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In an extraordinarily prescient interview with RegWatch mid-summer Martin Dockrell, the head of tobacco issues at Public Health England feared if vaping products are pulled off the U.S. market “a whole bunch of smokers who might otherwise have quit never will. And they'll die and that will be a tragedy.” In this full-length edition of our exclusive interview, hear Dockrell outline his concerns ove...

President Trump said the U.S. plans to pull most vaping products from the market, citing growing concerns about health hazards and rising use by teenagers of the trendy alternative to traditional cigarettes. Michelle Minton, Senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute joins RegWatch to discuss Trump’s War on Vaping and the progressive underpinnings of the battle to ban the vape. Produced...

*** with Dr. Michael Siegel *** The past few weeks have been horrific for the approximately 400 victims (and families) poisoned by illicit THC-vaping products—some fatally. It’s a real tragedy and certainly a public health emergency. But these are not the only victims; tens of millions of people who rely on traditional nicotine-vaping products as a lifeline to quit smoking (or to stay quit) now fi...

Weeks prior to the first cases of vaping-related lung illness hitting the news, RegWatch conducted an exclusive interview with Martin Dockrell the Tobacco Programme Lead at Public Health England. PHE is the UK’s top health protection agency and employs 5,000 staff who are mostly scientists, researchers, and public health professionals. Public Health England is a beacon of sound science and for the...

It’s a logical conclusion, following a year of incessant misinformation and media hype over the so-called epidemic of teen vaping and the recent crisis over vaping-related lung disease—it seems the epidemic rhetoric has finally metastasized into the desired result: an out-right-ban on vaping products. On Wednesday Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer issued an executive order banning the sale of f...

Progressives’ war on vaping escalated to a new and dangerous phase in the past few weeks, going well beyond mere misinformation and hysterical rhetoric. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, nearly 100 people, mostly teens, have been hospitalized with severe lung damaged; apparently the result of vaping. The allegations have made national news, yet medical officials say they do not kn...

If your house is on fire, is it worth it to worry, about the fire-resistance rating of your living room sofa set? It might be, depending on which room the fire is burning and whether your escape route runs past the living room couch. This type of calculation now besets both the U.S. and Canadian vaping industries. In this episode of RegWatch hear how an alliance of vaping associations from north a...

It’s mostly a cliché to say time is a precious commodity: of course, it is. We all live under the specter of imminent demise. But cruel is life when someone or something intervenes and pronounces an abrupt end, thus stealing away time so vital to life and business. In this episode of RegWatch we present a practical guide to FDA’s onerous Premarket Tobacco Application process which—thanks to a rece...

Mountains of paperwork, clinical trials, endless frustration and most of all, heartbreak. This describes the onerous Premarket Tobacco Application process (or PMTA) now thrust upon the vaping industry by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration: it could destroy vaping as we know it. In this RegWatch preview regulatory lawyer and FDA compliance expert, Deanna Clark-Esposito shares insight into the PM...

Where’s the evidence? It’s a simple question asked by vapers (in rare unanimity,) while suffocating under an endless torrent of inflated and distorted harms promulgated to malign vaping. At times the charges hurled from academia, public health and non-profit pressure groups appear to almost border on malevolence. And for many vapers, the strain is becoming too much the bear. In this special editio...

It took many months before public health researchers, or members of the public, could see the data used by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the United States Surgeon General to raise alarm over the so-called epidemic of teen vaping. In this RegWatch preview Dr. Raymond Niaura, Interim Chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences at NYU College of...

U.S. e-liquid manufacturers may have to pull millions of bottles of e-juice off of vape stores shelves following a surprise mandate, issued via tweet, by a recently appointed Republican Commissioner of the Consumer Product Safety Commission earlier this year. The unexpected regulation covers e-liquids containing nicotine that are bottled without special “flow restricted” packaging—both plastic and...

When University of Waterloo professor David Hammond first shared preliminary results of his teen vaping and smoking study with Health Canada and the media in late 2018, he did so with the “hope” that his findings were just a “blip”; a sentiment he expressed at the time, and again in June 2019 when the study was finally published in the British Medical Journal. What Professor Hammond and those he s...

