sales of vaping products by Juul Labs, including whether the company targeted youths and made misleading claims about nicotine content in its devices, officials announced Tuesday. Attorneys general from Connecticut, Florida, Nevada, Oregon and Texas said they will lead the multi-state investigation into...
Not everyone with a vaping related illness survives. At least four deaths from vaping-related lung disease have been reported in California. Every breath is painful for Julia Itzin. While she was in the hospital, suffering from something her doctor said is commonly referred to as "vape lung," she would record videos of herself crying as...
Puff Bars were embraced by minors thanks to a gap in the U.S. flavor ban, but now their maker says it’s halting sales. On a sunny Friday afternoon in Los Angeles’s Skid Row, two men climbed through a gap in a half-shuttered storefront across the street from a sidewalk homeless encampment. The unassuming building on...
More than a quarter of Minnesota high school students admit to vaping in the last month. While recent cases of severe, sometimes deadly lung disease might inspire users to quit, it’s not easy. Putting down the vape pen can be harder than kicking a cigarette habit. “I knew it was bad,” Mitch Byers said. “I...
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey on Wednesday announced a lawsuit against the company she blames for starting the youth vaping epidemic. Healey's office filed a lawsuit against electronic cigarette manufacturer JUUL in Massachusetts Superior Court after an investigation into the company's sales and procedures that began in 2018. "JUUL bears responsibility for the millions of...
Undercover teens working with the Arizona Attorney General’s Office routinely find stores selling tobacco and vape products to minors, including repeat violators. Grocery stores, convenience stores and tobacco shops that are supposed to be gatekeepers of nicotine products are instead helping to usher in a teen vaping crisis. The 12 News I-Team analyzed state and...
Pennsylvania has joined a growing list of states suing leading e-cigarette maker Juul Labs, whose sleek vape pens and cartridges in fruit, dessert, and candy flavors have been blamed for contributing to a sharp rise in e-cigarette use among teenagers and adolescents. The lawsuit, filed Monday by Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, alleges that...
Critics of the FDA policy think teens will switch to the cheaper disposables, which are widely available at many convenience stores The U.S. government on Thursday began enforcing restrictions on flavored electronic cigarettes aimed at curbing underage vaping. But some teenagers may be one step ahead of the rules. Parents, researchers and students warn that...
New Congressional documents reveal that e-cigarette maker Juul Labs pitched its products to at least eight Native American tribes, in a move tribal health advocates say is as disturbing as it is expected. “I always suspected that the targeting of tribes was more pervasive than we knew,” says Rae O’Leary, a public health analyst...