The government launched a 12-week public consultation on July 10, seeking “views on proposals for vapes and nicotine products,” such as limiting the colors of vaping devices to white, black or gray, and mandating plain white packaging with limited branding and images. Heated tobacco products would have to come in a “drab brown color.”

Flavor names could meanwhile be limited to simple descriptors like “apple,” with a ban on “concept and sensory names” and those that relate to desserts or candy.

Other potential changes include restricting retail displays of vapes to the same degree as those of cigarettes, with this measure also extending to airports.

Underpinning the proposed regulations, which would be imposed under new powers granted by the Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026, are findings from the charity Action on Smoking and Health (ASH UK) that around 1 million 11-17 year olds had tried vaping in 2025.

Health Secretary James Murray said in the press release that “too many young people experimenting with vapes” are being “attracted by the array of flavors, bright colours and marketing displays.”

“We want a healthier future for the next generation, so we must act now to reduce the appeal of addictive vapes to our children,” he added.

“Where does that logic end? Plain packaging for beer and wine?”

But tobacco harm reduction advocates aren’t buying it. Mark Oates, director of the consumer advocacy group We Vape, told Filter that the government’s proposals are “wrongheaded.” It should focus instead, he said, on enforcing existing age restrictions that prohibit vape sales to under-18s. 

“Where does that logic end?” Oates asked. “Plain packaging for beer and wine? These proposals must be stopped before they become the starting point for even more restrictions.” 

Oates urged consumers to respond to the consultation by giving the government a “firm no.”

Advocate Clive Bates, of Counterfactual Consulting, said the research supporting the plain packaging proposal “is risibly weak and inadequate.” It was based, he explained, on immediate responses to questions about how people would react to plain packaging when they were shown different pack designs.

“In the case of questions put to young people, the question isn’t even about what they would do themselves, but what they think others would do,” Bates told Filter. 

“None of the research takes account of the longer-term adjustments that such packaging may cause,” he continued, referring to a dampening effect on tobacco harm reduction. 

“None of the research—none—estimates what would happen to smoking rates if plain packaging for vapes actually works as intended.”

Bates pointed to the other product that has mandatory plain packaging: cigarettes, the leading cause of preventable death and disability in the UK,  responsible for 70,000 deaths annually. 

Having two products with radically different risk profiles share the same packaging, he argued, would do little to quell widespread, damaging misperceptions that vapes are as harmful as cigarettes or worse. 

“None of the research—none—estimates what would happen to smoking rates if plain packaging for vapes actually works as intended,” Bates said.

Even the premise of vapes causing net harm to young people is dubious, when you consider what youth who vape might be doing instead if vapes weren’t available.

“The government just assumes that vaping is a bad thing, and therefore the plain packaging is justified if it reduces the appeal to young people,” Bates said. “But vaping is displacing smoking in young people, and has been beneficial.”

These proposals come on top of other recent restrictions on vapes—which help the majority of British adults who manage to quit smoking. Single-use vapes were banned in 2025. And from October 1, the Vaping Products Duty takes effect, significantly increasing the price of e-liquids. 

“If the government intended to create a policy to confirm that misconception in the minds of the public, the proposals they have suggested are exactly what they would do.”

Advocate Martin Cullip is among the many who were able to quit smoking by switching to vapes. He fears that if the latest proposed measures are adopted, other people who smoke will be deterred from pursuing the same opportunity to improve their health.

People who smoke are already told by friends and colleagues that vaping is worse for you than smoking, Cullip noted, and large numbers of people who smoke believe this to be true. What these measures would do, he said, is validate misinformation instead of correcting it.

“If the government intended to create a policy designed to confirm that misconception in the minds of the public, the proposals they have suggested are exactly what they would do,” Cullip told Filter. 

Oates agreed that making vapes less visible and attractive will point adults who smoke in only one direction, perpetuating harm.

“Can you imagine the complexity of asking to buy a ‘DD1’ flavoured vape?” he asked. “You just wouldn’t bother; you’d continue smoking.”

Image (cropped) via United States Food and Drug Administration

The post Plain Packaging and “Drab” Colors: The UK’s Latest Anti-Vape Plan appeared first on Filter.

It was a historic victory to those who support access to a variety of safer nicotine products—including flavors, which research and experience have repeatedly shown to be key to many people’s ability to switch from cigarettes. Access is vital because combustible tobacco use is still the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States. Smoking kills more than 480,000 people each year.

“The amount the company had to spend was in the high double-digit millions of dollars … We had numerous meetings with the FDA, navigating the process through substantial scientific review.”

Sean Greenbaum, the founder and president of Glas, explained to Filter how the company got through the FDA’s expensive and legendarily arcane Premarket Tobacco Product Application (PMTA) process.

“We started working on our application in 2019,” he said. “The amount the company had to spend was in the high double-digit millions of dollars. It was a significant investment of time, resources and capital. We had numerous meetings with the FDA, navigating the process through substantial scientific review, various deficiency letters, and we responded to all the questions they had. We conducted scientific, clinical and age restriction studies.”

Not everyone celebrated that blueberry and mango vapes passed FDA muster. The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK) and Parents Against Vaping Electronic Cigarettes (PAVE) were apoplectic.

CTFK trotted out the old, tired and false narrative that “kid-friendly” flavors’ purpose is to hook youth. “By authorizing fruit flavors and allowing e-cigarette makers to disguise them with names like Gold and Sapphire, the FDA is risking a resurgence of youth e-cigarette use,” President Yolanda C. Richardson said in a press release. “History can’t be allowed to repeat itself; mango was one of the most popular Juul flavors that contributed to a past surge in youth e-cigarette use before it was pulled off the market.”

Their fury flows from a sense of betrayal towards an agency that has generally caved to their demands.

On a PAVE webinar to discuss the FDA decision, cofounder Meredith Berkman was enraged: “It’s a catalytic moment where the FDA has failed us. Has failed American families. Has failed to live up to its regulatory authority to protect public health and the health of our children … It’s shameful that at this moment the FDA has been co-opted by the predatory tobacco industry.” Apparently the mango-hating Manhattanite doesn’t know that Glas is an independent vape business that’s never been affiliated with the tobacco industry.

