Author: Marissa Dean

New Zealand Pulls More Than 300 Vape Products

Image: Zerophoto | Adobe Stock
More than 300 vaping products have been pulled off of New Zealand shelves, reports 1news.
New Zealand’s Vaping Regulatory Authority (VRA) has looked at over 8,000 products on store shelves that had been notified to its register.
“For the majority of the products reviewed, no issues have been found, but in some cases, information provided by the manufacturer or importer indicated that they could include prohibited ingredients or they could have nicotine salt levels that exceed the legal limit,” says VRA manager Matthew Burgess.
“Following the review, companies have withdrawn notifications for 340 vaping products, meaning they can no longer be legally sold in New Zealand. We will be publishing a list of products that are no longer notified on the Ministry of Health website shortly.”
Up to 1,800 other vaping products could still be taken off shelves. The authority is working with companies that make or sell them and has given them until next week to provide more information.
December 2, 2022
Coalition Calls on Congress

Image: Vitalii Vodolazskyi | Adobe Stock
The United to Safeguard America from Illegal Trade (USA-IT) coalition called on Congress to embrace new policies to combat illegal trade, including counterfeiting, smuggling, organized retail theft, drug trafficking and human trafficking, according to a press release following the coalition’s second annual national summit.
Opening the summit, Representative Bennie Thompson said, “Illicit trade not only damages our businesses and economy but can also pose health and safety risks for consumers and even undermines our security. When the government and private sector work together, hand in hand, we’re more efficient and effective at combating this threat. This is about protecting all of America.”
“Fighting these organizations for more than a decade, I’ve seen firsthand how the seemingly innocuous trafficking of illicit tobacco and nicotine products, like cigarettes and e-vapor products, has very serious consequences,” said Kristin Reif, director of government relations for Philip Morris International, at the summit. “But criminals don’t just traffic in one commodity; they will traffic in anything that earns them a dollar, whether that’s luxury purses or drugs or even human beings. That’s why USA-IT is so crucial—by bringing together such a diverse group of stakeholders, we can bring this pervasive problem into lawmakers’ focus and can more effectively counter the threat of illegal trade.”
The summit included five panel discussions from experts from companies, law enforcement, academia and policy.
USA-IT was launched in June 2021 and now works across 15 states facing illegal trade issues. USA-IT offers information and training programs for local officials and law enforcement and raises public awareness of the issues surrounding illegal trade.
December 2, 2022
Macau Bans Vaping

Photo: SeanPavonePhoto
Macau’s ban on vaping, passed in August 2022, is effective Dec. 5, according to Macau Business. The new law prohibits all activities associated with production, selling, distribution, import and export of e-cigarettes.
Private entities caught violating the law, which criminalizes users and carriers of electronic cigarettes, could face a fine between MOP20,000 ($2,505) and MOP200,000, according to health authorities.
The ban is intended to prevent youth vaping.
December 1, 2022
Netherlands Flavor Ban Effective Next Year

Image: and.one | Adobe Stock
The Netherlands will ban all e-cigarette flavors except tobacco effective Oct. 1, 2023, reports NL Times, citing a government amendment to the Staatscourant. The ban extends to pre-filled e-cigarettes and disposable vapes as well.
The ban was announced in 2020, and will also include banning packaging that depicts anything other than tobacco and restricting rules for naming products.
The RIVM, a public health institute, created a list of 16 ingredients that manufacturers can use to make tobacco flavors.
December 1, 2022
FDA Updates Reynolds MRTP

Courtesy: US FDA
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has added the redacted “September 14, 2020 Amendment: Timing to Respond to September 1, 2020, FDA Deficiency Letter” to R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company’s modified-risk tobacco product (MRTP) applications.
On Dec. 18, 2017, the FDA filed for substantive scientific review of six MRTP applications from R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company for the following smokeless tobacco products: Camel Snus Frost, Camel Snus Frost Large, Camel Snus Mellow, Camel Snus Mint, Camel Snus Robust and Camel Snus Winterchill.
On Oct. 25, 2022, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company requested to withdraw these applications from FDA review.
December 1, 2022
Excise Duties, Tobacco Purchasing Age Raised

