Nonexistent 'epidemic' Of Adolescent Nicotine Addiction

Thought you guys would be interested in this - top UK public health scientists analyze the US data and come to completely different conclusions.

Epidemic of youth nicotine addiction? What does the National Youth Tobacco Survey reveal about high school e-cigarette use in the USA? (Preprint) - Article | Qeios

I'm sure the press will publish it far and wide, not.  

And so it begins......

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration said Wednesday it plans to ban the sale of non-tobacco-flavored electronic cigarettes amid a vaping crisis.

“The Trump Administration is making it clear that we intend to clear the market of flavored e-cigarettes to reverse the deeply concerning epidemic of youth e-cigarette use that is impacting children, families, schools and communities,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement. “We will not stand idly by as these products become an on-ramp to combustible cigarettes or nicotine addiction for a generation of youth.”

Michigan became the first state to prohibit sales of most flavored e-cigarettes last week in a bold move to curb the underage vaping epidemic. The ban, which will take effect in a few weeks, will cover both online and in-store sales of all e-cigarette flavors except tobacco.

Trump administration plans to ban sale of flavored electronic cigarettes  

Seeking relief from nicotine addiction, some e-cigarette users turn to cigarettes - CNN

Even though McClain knows the dangers of cigarettes — lung cancer runs in his family — he thinks it might be easier to kick cigarettes than his Juul. Plus, his mom keeps warning him about the mysterious vaping-related illnesses that have sickened hundreds across the country.
So last month, McClain bought his first pack of cigarettes in years. Then he tweeted about it.
"Bought a juul to quit smoking cigarettes," he wrote, "now I'm smoking cigarettes to quit the juul." He ended with this hashtag: #circleoflife.
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By the time the anti-vaping zealots figure out what they've done it will be to late to undo. Actually, it probably is too late.  

Every day I scour Google News for new news articles about anything related to restricting e-cigarettes and I have probably read well over 300 articles in the past month... On a few articles (probably only 3 or so) they have spoken about a 30-day deadline for the FDA... But I cannot find any information on when that started and when it ends, if in fact it actually even exists. Does anyone have any information about this?

for example:
With the CDC no closer to identifying a sole culprit (or even culprits) behind the epidemic, and with the 30-day deadline for the FDA’s revision of its guidelines removing flavored e-cigarettes from the market rapidly approaching, here’s what we know so far about the three different tracks of the vaping health crisis, and what public health officials are doing to try to slow the trains down.
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There’s Not Just One Vape Crisis — There’s Three  

Heard a brief mention of this on the radio this morning.

Marijuana use for college students at 35-year high, University of Michigan study shows
By Martin Slagter | mslagter@mlive.com

ANN ARBOR, MI - Marijuana use among college students reached a 35-year high in 2018, according to the University of Michigan’s annual Monitoring the Future national survey.
...
The study also indicated a significant increase in vaping marijuana between 2017 - increasing from 10.7% in 2017 to 20.2% in 2018. The 9.4% increase was among the greatest one-year increases for any substance since the Monitoring the Future Panel began more than 40 years ago.

There also was a significant increase in the 30-day prevalence of vaping marijuana among college students, which increased from 5.2% to 10.9% from 2017 to 2018, representing one of the largest one-year proportional increases for any substance over the past four decades.

Vaping nicotine also increased significantly across all ages groups, as well, from 2017 to 2018. The 30-day prevalence of vaping was up among eighth graders (3.5% to 6.1%); 10th graders (8.2% to 16.1%); 11% to 20.9% for 12th graders; 6.1% to 15.5% for college students and 6.5% to 10.6% for all young adults.

The increase among college students was among the greatest one-year increases the survey has seen in the past 40 years.

The full report is available here.
http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/monographs/mtf-vol2_2018.pdf  

First published study showing that Juul can deliver a higher and faster boost in blood nicotine than most other e-cigarettes and similar to a cigarette. Nicotine Absorption Profile Among Pod-Based Electronic Nicotine Delivery System Users Any thoughts?  

Would you consider chain smoking/vaping to be a habit formed out of Nicotine Abuse or out of Nicotine addiction ?. How much nicotine does a smoker/vaper need ?. Is someone who goes from sixty cigarettes a day to vaping the equivalent, or more, amount of nicotine per day an abuser or an addict ?. What would happen if they were to stop using nicotine altogether overnight ?. How and when did YOU start smoking, and how much ?. Was it through peer pressure when you were young ?, or did you just start smoking socially as an adult ?. Maybe you enjoyed smoking whilst drinking your morning coffee or whatever. Do these habit forming activites which become routine compound your addiction ?.

I'd just like to highlight the fact that substance abuse is a real thing and that the world seems to have conveniently forgotten all about it. Which i think is a perfectly good subject for debate in a forum such as ECF.

So maybe a yes or no might be sufficient. Should the use of nicotine via vaping or even smoking be considered by you as either substance abuse ?, or substance addiction ?. Nicotine is quite simply just a poison after all. It doesn't alter you consciousness, not that i know of, and serves no real purpose at all really. Unlike many other substances which i'd consider to be abused by many.

And i'm not sure how some members will respond if examples of the uses of other substances are used to describe what addiction can be like for some people. Because someone might report it as being off topic and have this thread closed.

Having said that, if you would like to use examples of addiction or abuse, (as a yard stick) of other substances as examples of how much control addiction to a substance can have over an addict, then maybe you should.


Questioning the belief of nicotine addiction could help people to think otherwise. Which is a good thing !. Writing it off as addction doesn't really help those who want to quit completely, it just serves to compound their belief in their own addiction.

