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The American public health establishment continues its war on vaping while the rest of the world suffers an onslaught of misinformation about potential health risks and benefits. *Watch Part One of This Interview at GFN.TV In part two of our interview with Dr. Alex Wodak, physician and harm reduction pioneer, we dig deep into public health’s strident opposition to tobacco harm reduction and discus...

The War on Vaping continues unabated, as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control states in a group call with anti-vaping lobbyists that the teen vaping “epidemic” is NOT over. And the FDA digs in, refusing to set the record straight with the American public over the perceived risks and harms of vaping.  Regulators and government have created a “chaotic hot mess” in the U.S., says Clive Bates, tobacco...

Medical community must become ‘nicotine literate’ says top UK medical professional *Guest: Dr. Sudhanshu Patwardhan, Founder, Medical Director, Centre for Health Research and Education Original Airdate: April 28, 2022 Posted: October 18, 2022 https://youtu.be/YQ33-wTop7Y Make RegWatch happen, go to https://support.regulatorwatch.com Watch RegWatch on GFN.TV every second Thursday at GFN.TV #RegWatc...

While combustible tobacco use in the West continues to fall, catastrophe looms in Africa with exploding smoking rates and growing resistance to safer nicotine products. *Guest: Chimwemwe Ngoma, Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocate, Africa, Assistant Program Manager, Knowledge-Action-Change Original Airdate: April 14, 2022 Posted: October 3, 2022 https://youtu.be/ZeECCVG8suc Make RegWatch happen, go to...

It’s hard to imagine how Canada’s new excise tax on nicotine vaping products won’t drive scores of people back to smoking. When combined with the sales tax, the effective federal tax rate on most vaping products bloats to more than 50 percent over retail.  This massive increase in price pushes vaping products precariously close to the cost of smoking. Smokers lose a prime incentive to quit, and ne...

Is the U.S. Food and Drug Administration intentionally trying to wreck the U.S. nicotine vaping industry? It's a fair question to ask, considering every regulatory action the FDA has taken toward nicotine vaping products appears myopic and prohibitionist. And these actions are causing significant damage to the lives of people who vape and smoke. Amanda Wheeler and Greg Conley from the American Vap...

Consumers of nicotine vaping products in Canada are grappling with another rise in the cost of living, and this time, increasing costs are not a result of inflation but a new federal excise tax that went into effect on October 1st.  Poor planning and government delays affecting the availability of excise tax stamps and a lack of access to secure warehousing for the importation and stamping of vapi...

Canada’s new excise tax on nicotine vaping products is days away from implementation, and the ramifications could be disastrous. Excise taxes are known as “sin taxes,” which governments apply to products perceived as either morally suspect, harmful, or costly to society. The goal of a sin tax, after revenue generation, is to reduce use. But regarding vaping, reducing use could mean a return to smo...

Hard compromises that no one will like is how eminent tobacco control scholar Dr. Kenneth Warner describes some of the recently released recommendations in a new policy paper addressing the struggle over e-cigarettes. The article offers a mix of policy proposals covering critical issues that impact vaping: flavors, taxes, youth use, nicotine, misinformation, and regulatory approval of nicotine vap...

THR advocates in Asia Pacific find compromise and push back in the battle for safer nicotine products *Guest: Nancy Loucas, Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocate, CAPHRA, Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates Original Airdate: March 31, 2022 Posted: September 20, 2022 https://youtu.be/oiIMQPwgKfs Make RegWatch happen, go to support(dot)regulatorwatch(dot)com Watch GFN News every sec...

There’s no mystery as to why nicotine vaping suffers a dismal reputation. Non-profits and foundations like Bloomberg Philanthropies, Truth Initiative, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, and the “body part orgs” have spent hundreds of millions of dollars and applied tremendous pressure to misinform the public and influence policymakers regarding the potential harms of vaping. Veteran reporter Marc Gun...

Is the Canadian government unreasonably attacking the vaping industry? For years, I’ve been asked by viewers and industry advocates about securing positive media coverage from Rebel News on vaping issues. I’m happy to report we earned that coverage! Drea Humphrey, director of Rebel’s west coast operation, just released a 12minute television interview shot at the RegWatch studio covering the federa...

Is the FDA finally getting serious about fighting combustible cigarettes? For the past several years, it’s been hard to tell, considering the agency’s animus towards nicotine vaping. But some say FDA’s recent move to ban menthol cigarettes may be “particularly effective” in reducing smoking, especially if FDA makes mint and menthol flavored e-cigarettes available as an option to switch. In this ep...