Image: Huebi | Adobe Stock
Turkmenistan has raised the excise duty rates for production and import of alcohol and the import of tobacco products, reports Interfax. The legal purchasing age for tobacco products was also raised from 18 years old to 21 years old.
Excise on imported tobacco products will rise from 93 percent to 116 percent effective Jan. 1, 2023. Excise on strong alcoholic beverages produced in the country will increase from 53 percent to 61 percent; beer produced in the country will see an increase from 26 percent to 30 percent; and imported beer will increase from 80 percent to 92 percent.
The purchase age increase is effective immediately.
December 1, 2022
Flavor Ban Didn’t Stop Vapers

Image: eldarnurkovic | Adobe Stock
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration ban on flavored tobacco products, except for menthol and tobacco flavors, did not stop consumers from vaping, reports EurekAlert!, citing a study published in Tobacco Control.
The study showed that less than 5 percent of the 3,500 adult e-cigarette users surveyed quit using e-cigarettes in response to the ban. The remaining respondents switched to other forms of tobacco products or flavors of e-cigarettes that are not covered by the ban.
“An increasing body of literature shows that e-cig flavors themselves cause damage when inhaled, so it makes sense to ban flavors,” said Deborah J. Ossip, a tobacco research expert and professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences and Center for Community Health and Prevention at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) who co-authored the study. “But the ban doesn’t appear to be working. People—including youth—can still get flavored products and are still using them.”
Lead study author Dongmei Li, associate professor of clinical and translational research, obstetrics and gynecology and public health sciences at URMC, stated that a big issue is that the ban did not cover products such as disposable e-cigarettes and e-cigarettes that use tanks rather than cartridges or pods.
“Other forms of flavored e-cigs, especially disposable e-cigs, have become very popular after the FDA policy,” Li said. “The FDA policy also did not ban menthol[-flavored] or tobacco-flavored products—and our study shows many people switched to menthol-flavored e-cigs after the ban. It seems many people find menthol to be a nice flavor.”
Of the survey respondents, nearly 30 percent switched to tank or disposable flavored e-cigarettes and another 30 percent switched to menthol-flavored or tobacco-flavored pods; 14 percent switched to combustible products, like cigarettes, and 5 percent switched to smokeless tobacco. Less than 5 percent quit using e-cigarettes following the ban.
December 1, 2022
A Persistent Problem