A pre-emptive SORRY to anyone who doesn't understand what this thread is about. FYI, It's about whether the use of nicotine in vaping or smoking is considered to be either abuse or addiction by those who use it.

Mike.  

I'm a 45yo New Zealander, and I have absolutely no axe to grind, except one:

I smoked for 25 years. Therefore the tobacco companies have had more than their fair share of my money, and more importantly my health.

Thanks to vaping, using RBAs and mods, and diying my own ejuices - I've been smoke-free for 20 months.

One company that looks like winning, with all the fake news and hysteria being dredged up in USA over vaping is Phillip Morris International. And I'm not talking about their cigarette products - but rather their IQOS product.

A Device That Heats Tobacco, But Doesn't Burn It, Can Now Be Sold in the U.S. Here's What to Know About IQOS

The FDA have already approved this product for sale in USA. And how does the IQOS work?

the FDA says the pen-like IQOS device heats, but does not burn, “tobacco-filled sticks” wrapped in paper, creating an aerosol that contains nicotine. Marlboro, an Altria brand, will make the tobacco sticks used inside the cartridge, which will come in menthol and unflavored versions.
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It's pretty much a cigarette, that goes into a device which 'heats' the tobacco, so you can inhale it.

Here's Why IQOS Could Completely Own the U.S. E-Cig Market | The Motley Fool

And how safe is it?

Comparison of Chemicals in Mainstream Smoke in Heat-not-burn Tobacco and Combustion Cigarettes. - PubMed - NCBI

There is little scientific data, however, of the hazards and toxicity of iQOS. In this study, we evaluated several harmful compounds (nicotine, tar, carbon monoxide (CO) and tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs)) in the mainstream smoke and fillers of iQOS, and compared their concentrations with those from conventional combustion cigarettes.

The concentrations of nicotine in tobacco fillers and the mainstream smoke of iQOS were almost the same as those of conventional combustion cigarettes, while the concentration of TSNAs was one fifth and CO was one hundredth of those of conventional combustion cigarettes. These toxic compounds are not completely removed from the mainstream smoke of iQOS, making it necessary to consider the health effects and regulation of iQOS.
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iQOS may not be as harm-free as claimed, study finds

The University of California study found that, since the device could only be used for six-minutes before it needed to be recharged, it may cause some people to shorten the interval between puffs in order to make sure they did not waste any of the tobacco stick which could increase the possible toxic exposure.

But of greater concern was that the polymer filter melted slightly during use and released formaldehyde cyanohydrin, a toxic substance which could be fatal to humans. The compound is metabolised in the liver and broken down into formaldehyde and cyanide.

"This study has shown that the iQOS system may not be as harm-free as claimed and also emphasises the urgent need for further safety testing as the popularity and user base of this product is growing rapidly," the study concluded.

University of Otago public health and marketing Professor Janet Hoek said the findings led her to question whether it really was a "reduced harm" product as claimed by the manufacturers.

If users inhaled more frequently as it was suggested, it was likely they would "increase their nicotine intake and exposure to harmful compounds present in the inhaled aerosol", she said.

She said those who had tried unsuccessfully to quit smoking were better off considering e-cigarettes.
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Just my

 

If you’re from the United States or probably any Western country, you will know how quickly our culture can go from one extreme position to the next on just about any issue. Around 25-30 years ago, nicotine went somewhat suddenly from being a socially acceptable vice that could be done in nearly every public place by almost anyone to a highly stigmatized addiction that turned millions of smokers into second-class citizens. Unfortunately, since the most common delivery of nicotine had been through traditional cigarettes that have been lethal for so many people including both my grandfathers, the stigma behind nicotine has persisted into the era of vaping. And it doesn’t help that the practice “looks like” smoking.

However, in and of itself nicotine is not dangerous. It occurs naturally in fruits and vegetables, and does not cause lung cancer. It’s a drug, just like any substance or activity that releases dopamine in the brain. I’m personally much more concerned about the consumption of highly-caffeinated, high-sugar drinks, which are not age restricted, “flavor” restricted, and aren’t taxed to death. I’m also much more concerned about the proliferation of flavored beer and spirits in the last couple decades, which have minimal restriction on advertising and haven’t been scrutinized by the FDA to any degree comparable to JUUL or the e-cigarette industry in general. And while those substances can be very addictive, they are often encouraged in social settings, can be “enjoyed in moderation”, and aren’t considered an epidemic. Without getting too political, I’m entirely convinced that progressives would rather have 400,000 smokers continue to die each year because they didn’t switch to vaping than a new generation take up a significantly less harmful habit.  

Scientists want probe of UCSF tobacco research
One of the country's best-known tobacco researchers is under fire this week after one of his federally funded vaping studies was retracted and other academics are calling for federal review of some of his other influential anti-vaping research.
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additional Glantz studies deserving of the most scrutiny include two major publications in 2018: A meta analysis of other vaping studies published in the British journal Lancet Respiratory Medicine and one in the journal Pediatrics about teen vaping and smoking.

The Lancet analysis of several studies was based on a "misleading negative correlation between e-cigarettes and smoking cessation"and used studies that had nothing to do with quitting smoking, Abrams said. This violated the basic tenets of medical research review, he added.

"It has had a massive misleading influence in the field to this day because it is cited as the main reference" to show vaping makes it harder to quit smoking, Abrams said.

The other study concluded the "use of e-cigarettes does not discourage, and may encourage, conventional cigarette use among US adolescents." Rodu, who analyzed the claim, found only 11 of 9,000 teens studied vaped before they started smoking and 80% of the kids who smoked hadn't used tobacco product previously.

Using that data, Abrams said the "effect of vaping is not just diminished, it disappears."
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