The apocalyptic language over the sale of two fruit-flavored vapes is ridiculous. Surely CTFK and PAVE are aware that vapes in dozens of fruit flavors are easily purchased on the booming illicit market created by the FDA’s obstructionism? Despite this, there has been no increase in youth vaping for years—in fact, the number has dropped sharply.

Their evidence-free claims that the legal availability of flavored vapes will unleash another teen vaping “epidemic” are an attempt to create another drug panic and to bully the FDA into reversing its decision. Their fury flows from a sense of betrayal towards an agency that has generally caved to their demands.

FDA Commissioner and tobacco control lapdog Marty Makary was toeing that line in April when he issued a memo preventing the authorization of Glas menthol, mango and blueberry vapes, after FDA scientific reviewers green-lit them. Then the Trump Whitehouse got involved and suddenly they were authorized. Weeks later Makary resigned specifically over this issue. Don’t be surprised if he ends up working for CTFK. That’s where Brian King, the former Director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, is now employed.

PAVE initiated a letter-writing campaign demanding repeal of the authorization. Joining the attack are 21 state attorneys general who wrote a letter to the FDA urging it to “reverse guidance easing sales of flavored e-cigarettes.”

“DARS are an information-gathering device masquerading as a youth prevention.”

Tobacco control organizations and other groups have another bone to pick with Glas. They have denounced the “device access restrictions” (DARS) technology, arguing it won’t stop tech-savvy youth and deploys Big Brother spying software.

“DARS are an information-gathering device masquerading as a youth prevention,” stated Willow Najjar Anderson, an attorney at the Public Health Law Center. “They give the industry a socially responsible gloss while doing little to stop youth from seeing, wanting or accessing flavored vapes. Moreover, privacy concerns with DARS remain real, especially when access to an addictive product is conditioned on surveillance, biometric check-ins, and data collection.”

Anderson makes an important point about the monitoring features embedded in the Glas app. Where do the information and photos collected by the company go, and who has access to them? In an era of powerful hacking groups, rampant identity theft and massive data breaches, this might be a deal-breaker.

I asked Greenbaum why Glas did this. “We wanted to take a very conservative approach that presented zero risk in regards to any form of appealing to youth, and we combined that with our extensive and robust age-restrictive technology,” he said. “We conducted two age restriction studies. The first study didn’t expose youth to the brand or the physical product. We put the technology in their hands and provided them the opportunity to game the system. They couldn’t. Then the FDA told us to put the actual vape in the hands of young people, and we conducted the same set of tests where they tried to game or break the system. Zero youth were able to.”

That’s a lot of steps to puff on a vape. Compare that to how fast and easy it is for anyone—of any age—to pick up and smoke a cigarette.

Here are the steps to activate a Glas flavored vape. Before it can be unlocked, the device has to be paired with a smartphone app, so the first step is to download the app. The next step is uploading a government-issued ID and a real-time selfie, which the software analyzes to confirm legal age. Once verified, a digital certificate is sent to the vape, allowing the heating coil to be activated. Sensors in the vape actively monitor the connection to the smartphone, and if the phone is moved out of close range of the vape, or if it is turned off, the vape automatically deactivates.

That’s a lot of steps to puff on a vape. Compare that to how fast and easy it is for anyone—of any age—to pick up and smoke a cigarette. Or use an unauthorized, non-age-gated vape, for that matter.

“Every new technology product has a little bit of a hurdle in the beginning, but our process is seamless and efficient,” Greenbaum said. “From the perspective of thinking about all of the products that we use as consumers in today’s world, everything for the most part is connected and you have some form of a mobile app. The process that we have for verifying a user, it occurs in under three minutes. It’s similar to a mobile banking app. In our studies we pulled from a demographic of heavy smokers of all ages and demographics, and the ease of use on the technology side was not a concern for them.”  

To be sure, some people will be able to activate the device, but seriously, in under three minutes and nothing will ever go wrong?

It’s a feature that is the opposite of user-friendly—but this is where the FDA, and the manufactured outcry at “kid-friendly” flavors, have gotten us.

What Greenbaum isn’t taking into account is the digital divide that is a reality for low-income, vulnerable populations, especially in rural areas, that have the highest rates of smoking. People who are street-homeless often don’t have consistent access to wifi, often don’t have government-issued ID, and cell phones get lost, stolen or are shut off for nonpayment. People with serious mental health diagnoses might have cognitive or functional impairments that limit their ability to follow directions to activate the vape.

Another problem is that the pleasure of inhaling nicotine could be lost because the freedom to move around while vaping is compromised by the technology. I envision people forgetting that they have to keep their cell phone and vape in close proximity and the device abruptly deactivating. Annoying! It’s a feature that is the opposite of user-friendly—but this is where the FDA and the manufactured outcry at “kid-friendly” flavors have gotten us.

It was a seven-year battle to get FDA authorization of flavored vapes. But if age-gating surveillance technology becomes the norm and makes vapes too difficult, frustrating, time-consuming or invasive to use, then tobacco control zealots will have found yet another way to block the use of safer nicotine products. 

Photographs courtesy of Glas

Correction, July 24: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the FDA did not issue a press release about the Glas authorizations. In fact, the agency did issue a press release on May 5.

The Influence Foundation, which operates Filter, has received unrestricted grants from Juul Labs, Inc. Filter‘s Editorial Independence Policy applies.

The post The Glas Ceiling: Gold, Sapphire and Vaping Surveillance appeared first on Filter.

A recent survey of over 2,000 British pouch users—from Haypp, an international e-commerce company specializing in safer nicotine products, and its subsidiary Northerner.com—explored how and why nicotine pouches were being used. The resulting Nicotine Pouch Report 2026 additionally looked at purchasing data for over 50,000 UK customers from December 2025 to January  2026.

“The UK nicotine pouch market is expanding rapidly,” it concluded, saying that demand for pouches on the company’s platforms grew by 60 percent in 2025.