Photo: ITC
Iran’s large illicit tobacco market has gotten even larger in the wake of U.S. sanctions.
By Vladislav Vorotnikov
Despite efforts to crack down, Iran continues to struggle with rampant illicit trade. In 2021, nearly half of the Iranian tobacco market was controlled by illegal businesses, according to the Association of Tobacco Products Manufacturers and Exporters. The authorities are believed to consciously turn a blind eye to smugglers and underground workshops producing cigarettes of dubious quality.
Although domestic cigarette production expanded in recent years, nearly 5,000 tons of tobacco products, primarily cigarettes, are smuggled into the market each year, according to Mohammad Reza Tajdar, the head of the tobacco products manufacturers association. Domestic consumption is 12,000 tons while Iranian cigarette factories produced roughly 5,000 tons last year, Tajdar said.
Legal imports exist in negligible quantities, and the gap between production and consumption is filled through smuggling and illegal domestic production, according to Tajdar. The illicit trade has bedeviled Iran for more than a decade, but it picked up tremendously after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed harsh sanctions against the country in 2018.
Illegal cigarette workshops in Iran “spring up like mushrooms,” so the volumes illegally produced in Iran exceed even those supplied through smuggling, according to Hossein Ali Pouraqbali, the former head of the country’s tobacco production and standards department.
Occasionally, authorities raid underground workshops, but their campaign remains haphazard. Since the beginning of 2022, the average price of cigarettes in Iran has jumped by nearly 42 percent. Without the illegal workshops, the price would rise even further.
Meeting the Challenge
Since the introduction of sanctions, legal imports of most cigarette brands have nearly come to a halt. The Iranian government also discourages the import of Western goods to the domestic market, citing ideological reasons but mainly to preserve foreign exchange, which is in increasingly short supply.
Pouraqbali explained that smuggling is limited to a handful of brands that cannot be imported legally. He estimated that illegal import reaches 2,000 tons per year.
In the past years, the Iranian tobacco manufacturers association has been waging war on illegal cigarette suppliers but with little success. Tajdar claimed that a large share of goods supplied through illegal channels turn out to be counterfeit, which means that it doesn’t comply with any production standards.
One challenge the industry faces is ignorance; the average customer is unable to distinguish counterfeit cigarettes from legally produced cigarettes. And even if they could, it might not make much of a difference; opinion polls suggest that a significant share of customers would opt for illegal products even if they were aware of their status—as long as those products are less expensive than legal ones.
Bringing Order to the Market
To help bring the illegal tobacco trade to heel, lawmakers have been discussing the creation of an electronic tobacco product tracking system, but few expect it to be implemented in the foreseeable future. Iranians are very sensitive to price fluctuations of consumer goods, especially since Western sanctions have caused purchasing power to nosedive.
Iran is currently battling one of the worst political crises in its modern history, sparked by the Sept. 16 death of a 22-year-old woman after her detention by the country’s morality police. Initial protests have quickly grown into one of the largest upheavals since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. At least 328 people have been killed and 14,825 others arrested in the unrest, according to human rights activists in Iran.
In such an environment, authorities may hesitate to implement measures that are likely to increase cigarette prices and stoke further discontent.
Legal Business Facing Criticism
In addition to illegal traders, legal tobacco companies face several other challenges in Iran. Over the years, Iranian officials repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction with the dominance of the local tobacco market by Western manufacturers.
During a press conference in August, Hojjat-ul-Islam Syed Salman Zakir, a member of the Social Commission of the Islamic Council, complained that more than 75 percent of Iran’s legal tobacco market is controlled by Japan Tobacco International and BAT.
Such anti-Western rhetoric is common in Iran, especially since 2018. JTI and BAT often are targeted by government officials and lawmakers who frequently demand higher taxes and import duties. Some even question whether Western businesses should be allowed to continue operating in the country.
Hopes on the Local Factories
The Iran Tobacco Co. (ITC), the oldest and biggest local cigarette manufacturer, currently controls around 10 percent of the domestic market, a fact that Zakir described as “regrettable.” However, the authorities hope that the balance of power will soon swing in ITC’s favor.
“ITC is currently paying special attention to fulfilling its social duties and supporting the population’s health,” Zakir said, adding that foreign tobacco companies neglect to fulfill their social obligations. JTI and BAT, he noted, import tobacco from abroad while ITC in March of 2022 rolled out a comprehensive support program for Iranian tobacco farmers.
“This is a good incentive for farmers [to boost operation], and we hope for a rise in its [ITC] share on the market,” Zakir added.
Targeting the lower end of the market, ITC can produce 40 billion cigarettes annually to meet 50 percent of domestic demand. The actual production, however, dropped from 12 billion cigarettes in 2018 to 6 billion in 2021.
In the previous years, Iranian officials estimated that ITC purchased 15,000 tons of tobacco from local farmers, creating 20,000 jobs in the industry. The government estimated that the latter figure could be ramped up to 100,000 jobs with a corresponding increase in local raw tobacco production. However, this would require allocating state aid to tobacco farmers—a step the Iranian government has been reluctant to take in the past several years.
ITC Mulls Investment in Zimbabwe
The Iranian Tobacco Co. wants to invest in Zimbabwe to reduce the cost associated with buying tobacco through middlemen, reports The Sunday Mail. Among the areas the Iranians are targeting are irrigation, curing and mechanization. They also want to contract with farmers and set up factories in Zimbabwe.
The investments were discussed during a visit to Tehran by a delegation led by Zimbabwe’s First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa.
“We get our needs through agents, and prices go higher for us and also causing Zimbabwean farmers to have little profit,” said Iran’s vice president of commerce and economy, Hamid Gharesheikh, during the meeting.
“We want to get companies to work with directly in Zimbabwe and do away with middlemen. We are under sanctions, and it’s difficult for us to import from other Western countries, but with Zimbabwe, we have a better understanding and for that, our cooperation will be helpful to both of us. We can also supply you with equipment such as tractors and implements for production. We can also supply dryers for curing and processing,” he said.
The proposed cooperation dovetails with Mnangagwa’s passion to economically empower Zimbabwe’s citizenry, especially women and youths, in the effort to attain upper middle-income status for the country by 2030.
During the meeting, Gharesheikh said Iran would prioritize women in its investments.
December 1, 2022
Cleaning Up