What’s driving Health Canada’s war on vaping? Does the regulator favour drug harm reduction over tobacco harm reduction? And is it too late to make a policy change? Find out, only on RegWatch by RegulatorWatch.com. *Guest: David Sweanor, Adj. Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa & Tobacco-control Policy Expert Shot on location in Warsaw, Poland, at the Global Forum on Nicotine 2022. Rel...

Tobacco control expert David Sweanor says he remains “hopeful” for the future of nicotine vaping in the United States. But it all depends on whether the FDA embraces the maxim: don’t do stupid. *Guest: David Sweanor, Adj. Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa & Tobacco-control Policy Expert Only on RegWatch by RegulatorWatch.com. Shot on location in Warsaw, Poland, at the Global Forum on...

Canada’s top harm reduction advocate says it’s time to consider alternatives to combustible tobacco, over prohibition. *Guest: Dr. Mark Tyndall, Physician, Infectious Disease Specialist, Former Exec. Dir. BC Centre for Disease Control, Harm Reduction Advocate Original Airdate: March 3, 2022 Posted: August 9, 2022 https://youtu.be/8D_BQFC4qnk Make RegWatch happen https://support.regulatorwatch.com...

What motives seemingly rational people: professionals, scientists, and so-called experts in public health to proselytize and propagandize against safer nicotine products?  Joining us today to pick through this question and more is Martin Cullip, International Fellow at the Taxpayers Protection Alliance and prolific writer on harm reduction policy issues for major publications such as InsideSources...

The research flow of “exaggerated” and “distorted” information about safer nicotine products is “not going to end any time soon,” says Dr. Brad Rodu, professor of medicine from the University of Louisville. Rodu has made a career battling forces responsible for pushing suspect science in the field of tobacco control. In this episode of RegWatch, he takes the CDC to task over EVALI and its teen vap...

There is one issue with the potential to unite anti-vaping campaigners with pro-vaping advocates and business owners in the Canadian vaping industry, and that issue is enforcement. Both sides in the battle over vaping want to stop teen use of nicotine vaping products, yet the laws intended to prevent teen access are doing tremendous damage to the retail vaping industry while often going unenforced...

Since nicotine vapes first hit the market in 2007, the United States has been the lead driver of innovation and consumer adoption of these products, worldwide. But while the U.S. is still the largest market for vaping products, anti-vaping zealotry and regulatory insolence has all but destroyed the legal U.S. vaping industry. Case-in-point FDA’s recent ban on Juul. Joining us today for a deep dive...

As discussed on RegWatch over the past year, it appears Health Canada is taking a wrong turn on nicotine vaping. In a few short years, the regulatory framework, which legalized vaping, seems to have collapsed under the weight of a moral panic over teen vaping and malicious public health messaging linking nicotine vapes to a mysterious respiratory illness. Dr. Jonathan Foulds, Professor of Public H...

*Guest: Dr. Jonathan Foulds, Prof., Public Health Sciences and Psychiatry, Penn State, Cancer Institute Anti-vaping activists cling to many shibboleths in their war on vaping, including nicotine vaping is a gateway to smoking, dual-use is a danger negating e-cig quit attempts, and vaping is an ineffective tool to quit smoking. But thanks to a growing body of research investigating e-cigarette use...

Over the past months, several new research studies have released with surprisingly positive results regarding the most contentious issues around e-cigarettes. One study indicates that adult smokers who switch to e-cigarettes may have more chances to improve their health and well-being. Joining us today to discuss the study are Dr. Rick Kosterman and Dr. Marina Epstein, research scientists from the...

With the deadline for PMTA submissions for synthetic nicotine products now closed, the U.S. vaping industry is again held hostage to FDA’s plodding regulatory review process and closed mind regarding the authorization of nicotine vapes. FDA’s track record is dismal, issuing Marketing Denial Orders for millions of existing products and refusing to allow non-tobacco flavors. Is there any reason to b...

With the comment period now closed for the legislative review of Canada’s Tobacco and Vaping Products Act, Canadian vapers again find themselves in “wait-and-see mode.” It’s hard to believe, but this month is the fourth anniversary of nicotine vaping products becoming legal in Canada. It’s been a brutal four years, and much of the blame lies at the feet of Canada’s health regulator. Joining us tod...