Respondents viewed pouches as “healthier,” “more discreet” and “less intrusive to others.”

But why pouches, more than other options? According to the report, it’s a mixture of practicality and “perceived health benefits.” Survey respondents viewed pouches as “healthier” (64 percent), “more discreet” (also 64 percent) and “less intrusive to others” (52 percent), compared to other nicotine products.

That makes sense, when research has found pouches to be at the very lowest end of the nicotine-products continuum of risk, and clearly they don’t produce smoke or vapor that other people might object to.

The report found that 48 percent of pouch consumers used the products to quit smoking —unsurprisingly, given pouches’ success for smoking cessation in other countries. But perhaps more surprising is that 40 percent began using pouches in order to quit vapes, which have been the UK’s most successful smoking-cessation tools.

“This isn’t about pouches replacing vapes,” Marina Murphy, Haypp’s director of scientific affairs, told Filter. “Different tools work for different people, and both are doing important work getting people off cigarettes.”

But Murphy said pouches appeal to a particular kind of quitter: “someone who wants something private, with no vapor and nothing to change or refill.”

That resonates with Jessica Harding, a director of the Global Forum on Nicotine (GFN Ltd.). After 26 years of smoking and many attempts to stop, she was finally able to quit in 2011 when she was persuaded to try vaping, as she once described for Filter. Harding continued to vape for years—but now exclusively uses pouches.

The fact that they’re discreet is a big plus in a world that loves to criticize women’s choices, Harding said.

“The benefits of pouches for me are they are low-tech and simple, so there’s a lot less to carry around with you and you don’t need to think about charging or mixing,” she told Filter.

Hayyp’s report indicated that women are leading the way in migrating to nicotine pouches—with purchases by women more than tripling in 2025, compared to a 25 percent increase among men. This phenomenon has previously been seen in Sweden.

Harding can understand why pouches are particularly appealing to women. They’re less “geeky” and “fiddly” than vapes, she said, and the fact that they’re discreet is a big plus in a world that loves to criticize women’s choices.

“Getting a vape out these days is a license for someone to tell you that ‘those things are worse for you than smoking’—which is absurd, but gets a bit wearing,” Harding said.

While pouches have many benefits for people who smoked, this hints at another factor that might be prompting people to switch from vapes: misinformation about the latter.

Cullip is unsurprised that people are switching from vapes to pouches. “It’s undoubtedly because they think vapes are harmful,” he said.

Tobacco harm reduction advocate Martin Cullip uses both. He prefers vapes, but uses pouches in places where vaping isn’t permitted, such as on planes. He’s unsurprised that people are switching from vapes to pouches. “It’s undoubtedly because they think vapes are harmful,” he told Filter.

Recent research shows the majority of people in the UK incorrectly believe that vapes are either just as harmful as combustible cigarettes or worse. Demonization by the media and political moves to restrict vapes have fueled these damaging misperceptions.

However, Dr. Thomas Nahde, head of harm reduction and engagement at Imperial Brands Science, a division of the tobacco company that develops safer nicotine products,  cautioned against jumping to the conclusion that this is the whole explanation for the vapes-to-pouches trend.

“Without further data it’s hard to know if that’s reflecting misconceptions around the risks of vaping or many other potential reasons,” he told Filter. “These could include format, flavors, taste, social acceptability, or simply curiosity to trial a newer nicotine category.”

Some of those factors match Harding’s experience; she said her switch to pouches largely happened simply because she was looking to expand the ways she could consume nicotine safely.

It should also be noted that pouch uptake among people who vape often doesn’t mean they’re quitting vapes entirely. Most of Harding’s friends, she said, oscillate between the two products depending on where they are, much like Cullip.

“As regulatory pressure on vaping products increases … many consumers are looking for alternatives.”

But to the extent the transition is happening, it’s driven in part by regulations restricting vapes, said Stephen Buss, a researcher with a specialization in tobacco harm reduction who has worked for a number of different companies and organizations.

“As regulatory pressure on vaping products increases through disposable vape restrictions, environmental legislation and evolving regulatory frameworks, many consumers are looking for alternative reduced-risk nicotine products,” Buss told Filter.

In April the Tobacco and Vapes Bill became law in the UK. It will restrict the visibility and variety of vapes, banning advertising and limiting flavors. What’s more, in October the new Vaping Products Duty will add £2.20 per 10ml in tax to the cost of e-liquids, doubling the price of some bottles.

Pouches, as Murphy noted, “aren’t touched by the tax.”

“Combine that with the Tobacco and Vapes Act, which introduces a dedicated regulatory framework for pouches for the first time, and you’ve got a real cost-effective and legitimacy shift happening at the same time,” she said.

“I’d expect more smokers to find pouches the simpler, more affordable option—alongside vapes, rather than instead of them.”

Buss sees it similarly. “As restrictions tighten around one reduced-risk nicotine category, many adult nicotine users will naturally explore other legally available alternatives,” he said, adding that the regulatory challenge is to ensure legislation is “proportionate and evidence-led.”

Whatever the combination of reasons, Murphy expects that the popularity of nicotine pouches will continue to grow in the UK.

“Pouches don’t need to take over vapes to matter here,” she said. “But as vaping gets more expensive and people become more familiar with pouches, I’d expect more smokers to find pouches the simpler, more affordable option—alongside vapes, rather than instead of them.”

Photograph by Jakubdrastich2 via Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons 4.0

The Influence Foundation, which operates Filter, has received donations from GFN Ltd. Filter‘s Editorial Independence Policy applies.

The post What’s Behind the UK’s Migration to Nicotine Pouches? appeared first on Filter.

The Public Health (Single-Use Vapes) Bill 2025 completed Ireland’s parliamentary process at the Oireachtas on July 7. It currently awaits the signature of President Catherine Connolly, which is expected to be a mere formality. Retailers will be given a six-month period to shift existing products, with the new law taking full effect in January 2027. 

“By banning single-use vapes, we are helping to prevent nicotine addiction before it starts and creating a cleaner environment for everyone,” said Health Minister Carroll MacNeil, echoing talking points that have driven disposable vape bans in countries such as the United Kingdom.