Photo: SWM
SWM’s new fiber-based filter media takes the plastic out of the cigarette.
By Stefanie Rossel
In addition to the health hazard they pose to users, combustible cigarettes also threaten the environment. Cigarette butts remain the most littered item on earth. According to World Health Organization estimates, 4.5 tons of cigarette filters are discarded in our planet’s natural habitats and waterways each year. Made from cellulose acetate (CA), cigarette filters take up to 18 years to disintegrate.
However, there is hope. In the tobacco industry’s move toward less harmful nicotine-delivery systems, sustainability plays an increasingly important role. In addition, the industry got a regulatory push toward using more environmentally friendly filters when the European Union introduced its Single-Use Plastics Directive in 2021.
The directive bans selected single-use products made of plastic for which alternatives exist on the market: cotton bud sticks, cutlery, plates, straws, stirrers, sticks for balloons, as well as cups, food and beverage containers made of expanded polystyrene and all products made of oxo-degradable plastic. The extended producer responsibility legislation, scheduled to come into effect in January 2023 for tobacco filters, appears to be behind schedule.
And there is more regulation to come: In March 2022, members of the United Nations Environmental Assembly agreed to propose by 2024 a legally binding treaty to end plastic pollution that includes the marine environment. Cigarette butts are the most common plastic litter on beaches. They represent a hazard for marine life as animals can ingest the trash, exposing them to harmful chemicals. These can also make their way up through the food chain, threatening human health on a global scale.
To help tobacco customers reduce the environmental impact of their products, SWM in June launched Evolute, a range of fiber-based filtering media that can replace CA in filters. Depending on the environment, filters made from Evolute degrade in a few weeks. In October, Germany’s technical inspection association TUV granted “OK biodegradable soil” and “OK biodegradable marine” certifications to Evolute.
Full Support Package
The new filter media are part of SWM’s ongoing efforts to provide its customers with alternative sustainable solutions and support, says Alice Jaussaud, product manager for Evolute filtering media at SWM. “We are going beyond the filter media themselves, offering the full support to design a cigarette with the purpose to work with customers and offer our expertise to the tobacco industry in its transition,” she says.
The company already has a natural fiber filter solution on the market, according to Cedric Rousseau, SWM’s tobacco solutions research, innovation and development director. Several big company brands use paper filters. “Paper behaves differently than cellulose acetate, so it calls for some adjustment in terms of design of the filter and the cigarette,” says Rousseau. “This is where SWM as a supplier of various materials to the industry can provide support to its customers to properly adjust the filter media and design of ventilation, filters and characteristics of the cigarette.”
While the company’s most recent development has just been introduced, SWM is already working on the next generation of alternative solutions. “The idea is to use the filter solution as a plug-and-play solution as compared to CA media,” says Rousseau. “Our vision is to offer the industry a wide range of different plastic-free media products so they can play depending on the market, the regulations and the consumer expectations in terms of sensory profile and taste.”
The Evolute range includes industrial and scalable products with proven filtration performance, filter pressure drop stability and perfect fit to crimped filter makers, according to SWM. In addition to conventional cigarettes, they are suitable for filter tips for roll-your-own, make-your-own, cigarillos and heated-tobacco products (HTPs), says Jaussaud.
The company has an R&D group focusing specifically on HTPs. “The filter of an HTP has a different role than that of a combustible cigarette,” says Rousseau. “Some HTP filters are more for the cooling, others for the filtration of the aerosol. With the dedicated group, we have a better understanding now.”
Drawing on its expertise with papers for the tobacco industry, SWM partners not only with companies that develop filters but also with filter-making equipment manufacturers.
Sustainable Plug and Play
The often-used argument that CA is the gold standard in terms of filtration properties and smoke chemistry may soon be outdated, according to Rousseau. At its Le Mans site, SWM has set up a sensory group to evaluate consumables for HTPs and combustible cigarettes. “Biodegradability and the environmental impact are important, but taste and tar retention are obviously important as well,” says Rousseau.
“We have observed that our standard paper filter that has been on the market for some time needs to be properly used because it has an impact on tar retention. Consequently, tar retention also has an impact on taste where we must develop the right design. The next generation of filtering media we’re currently working on should have the same performance, taste and experience as well as the same physical attributes as a CA but is paper based.”
Instead of a mere substitute for CA filters, SWM aims to provide an alternative with additional features, such as sustainability, Rousseau emphasizes. He is confident that the consumer is ready for such changes. “We are moving away from wanting to have something that behaves and tastes like CA filters to something that we believe consumers will be looking for in the future. We provide a lot of value with biodegradable cigarettes,” he says.
The EU Single-Use Plastics directive has been a clear catalyst accelerating the change to plastic-free filter alternatives, notes Jaussaud. However, she sees demand beyond the EU when talking to her customers. “Similar regulations are under discussion in the U.S., Canada, Australia and other countries,” says Jaussaud.
“What started as a regulatory push now looks more and more like a consumer demand,” she explains. “Consumers don’t want to see cigarette butts on the beach anymore, and they think it would be good to have something with less pollution. They are looking for such solutions, and manufacturers are considering that beyond regulation.”
Stefanie Rossel is Tobacco Reporter’s editorial contributor. An experienced trade journalist, she combines sharp reporting skills with in-depth knowledge of the tobacco and vapor industries. Prior to joining Tobacco Reporter, Stefanie was editor-in-chief at Tobacco Journal International, where she worked for a decade. Fluent in English, German and French, Stefanie covers tobacco news around the world. She is based in Germany.

