Juul Labs, makers of the highly popular Juul e-cigarettes, increased the nicotine content of their products, spurring other e-cigarette makers to do the same. This, experts say in a new report, has led to a serious vaping epidemic among teens and young adults, and a nicotine “arms race” among e-cigarette companies.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) offered some good news on November 8 when it released data showing that smoking rates in the U.S. are the lowest they’ve ever been. Unfortunately, there was some bad news to go with it.
Adult smokers in the U.S. are kicking the habit at a rate that researchers haven’t seen in 20 years. The rate of smoking fell to 15% in 2015 due to the biggest 1-year decline in 2 decades.
The rate fell 2 percentage points from 2014, when approximately 17% of adults in a large national survey said they had recently lit up. The last time Americans kicked the habit at that pace was from 1992 to 1993, when the smoking rate dropped 1.5 percentage points, said Brian King of the CDC.
A new study from Texas A&M University and published in the Journal of Toxicology suggests that oral nicotine may actually prevent the brain from aging, and thus developing Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
If you’ve tossed your pack of tobacco cigarettes aside for an e-cigarette thinking that it was a healthier choice…well, you might be wrong. A new study presented in August at the European Society for Cardiology congress in Rome shows that vaping may be nearly as bad for your heart as smoking cigarettes. [1]
Great efforts have been made to get people to quit smoking, and to help them avoid starting. The Great American Smokeout, held every third Thursday in November to encourage people to give up tobacco, began in the 1970’s. Medications like Zyban, Wellbutrin, and Chantix were introduced to help would-be quitters fight their cravings. And in the 1990’s, toll-free quit lines were launched in every state. [1]
Vaping meets prohibition in the United States.
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The rate of smoking among Australian adolescents, statistically defined as those aged between 12 and 17 years, has hit a record low, fueling hopes of a smoke-free generation. Twenty years ago, 23.5% of 12- to 17-year-olds smoked cigarettes, and the average age of “initiation” of smoking was 14. Now only 6.7% of youth in this age bracket smoke, with smokers beginning at age 16 on average.
In March of this year, California lawmakers voted to raise the legal age for buying and smoking cigarettes/tobacco products from 18 to 21, making California the second state, after Hawaii, to make such a move statewide.
Big Tobacco companies like Phillip Morris STILL have to make public statements about smoking’s harmful effects. U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler said so in an 11-page court decision. She also slammed the industry’s fraudulent tactics to promote smoking and called the companies’ request to rewrite the public disclosures “ridiculous.”