The new ban is only part of Ireland’s wider crackdown on nicotine vapes. In 2025, for instance, the country imposed the European Union’s highest tax rate on e-liquids. 

Meanwhile, the Public Health (Tobacco Products and Nicotine Inhaling Products) (Amendment) Bill 2026, introduced earlier in the year, seeks to further restrict safer nicotine products that have helped millions quit smoking. Ireland’s smoking rate of about 18 percent remains vastly higher than the government’s target of below 5 percent—which it was supposed to reach by 2025.

“This now looks certain to go through, with little pushback from the opposition.”

That bill would limit vape flavors to tobacco or unflavored e-liquids only. It would additionally restrict colors and imagery on devices and packaging, and ban retail outlets from advertising nicotine products, among other measures. It would give ministers the power to regulate flavor descriptors and to amend the law to cover any future nicotine products.

Having recently passed the lower house, the bill is due to be debated in the upper house, the Seanad, later in July. An EU notification process would need to be completed before it can be enacted, but the government plans for it to take effect before the end of 2026.

“This now looks certain to go through, with little pushback from the opposition apart from [political party] Sinn Fein,” Tom Gleeson, a trustee of the New Nicotine Alliance Ireland charity, told Filter. 

“This move by the health minister will result in the first minister for health to leave office with a higher rate of smoking than when they took office,”said Gleeson, who credits vapes with helping him quit smoking. “Given the clear evidence that restrictions on reduced-harm products benefit smoking, it’s puzzling that they are willing to take that risk.”

“The lack of support for vaping from our health bodies has already reduced the impact of safer products on smoking rates,” he continued, “with Ireland lagging behind places like our close neighbors in the United Kingdom.”

In the UK, most people who quit smoking do so with the help of vapes. Though politicians there have also turned against tobacco harm reduction in recent years, the country has a prior track record of embracing it. The UK now has a significantly lower smoking rate than Ireland, and Brits are more likely to vape than to smoke.

Dr. Garrett McGovern, an Irish addiction medicine specialist and tobacco harm reduction advocate, told Filter that “flavors are an essential component of helping smokers quit”—an assertion that’s supported by substantial evidence. 

“They have not considered the unintended consequences: increased smoking rates across the age spectrum and a burgeoning illicit market.”

McGovern described the current bill as a “missed opportunity.” It makes the assumption, he continued, that a “so-called youth epidemic” of vaping entails harms that are somehow comparable to those caused by cigarettes. This is not true. 

In reality, McGovern said, “youth e-cigarette use is experimental, transient and in the vast majority of cases unproblematic, and not a gateway to cigarette smoking. Despite this, policymakers have decided that vaping is the enemy and needs to be eradicated.” 

The Healthy Ireland Survey 2025 found that 50 percent of Irish people who vape formerly smoked and have now quit combustible tobacco entirely. Another 33 percent vape and smoke—so-called “dual use,” which typically involves reducing the number of cigarettes smoked, and is often part of a journey to complete smoking cessation. 

Just 17 percent of people who vape in Ireland have never smoked—and even with them, there’s the question of what they would be doing if vapes weren’t available, given evidence of “common liability” to both vaping and smoking. 

When the most effective smoking-cessation aids are made not only more expensive but less visible and less enjoyable, advocates say that damaging outcomes are inevitable.

“They have not considered the unintended consequences: increased smoking rates across the age spectrum and a burgeoning illicit market to fill the void left by the unregulated one,” McGovern said.

Photograph (cropped) by Ecig Click via Flickr/Creative Commons 2.0

The post Disposables Banned, Flavors Next: Irish Vape Crackdown Gathers Pace appeared first on Filter.

Many people nonetheless seem to believe that teenage nicotine vaping is rising. And this includes the administrators of US schools, as indicated by constant media reports of school systems all over the country installing vaping detectors.

In 2025 I testified in person at a state hearing on a proposed “registry bill”—effectively a vape flavor ban. I had five minutes to explain what CDC/FDA surveys actually show. I was followed by testimony after testimony from school officials claiming they were seeing a crisis.

Though I do not know why this huge gap between the evidence and schools’ perceptions exists, I have some ideas.

I had little chance of changing the lawmakers’ minds. When a high school principal shows up with two bulging bags of disposable vapes that have been confiscated in his school system, and parents testify about the impacts of the “crisis,” that weighs far more on the minds of politicians than accurate-but-dry evidence from official government surveys.

Though I do not know why this huge gap between the evidence and schools’ perceptions exists, I have some ideas.

What I do know is that the same CDC/FDA survey that was used in 2019 to claim a “teen vaping epidemic” now shows a 74-percent drop in teen vaping in the years since. (Granted, that figure is for “current use,” however occasional; frequent use, which may imply dependence, “only” dropped by 62 percent.) And I think it would be difficult to argue that teen lying on anonymous surveys has suddenly skyrocketed.

I can think of several factors that may explain why school officials’ perceptions currently—and very honestly and earnestly—are at odds with what I consider to be objective survey evidence.  In each case, I’ll attach a term for a well-known source of potential bias in scientific measurements.

First, teachers are now hyper-vigilant about vaping, thanks to years of loud media and political messaging on the subject. So they catch far more kids than they previously would. This is what’s known as sensitivity bias; the hyper-vigilance is self-reinforcing.

The fact that schools are now chock-full of vape detectors, again meaning they catch more kids than previously, is part of this sensitivity bias. Many US schools have detectors due to the Juul settlement, which sent nearly half a billion dollars to states.

And inevitably, schools that are chock-full of vape detectors will sometimes experience them going off without cause—a student using hairspray or perfume in a locker room, for instance—meaning a certain proportion of cases are what we call false positives.

The narrative of a vaping crisis in schools is driving truly harmful sin taxes and bans all over the US. The harm reduction community needs to confront it head-on.

Returning to sensitivity bias, this extends to the students themselves. They have been hammered with scare stories, so that today, more than in the past, many may think that vaping is super-scary and highly addictive. If they try a nicotine vape, they may rapidly fear they are becoming “addicted,” or at risk of horrific lung injury, and may even turn themselves in to a school nurse or a teacher for help.