December 1, 2022
The Bullshit Asymmetry Principle

Photo: kurgu128
The idea that e-cigarette flavors hook kids is simple, compelling—and false.
By Clive Bates
In a fact sheet titled “Flavored E-cigarettes Hook Kids,” the U.S.-based Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids asserts that “Flavored e-cigarettes are undermining the nation’s overall efforts to reduce youth tobacco use and putting a new generation of kids at risk of nicotine addiction and the serious health harms that result from tobacco use.” Let us call this “the activist proposition.”
The challenge with simple but false activist propositions is that refuting them can require a lengthy embrace of more complex arguments. Brandolini’s law, also known as the bullshit asymmetry principle, can be expressed: “The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than to produce it.” In this article, we shall demonstrate Brandolini’s law by addressing the simple but false activist proposition about flavored e-cigarettes through a series of questions.
First, do flavors cause youth tobacco or nicotine use? The activist proposition builds in an assumption that flavors cause e-cigarette use. Lots of young people use flavored e-cigarettes. Therefore, it is claimed, flavored e-cigarettes must cause young people to use e-cigarettes. But how likely is that? We know from the past that a high proportion of young people can use tobacco if they choose to, mostly without flavors. According to the Monitoring the Future survey, for most of the 1990s, U.S. 12th-grade past 30-day cigarette smoking prevalence was at or above 30 percent. By 2021, teenage cigarette smoking had fallen around 4 percent, but nicotine vaping had reached 20 percent. Perhaps there is a persistent demand for nicotine or tobacco, regardless of whether it is flavored. Also, let’s look over time. In the United States, high school past 30-day vaping was 11.3 percent in 2016, rose to 27.5 percent in 2019 but fell to 14.1 percent by 2022. Yet there was very little change in the availability of flavored e-cigarettes to explain these swings. There are also countries where flavors are widely available but youth vaping is relatively low. Take the U.K., for example, which takes a positive approach to tobacco harm reduction and vaping. Thousands of flavored products are available, but according to a recent official evidence assessment, youth vaping remains below 10 percent. And the U.K. offers us a further important insight: “[D]ata showed that most young people who had never smoked were also not currently vaping (98.3 percent).” This tells us that vaping is highly concentrated in adolescents already open to tobacco use.
Second, so what does cause youth tobacco or nicotine use? Most of the evidence points to characteristics of the individual and their circumstances not tobacco product features. Tobacco use is driven by a complex mix of psychosocial factors, including genetics, parental smoking, poverty, delinquency, rebelliousness, low self-esteem, peer group, etc. A 2016 literature review identified 98 conceptually different potential predictors of smoking onset. A 2019 study looked at stated reasons for e-cigarette use and concluded there were two main drivers: “alternative to cigarettes” and the “larger social environment.” For some young people, tobacco or nicotine use may have functional benefits. It may modulate stress or anxiety, improve concentration or help control conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder(ADHD). For others, it may be just frivolous and experimental. In 2019, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asked young people why they vaped; the top reason was, “I was curious about them.”
Third, what would teenage vapers do if they were not vaping? Implicit in the activist proposition is the idea that removing flavors will remove the reason to vape and stop the user from vaping. At one level, there is some truth in this. If the products are bland, unpleasant or tasteless, perhaps no one will use them. But here is the problem: What if the demand for tobacco and nicotine has deeper psychosocial causes, such as those discussed above? Removing the flavored products does not make the demand go away. Would the teenage vapers just give up vaping and do more homework and piano practice instead? If the underlying demand remains, that is unlikely. Teenagers interested in nicotine might revert to cigarettes, cigars or other tobacco products. We have some evidence for this: When e-liquid flavors were banned in San Francisco in 2019, there was an increase in teenage smoking compared to other areas where flavors had not been banned. This is hardly a surprise—in one study, young adults were asked what they would do if e-cigarette flavors were banned. About one-third said they were likely to switch to cigarettes.