It’s a huge win for the vaping industry. A Superior Court judge invalidates key provisions of Quebec's Tobacco Control Act, which promulgated harsh new regulations and fines, seemingly intended to eviscerate the vaping industry. The ruling comes after a three-year legal challenge spearheaded by the Canadian Vaping Association, which argued the vaping restrictions infringe on the “right to security...

Since November 2018, when University of Waterloo Professor David Hammond first shared results of his new youth vaping study with Health Canada and the mainstream media, only one interpretation of the data has been made available to the public. And that interpretation is one of high alarm. In February and April of 2019, Health Canada launched two separate public consultations seeking input on poten...

It’s quite possibly the worst kept secret within the tight-knit ranks of tobacco-control, the research study conducted by Dr. David Hammond of the University of Waterloo, which purports to show a substantial increase in youth vaping in both Canada and the United States. Numerous stakeholders including regulators, academics, tobacco-control activists and even the media have either seen the report o...

***RegWatch Exclusive Interview (Part 2)*** Regulatory intervention on flavours in vaping products (i.e. a flavour ban) is ‘not’ off the table says James Van Loon, Director General of the Tobacco Control Directorate at Health Canada. The federal regulator is considering every measure to stem the tide of youth vaping and is calling on parents, educators, youth and public stakeholders to weigh in on...

***RegWatch Exclusive Interview (Part 1)*** If left unchecked, youth vaping poses an “existential threat” to the vaping industry in Canada. This is the warning James Van Loon, Director General of the Tobacco Control Directorate at Health Canada, gave to industry stakeholders when it became clear to the regulator that the crisis of youth vaping—unfolding in the United States—had spread to Canada. T...

Public health has a penchant for demonizing the use of particular products that it considers to be unhealthy. And while the practice is recognized as an effective method to modify behavior, there are unintended consequences. Only on RegWatch by RegulatorWatch.com. Produced by: Brent Stafford Released: April 6, 2019

Stoked by public health special interest groups a litany of frightening headlines has splashed across Canadian newspapers and TV news screens: Vaping Addicts Youth to Nicotine; Youth Vaping Leads to Youth Smoking; Vaping Is an Urgent Threat to Public Health. For many Canadians, the news is shocking and worrisome, yet also confusing. Considering the fact that less than one-year-ago the Federal Libe...

With the ink barely dry on legislation legalizing vaping products in Canada, the industry finds itself facing an existential threat: an epidemic of youth vaping. In response to the alarm over youth use, tobacco-control activists are lobbying Health Canada to crack down on the advertising and promotion of vaping products, such as JUUL and Vype, while also pressing to limit adult access and choice i...

Join us this Sunday, March 24th for an in-depth discussion of the widening war against vaping in Canada. Guest: Thomas Kirsop Some of the stories to be discussed: They don’t have to die. But I can’t tell you that | Letter Vaping an urgent threat to public health: experts (CityNews) Vaping is an urgent threat to public health (opinion) Ottawa needs to protect our kids from nicotine addiction Smoke...

Considering the ceaseless media coverage and the constant threat of retribution by regulators and anti-vaping non-profit health groups, one would think there exists a large body of scientific evidence to back up the claim that youth vaping has become a public health crisis; but apparently, there is not. Or, if the evidence exists, it’s not been made available to the public, the industry or to othe...

There are plenty of theories about why so many people seem to hold maniacal dispositions against vaping. Are they in bed with big tobacco? Or maybe they work for big pharma? Some may simply have an authoritarian personality and like telling people how to live their lives. It could be all of these reasons and more: Including prejudice. Find out how in our inaugural edition or “Reg Rant” by Regulato...

For many within the tobacco control movement the debate over vaping—considering the decades spent fighting big tobacco—is filled with contradiction. On one hand, you have the cigarette which is proven to be deadly and on the other, you have vaping, which despite relentless demonization is considered by even the most ardent critic, to be a much safer alternative to smoking. As the saying goes withi...