Finally, people vape all kinds of things besides nicotine. There is no reason to think that school officials are experts at distinguishing between nicotine and THC, say, when the CDC itself fails to draw a clear distinction. Some school incidents recorded as “vaping” won’t involve nicotine at all. This conflation is known as lumping bias (or category bias).

If some or all of these hypotheses are substantially true, it would mean that in the past, far more students were vaping but fewer school officials were aware of it; whereas now, fewer students vape but those who do are far more likely to be caught, or to self-report.

I believe the gaping chasm between evidence and perception in US schools must be addressed. Just as the drug war has been justified as a series of child protection measures, the same is happening with nicotine today. The narrative of a vaping crisis in schools is driving truly harmful state-level sin taxes and bans all over the US right now. The community of tobacco control experts and consumers who support harm reduction needs to confront it head-on.

Top photograph (cropped) by SuSanA Secretariat via Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons 2.0. Inset graphic by Charles Gardner.

The Influence Foundation, which operates Filter, has received unrestricted grants from Juul Labs, Inc. Filter‘s Editorial Independence Policy applies.

The post Teen Vaping Has Long Been Falling. Why Do Schools Think the Opposite? appeared first on Filter.

Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke cited familiar concerns to justify the ban in an April 30 press release, in which he claimed it would “protect the health of our children.” The ban is set to take effect in September 2028.

“The fear is, if enough countries have a flavor ban, the Commission may just try and harmonize the rest of the EU and place a blanket ban.”

The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, is due to release proposed revisions to the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD)—EU legislation governing manufacturing, marketing and sales—later in 2026. It’s currently conducting a consultation. As important decisions are made concerning the whole EU, new national bans could prove contagious.

“The risk is that Belgium’s ban encourages a domino effect, where more member states introduce their own restrictions before the TPD is even proposed, building pressure for an EU-wide flavor ban,” Damian Sweeney told Filter.

Sweeney is an Irish advocate and partner with the consumer advocacy group European Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (ETHRA). “The fear is,” he said, “we’ll get to a stage where if enough countries have a flavor ban, the Commission may just try and harmonize the rest of the EU and place a blanket ban.”

The recent European Commission evaluation report on nicotine, Sweeney noted, “already incorrectly frames safer nicotine products largely through the lens of youth appeal and regulatory challenges.” 

“For consumers, the concern is obvious”, he continued. “If Belgium’s approach is treated as a model for the revised Tobacco Products Directive, adult smokers across Europe could lose access to the very products that helped many of them move away from cigarettes.”

The Netherlands, one of Belgium’s neighbors, illustrates how counter-productive flavor bans can be.

This isn’t the first time Belgium has cracked down on vapes, and it likely influenced other nations before. In January 2025, Belgium became the first EU country to ban disposable vapes. France rapidly followed suit—and later that year, the non-EU but nearby United Kingdom did the same.

When it comes to flavor bans, the Netherlands, one of Belgium’s neighbors, illustrates how counter-productive they can be.

The Netherlands imposed a flavour ban in January 2024. Youth vaping promptly increased, from 3.7 percent in 2023 to 7.6 percent in 2024, mostly using banned flavors. Youth smoking increased too, and the total number of cigarettes consumed in the country rose by 1 percent—with 27 percent of those who quit vaping because of the ban choosing to smoke instead. Vape sales have simply shifted to the unregulated market. A government study, conducted in April, found that almost nine in 10 people who vape in the Netherlands use products that are sold illegally.

This time Belgium will not be starting the trend; flavor bans already exist in nine EU countries, including Finland, Slovenia and Denmark. Recently, the Irish government moved closer to banning flavors. And Germany is advancing a ban on cooling agents in e-liquids, which would amount to a de facto flavour ban.

Flavors are crucial to the effectiveness of vapes as harm reduction. More and more, the EU, which suffers around 700,000 annual smoking-related deaths, appears to be heading in the opposite direction.

Photograph by Kurt S. via Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons 2.0

The post Advocates Fear EU “Domino Effect,” as Belgium Bans Vape Flavors appeared first on Filter.

Over the last decade, a substantial body of economic research has found that when elected officials make nicotine vapes more expensive or less accessible, people will switch back to lethal combustible cigarettes. 

The logic is straightforward and intuitive, yet often ignored. If two products satisfy similar demand, raising the price of one increases demand for the other. In economic terms, cigarettes and vapes function as substitutes. This substitution effect has appeared repeatedly in real-world studies (16 of 18) rigorously examining vape taxes or regulations across the US. 

This substitution effect is especially concerning given emerging evidence that the adverse consequences weigh heavily on vulnerable populations, such as youth, older adults and parents with young children. 

So when a recent study, published in Health Economics in April, concluded that higher vape taxes are unlikely to increase cigarette consumption among adults who vape—thereby garnering plenty of media coverage—I took notice. 

The paper’s central policy implication rests on a major limitation: measuring what consumers say they would do, not what consumers actually do.

Policymakers should, too—but not by jumping to the conclusions reached by the study. Before enacting policies that further restrict access to vapes, we should first assess the validity of these claims. We owe that to people whose lives may be on the line. 

The study itself is thoughtful and methodologically sophisticated. Researchers conducted a choice experiment, asking adults who vape how they would allocate purchases across various vaping products and cigarettes under different tax and price scenarios. 

The paper is particularly useful in examining how consumers respond differently to pods, disposables, tank systems, and e-liquids—an important issue because states tax and regulate these products in dramatically different ways, and different population subgroups show different purchasing patterns across these products. 

But the paper’s central policy implication rests on a major limitation: measuring what consumers say they would do, not what consumers actually do.

That distinction matters.

Real-world evidence points overwhelmingly in one direction. Across high-impact economic studies, the vast majority find substitution to cigarettes after vapes become more expensive.