In 2022, Boston-based public health scientists Mike Siegel and Amanda Katchmar reviewed the body of evidence on youth smoking and vaping, concluding that it “suggests that youth e-cigarette use has instead worked to replace a culture of youth smoking.” Economic analysis also backs this idea—when prices of e-cigarettes increase, youth vaping falls, but youth smoking rises. That tells us that e-cigarettes and cigarettes function as substitutes. If regulators ban e-cigarette flavors, then they should not be surprised if more smoking is the result. For that reason, Siegel and Katchmar concluded “[W]e propose a reevaluation of current policies surrounding e-cigarette sales so that declines in e-cigarette use will not come at the cost of increasing cigarette use among youth and adults.” That is very troubling for the activist proposition—it means policies to address youth vaping cannot be evaluated without concern for their effect on youth smoking. It also means that some youth vaping may be a diversion from smoking and is beneficial. It follows that regulation discouraging vaping could easily be harmful.
Fourth, how would a ban on flavors work? The logic of the activist proposition is that a ban on flavored products would remove flavored products from the market, thus removing the reason for young people to vape. But that is not how prohibitions work in practice. A prohibition does not cause the prohibited product to disappear. But in practice, a prohibition causes the perturbation of a market. It causes changes to the behavior of consumers, legal and illegal suppliers, prices and availability. Foreseeable consequences include switching to cigarettes or other tobacco products; switching to other substances; switching e-cigarettes to the permitted flavors; illicit trade in flavored liquids; home mixing and informal selling; cross-border trade or internet sales; stockpiling and workarounds such as sales of flavors for aromatherapy. Prohibitions change the supply side, and rarely for the better. There should be no mystery about this: Despite longstanding prohibition, the Monitoring the Future survey shows that U.S. 12th-grade past 30-day cannabis use has been around 20 percent and daily use around 5 percent for about the past 25 years. Some of these responses to flavor prohibition will clearly increase harm compared to vaping. Because smoking is so much more harmful, it would only take a slight uptick in smoking to offset any benefit of significantly reduced teenage vaping. But there are also hazards arising from informal manufacturing and workarounds. Illicit supply will bring adolescents into contact with criminal networks as consumers and potentially as low-level participants.
Fifth, what is really going on with youth vaping? I believe there are two broad patterns of youth vaping and two distinct behaviors at work, but these are often conflated. The first is frivolous and experimental use, where young people try new things. This has characteristics of a frothy fad: infrequent use, transient and unpredictable. The second is more determined nicotine use: frequent, intense and entrenched. But this group is more likely to be the adolescents who would otherwise be using cigarettes or other tobacco products. The first group contributes to the “youth vaping epidemic” narrative but is not really a cause for great public health concern. The second group represents the migration of nicotine use in society to far safer technologies and is likely beneficial for public health. The activist proposition, however, requires policymakers to believe there is no latent demand for nicotine use and that removing products will eliminate nicotine from society. But it is much more plausible to think of the demand for nicotine in similar terms to alcohol, caffeine, cannabis and other recreational substances. People use nicotine for a reason, and there will be a long-term demand for it. The task for policymakers and regulators is to make that acceptably safe and to resist simplistic activist propositions that are likely to do more harm than good.
In November 2022, the Campaign For Tobacco Free Kids celebrated the success of a mass activist campaign to secure Proposition 31, a ban on flavored products in California. They may have won their political battle, and their aggressive promotion of the activist proposition has again prevailed. But nowhere in its advocacy literature does this powerful coalition level with California’s voters about the underlying drivers of youth nicotine use, the linkages between smoking and vaping, and the risks of unintended consequences. They can deny this real-world complexity, but policies built on bullshit have a nasty tendency to go wrong, to do more harm than good and to call into question the credibility of their advocates.
Clive Bates is the director of Counterfactual Consulting and the former director of Action on Smoking and Health (U.K.).

December 1, 2022