Tuesday, December 13, 2016

As smoking drops, FDA declares war on vaping

Today's Teens Say No to Drugs and Tobacco, Yes to Vaping | Generation Opportunity - Brittany Hunter:

December 12, 2016 - "According to a recent report released by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ... annual Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) fewer teens are having sex and using drugs or alcohol..... Even more shocking is the declining number of teenagers who say they smoke cigarettes.... [I]n 1991, 27.5 percent of the teens surveyed said they considered themselves smokers. In the latest report, only 10.8 percent of teenagers polled said they would label themselves as smokers.

"Though there are potentially several reasons for this decline, another finding in the report suggests that one of the biggest factor’s involved is the rise of e-cigarettes. Though this is the first YRBSS report that includes any data on teens and their use of vaping devices, 44.9 percent of the teenagers surveyed said they have used a vaping device....

"Recently, the FDA has passed new regulations which classify e-liquid, the substance used in vape devices, as a tobacco product. These new regulations require that each vaping device be put through a “Pre-Market Tobacco Applications” (PMTA) process before it can be sold on the market.... For each separate device needing approval, it will take the FDA upwards of 1,700 hours and cost the manufacturer millions of dollars.

"Continuing its war on the vaping industry, the Department of Health and Human Services just launched a campaign to persuade teens and young adults to 'just say no' to vaping. The campaign’s website claims that since nicotine is found in tobacco products, vaping still comes with the same risks as tobacco.... Even though there have been many studies which have shown e-cigarettes to be a healthier option than cigarette use, especially considering that e-liquid contains absolutely no tobacco, the federal government insists this is not the case and has even prohibited vaping devices from listing the health benefits of vaping on their product’s packaging.....

"According to the extensive research done by Britain’s Royal College of Physicians, using vaping devices instead of traditional cigarettes will, 'prevent almost all of the harm from smoking'.... Britain’s Royal College of Physicians was one of the first organizations to find the link between lung cancer and smoking cigarettes, a finding that the United States government denied until two years after....

"Though many opponents of the vaping industry have insisted that e-cigarettes will serve as a 'gateway to smoking,' as the latest YRBBS report has shown, teen smoking is down dramatically while at the same time, the use of vaping is up. If anything, the rise of vaping is actually doing more to deter teens from smoking.

"The same is true for the adult population. From 2005 to 2014, the adult smoking rate decreased from 20.9 percent to 16.9 percent, which also happens to coincides with the rise of vape use. This dramatic shift from cigarettes use to vaping should be celebrated, especially since fewer and fewer teens are finding themselves addicted to cigarettes."

Read more: http://blog.generationopportunity.org/articles/2016/12/12/todays-teens-say-no-to-drugs-and-tobacco-yes-to-vaping/
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