Economists refer to this as the difference between “stated preferences” and “revealed preferences.” Stated-preference research can be valuable when policymakers are evaluating genuinely novel products or regulations that do not yet exist in the marketplace. If no real-world evidence exists, hypothetical experiments may be the best available tool. 

But that is no longer true for vape taxes. These taxes have been implemented across the country for more than a decade. Policymakers no longer need to rely on hypothetical purchase experiments, because they can instead directly observe how consumers actually behave when taxes raise prices.

The real-world evidence points overwhelmingly in one direction. Across high-impact economic studies examining vape tax changes, the vast majority find substitution to cigarettes after vapes become more expensive. 

Researchers have observed this effect using both retail sales data and population survey data: When vape prices rise in the real world, cigarette smoking often rises, too.

Once real-world evidence becomes available, the value of choice experiments ends.

Rather than being utilized to justify expanding regressive vape taxes, the Health Economics study should be taken as a warning about the inherent limitations of hypothetical-choice experimental research. 

In the same study, consumers reported that they would not reduce cigarette smoking if faced with higher cigarette taxes. This specific result is quite difficult to reconcile, given decades of tobacco-economics research consistently showing that higher cigarette prices reduce smoking. With any study that struggles to reproduce one of the most foundational realities in tobacco control, policymakers should be leery of drawing broader policy conclusions.

Do not take this as me saying that choice experiments are useless. On the contrary, they can provide valuable insights into how consumers substitute across different products, especially in a rapidly evolving marketplace. 

But policymakers should only rely on choice experiments to investigate hypothetical behavior change for policies that don’t yet exist. Once real-world evidence becomes available, the value of choice experiments ends. It doesn’t matter what people say they will do; what matters is what people actually do.

Photograph by Lindsay Fox via Flickr/Creative Commons 2.0

The post Vape Taxes Won’t Increase Smoking, Study Claims. Here’s the Problem. appeared first on Filter.

Since 2011, Argentina had banned the sale, advertisement, distribution and importation of vapes and related products, which many people use to quit smoking. Fifteen years of prohibition ended when the health ministry approved Resolution 549/2026 on April 30, publishing it in the government’s Official Gazette on May 4.

The repeal, which took effect immediately, ushers in a different approach: regulation. A new regulatory framework—the Registry of Tobacco and Nicotine Products—will apply to vapes, heated tobacco products (HTP) and nicotine pouches. This is intended to oversee product registration, marketing and standards.

Argentina has a high smoking rate, and advocates say the dramatic move will help reduce over 30,000 annual smoking-related deaths.

“For years, millions of Argentine adults using vaping, HTPs or nicotine pouches were left without consumer protection or quality standard,” Federico N. Fernández, an Argentine and CEO of We Are Innovation, a network of innovators and think tanks, told Filter.

“What the Ministry of Health has done is replace ideology with evidence.”

Argentina’s government acknowledged that prohibition of these products had not eradicated them—far from it. The Ministry cited a 2025 survey showing vape use was at 35.5 percent amongst secondary students, despite the ban. A substantial unregulated market exists, and unregulated vendors have little incentive to check ID.

“What the Ministry of Health has done is replace ideology with evidence,” Fernández said. “Argentines are already using them, and the state’s job is to regulate intelligently rather than pretend otherwise.”

 Aylèn Van Isseldyk lives in Córdoba, Argentina, and is the founder of THR, Ethics and Sustainability, an international policy initiative. She told Filter the repeal signifies a transition towards public policies “grounded in evidence and rationality.”

“For years, consumers were exposed to products devoid of quality controls [and] traceability,” Van Isseldyk said. This created “unnecessary risks” for people, including the possibility of contaminated counterfeit products “frequently produced by hand or smuggled,” as well as the threat of criminalization.

“This initiative diminishes smuggling and the availability of hazardous products, prioritizing the authentic protection of public health through effective regulation rather than the mere facade of prohibition,” Van Isseldyk said.

Harm reduction advocates had long called for the repeal, and its confirmation is all the more notable when it runs counter to the direction of travel in many parts of the world. But not everyone is full of optimism about the new landscape, and much will depend on details of new regulations.

“It’s possible that the product registration standards … could be effectively a covert ban.”

Dr. Diego Verrastro is a general surgeon in Argentina. He formerly smoked, and is cofounder and former spokesperson of RELDAT (Latin American network for harm associated with smoking), and coauthor at Smoke-Free Sweden. While it is “great news” that the ban has been lifted, he told Filter, he doesn’t believe the decision to do so was steeped in harm reduction.

“Since the lifting of the ban is only an administrative provision and not law,” he said, “it’s possible that the product registration standards, besides being extremely expensive for the region’s economy, and the future standards for biochemical analysis, could be effectively a covert ban.”

If so, “None of the producers, and many international ones, will be able to comply,” Verrastro continued. “The same thing is happening in Chile with the ‘fine print’ of its regulations; a market that will be stillborn before it even sees the light of day.”

Moreover, he noted, major restrictions remain, which will hamper the effectiveness of safer nicotine products for harm reduction by limiting their visibility and attractiveness.

Since the new approach forbids shops from advertising the products or providing information on them, Verrastro said, vape shops will be “mere distributors,” rather than the harm reduction hubs they might have been.

Flavors will meanwhile be limited to tobacco and menthol, when a full range best aids switching—something Verrastro suspects is “ aimed at the tobacco industry” and which, he said, ensures that “the informal market will continue” to supply the flavors people want.

The influential United States Food and Drug Administration recently approved some vapes in other flavors for the first time—though the move came with significant caveats. “I hope [with] the change in leadership at the FDA, this will become more flexible, and that we can raise our heads and learn something from them,” Verrastro said.

Fernández accepts the validity of such criticisms, but said that “normal growing pains” should be expected in a major transition. “No regulatory framework arrives perfect.”

The restrictions on flavors need to be looked at, he continued, when “Evidence from Sweden and other innovative nicotine success stories shows that flavor diversity helps adult smokers make a lasting switch.” He added that product registration costs should be calibrated to avoid “picking winners.”

“Repeals carry a different weight than reforms. They are an explicit admission that a previous policy failed.”

Despite these concerns, Fernández hopes the repeal may lead to other countries with bans taking similar steps.

“Repeals carry a different weight than reforms,” he said. “They are an explicit admission that a previous policy failed. Brazil and Mexico, Latin America’s two economic giants, both maintain deeply hostile stances towards innovative nicotine products, driving thriving contraband markets in both countries. The governments would do well to look south since prohibition has not worked anywhere it has been tried.”

If Argentina now creates reasonable regulations, it could align itself with tobacco harm reduction success stories like New Zealand, Sweden and Japan, where access to safer nicotine products has led to rapid declines in smoking.

“I commend this advancement as it emphasizes individual autonomy; adults possess the right to select less hazardous options when adequately informed, without the state deeming them incapable,” Van Isseldyk said.

“For me, it’s progress after so much struggle,” Verrastro concluded. “But there‘s still a long way to go if Argentina truly wants to join the harm reduction movement.”

Photograph by Romain B via Unsplash

The post Argentina Repeals Vape Prohibition After 15 Years appeared first on Filter.

The newly authorized products are four G2 pods made by the vape company Glas: Classic Menthol, Fresh Menthol, Gold and Sapphire. The latter two are mango and blueberry flavors, making them the first non-tobacco, non-menthol vaping products the FDA has authorized. 

Youth use has always been the FDA’s reason for denying authorization for flavored vapes—which are important for harm reduction because many adults find them the best way of switching from cigarettes. But the agency determined that Glas’s device-access restriction technology—pairing a vape with an age-verified smartphone via Bluetooth—would, combined with marketing restrictions, effectively deter youth use. 

This is not a simple story of a product moving cleanly through a scientific review process, but one that has continually involved politics, pressure and public perceptions.

The story behind this authorization began in July 2021, when Glas submitted Premarket Tobacco Product  Applications (PMTA) for these products. By then, the PMTA process was already becoming a maze for flavored-vape applicants. 

Internal FDA memos later showed how the agency handled many such applications through what became known as the “Fatal Flaw” review. Instead of fully evaluating each application on its merits, the review looked for the presence of certain types of studies in applications for non-tobacco-flavored products—a systematically different approach from that used with other applications. 

That helped fuel criticism that the PMTA process was chaotic, opaque, stacked against smaller companies and amounted to a de facto flavor ban.  

By then, starting in August 2021, the FDA had already begun issuing waves of marketing denial orders for flavored vaping products. Those decisions helped set the pattern: FDA would repeatedly say flavored products had not shown enough adult benefit to offset youth risk, while many adults who had switched insisted that flavors were helpful—if not critical—to making the switch.

For years, the public was told that the FDA’s tobacco decisions were based on science. They should be. But the science office’s recommendation has not always been the final word.

In 2022, internal FDA memos involving Logic’s menthol vaping products showed that the CTP’s Office of Science had recommended authorization, but CTP leadership pushed back. The documents revealed substantial disagreement inside CTP, with FDA scientists on one side and the agency’s bureaucratic and political leadership on the other. 

In December 2025, tobacco harm reduction advocate Gregory Conley noticed a Google Alert showed a PDF indicating the FDA had added the Glas G2 device and multiple Glas pods to its authorized list. In an unusual twist, the update to the authorized list later that day no longer included the Gas products. The FDA attributed the weekend changes to a glitch.

In March, the FDA authorized the Glas G2 device and one Blonde Tobacco pod. There was no press release, but that authorization represented the first of a vaping product with age-gating technology that must be activated before use. Glas also stood apart from most companies with authorizations because it has never been owned by or previously tied to a tobacco company. 

Combustible cigarettes, we should remember, do not require Bluetooth pairing. Age-gating vapes makes the safer option much harder to access than the more dangerous one.

But the flavors that had drawn attention in December were still missing. Had the FDA reviewed them and said no? Or had something else happened?

By April, internal FDA records suggested that the story was not so simple. Scientific staff had recommended marketing orders for flavored Glas products, but senior leadership halted them. Because those records became public through Glas, they should be read carefully. But they were not hard to believe, because the Logic case had already shown a similar pattern: FDA scientists saw a path to authorization, and higher-level officials intervened.

This difference was evidently resolved in favor of authorization. And this happened at a time when the pressure around the FDA has visibly shifted. 

For years, health and parents’ groups have pushed the agency not to authorize flavors, and that’s still the case. After the Glas announcement, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids called the decision a “big step backward,” warning that fruit flavors appeal to youth. 

But pressure is now coming from the other direction, too. Earlier on May 5, news broke that President Donald Trump had rebuked FDA Commissioner Marty Makary for not moving quickly enough to approve flavored vapes and nicotine products. Advisers described Makary as blocking Trump’s pledge to “save” vaping. Hours later, the FDA announced the Glas authorizations.

So this is not a simple story of a product moving cleanly through a scientific review process, but one that has continually involved politics, pressure and public perceptions.

The age-gating technology may well be what finally made the authorization politically viable, which suggests the FDA is not opening the door to many other flavored vapes. The Glas G2 requires users to download an app, upload a selfie and driver’s license images, and use the device while near the paired phone. That may be a path through FDA’s maze, but it is a narrow one.

Combustible cigarettes, we should remember, do not require Bluetooth pairing or any of the other elements of this digital lock; anyone who obtains them, including youth, can use them. So age-gating vapes makes the safer option much harder to access than the more dangerous one.  

People who smoke deserve more than a regulatory system that offers them cigarettes quickly and harm reduction alternatives slowly.

That does not make the Glas authorization bad news. It is good and historic news. But it also shows how many hoops a company had to jump through before the FDA could say yes.

The evidence on flavors makes this story bigger than one company. Fruit and sweet flavors are positively related to moving away from cigarettes, and helping people select a flavor can improve the chance of switching. It took until 2024 for the FDA to authorize any non-tobacco flavored vape, in the form of menthol.

For adults who smoke, the practical question has never been whether a product fits neatly into a regulatory debate. The question is whether there is a regulated, accessible option that helps them move away from cigarettes. Glas may be an answer for some people. It will not be the answer for everyone.

The authorization does not solve the larger problem. It does not suddenly create a broad legal market of smoke-free products that reflect the mostly unregulated variety adults already use. It does not erase the damage done by years of uncertainty, denials and misinformation about safer options.

It does mark a change, but the next step should not be to declare victory. It should be to ask why it took this long, how many adults were left without acceptable legal options along the way, and whether the FDA will apply this lesson more broadly.

People who smoke deserve more than a regulatory system that offers them cigarettes quickly and harm reduction alternatives slowly.  

Photograph (cropped) by Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction via Flickr/Public Domain

The post FDA Finally Authorizes Fruit-Flavored Vapes. Here’s What It Took. appeared first on Filter.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting called the legislation “a turning point in the nation’s health.”

“By ending the cycle of tobacco addiction for future generations,” he continued, “we are taking one of the boldest steps in decades to prevent illness before it even begins.”

Some observers call the incremental prohibition “illiberal.” Tobacco harm reduction experts express concern that the law is mistargeted—and that it simultaneously paves the way for a clampdown on smoking-cessation tools.

The bill had cross-party support when it was first introduced by the then-Conservative government in 2023. A general election meant the bill was shelved, but it was reintroduced in 2024 by the current Labour government.

The law aims to break the cycle of smoking for the next generation and save National Health Service resources by reducing smoking-related illnesses. From January 1, 2027, the legal age for tobacco sales, currently 18, will increase by one year every year.

“The headline ‘smoke-free generation’ sales ban misses the critical smoking problem.”

But critics say the government is overestimating the scope of that measure to improve public health. 

“The headline ‘smoke-free generation’ sales ban misses the critical smoking problem,”  British tobacco harm reduction advocate Clive Bates, of Counterfactual Consulting, told Filter.

He explained that young adults in the UK are already smoking much less, with the help of  smoke-free nicotine alternatives. Those aged 18-24 have seen the biggest reduction in smoking prevalence since 2011. The people that need the most help in quitting, he said, are “older adults stuck on smoking.”

It should also be noted that for people born after 2008 who do choose to smoke, the fact they won’t be able to buy cigarettes legally doesn’t mean they won’t be able to buy them at all.

Before the gradual prohibition is enacted, close to 6 billion illegally purchased cigarettes are smoked in the UK each year—just over a quarter of the total market. This costs the government over £3 billion annually in lost tax revenues. Experiences with many other drugs have shown that bans don’t eradicate demand, and unregulated vendors have little incentive to ask for ID.

It seems strange that in pursuit of its “smoke-free” goal, the UK government doesn’t look more closely at the only country to have accomplished this. Sweden has driven smoking below the 5 percent threshold not by banning cigarettes, but by allowing the availability of attractive, flavored safer alternatives—snus and pouches, in that country’s case—and using taxation levels to incentivize switching. It’s the carrot rather than the stick.

“The bill does nothing for public health and is likely to cause more death and disease than it prevents.”

In the UK, vapes are the dominant safer nicotine products. A 2024 national survey showed that just over half of British adults who managed to quit smoking in recent years used vapes to do so.

But far from embracing this, the new law restricts the promotion of vapes and “provides ministers with powers to regulate the flavors, packaging and display of all vapes and other nicotine products, as well as powers to amend and update product standards.”

Advocates say it’s nonsensical to strive for a smoke-free UK by clamping down on products that are helping people to quit cigarettes in large numbers.

Bates called the anti-vape measures “spiteful” and “petty,” saying they will “cause harm to the older adults who most need encouragement to switch from smoking to vaping.”

Altogether, “The bill does nothing for public health and is likely to cause more death and disease than it prevents,” he said.

“The real issue isn’t the bill itself, it’s the power it hands ministers.”

The extent to which new powers to make vapes less visible and attractive will be used has yet to be seen, however, noted Mark Oates, director of the consumer advocacy group We Vape, who also worries about the impact on smoking rates.

“The real issue isn’t the bill itself, it’s the power it hands ministers,” Oates told Filter. “Secondary legislation will decide whether vaping continues to displace smoking or is artificially constrained.”

Flavor bans and other excessive restrictions will not result in “abstinence,” Oates said, but will migrate people back to cigarettes, whether or not they can purchase them legally.

Equivalent behavior has already been evident following the ban on disposable vapes in June 2025; demand remained, and many consumers continued buying them illegally.

Though the UK established itself as a world leader in tobacco harm reduction with a landmark review on relative risk, the groundbreaking “swap to stop” scheme and sensible advice from health authorities, it’s been a different story in the most recent years, amid growing media and political pushback.

With details of new potential restrictions not yet known, Oates remains hopeful. “If regulation remains proportionate, the shift to lower-risk nicotine will continue,” he said.

However, “If it becomes overly restrictive, you don’t eliminate demand, you redirect it. The trajectory then depends less on consumer behavior and more on whether policy aligns with harm reduction or aligns against it.”

“The health effect of any policy is dominated by its impact on smoking. In this case, we have anti-smoking measures that will do little to reduce it and anti-vape measures that are likely to increase it.”

The new law really is a new frontier, and scientists will be monitoring any resulting trends.

“What is important now is that we track what actually happens once the measures are implemented, especially given that it remains unclear exactly which levers will be pulled through secondary legislation,” Dr. Harry Tattan-Birch, a researcher at University College London’s Department of Behavioural Science and Health, told Filter.

There will be a lot of interest, he said, in how a bill aimed at reducing smoke and youth uptake of nicotine products will affect patterns of smoking, vaping and other nicotine products in reality over time.

“Our team at UCL will be closely monitoring these changes using population data to understand what impact each specific policy has,” Tattan-Birch said.

Bates remains skeptical. “The health effect of any tobacco or nicotine policy is dominated by its impact on smoking,” he said.

“In this case, we have anti-smoking measures that will do little to reduce smoking and anti-vape measures that are likely to increase it,” Bates concluded. “I don’t understand why anyone is cheering.”

Photograph (cropped) by Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction via Flickr/Public Domain

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