Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb is threatening "unprecedented" action against America's most popular tool to quit smoking, the vape.

As many anti-vaping groups and similar organization herald these threats by the FDA many are trying to understand why they’d cripple the e-cigarette industry that has been the only thing to challenge traditional cigarettes for nearly 100 years.

This fear has spread like wildfire within the last couple of weeks with the release of the 2018 National Youth Tobacco Survey that showed a surge in teen vaping. However, is this surge just showing the “fad” of teens trying things their parents discourage them to do because it’s “cool?” The percentage of high school students who have vaped at least once in the past 30 days has increased 11.7% in 2017 to 20.8% in 2018. The greatest fear by the FDA is that these teens will become addicted to nicotine that’ll alter their growth and develop into more dangerous addictions like smoking traditional cigarettes.

However, from our own experiences with adult customers we have found that over 80% of our customers were past smokers and have used vaping to quit smoking. Something very different from what the FDA assumes will happen with today’s teens. Although we do NOT support teen vaping and ensure our products are never sold to teens it’s a bit outlandish to assume these teens are going to switch to smoking traditional cigarettes when the majority of the market has done quite the opposite.

Although Gottlieb, the commissions of the FDA is focused heavily on reducing teen vaping it goes without much credible evidence that vaping develops additions to alcohol or other drugs. Furthermore, in a recent study on the gateway effect cited by Gottlieb it suggests kids who vape are more likely to progress to smoking than kids who don't vape with one important caveat; "We cannot establish causal relations or rule out the possibility of residual confounding by underlying risk-taking propensities." Simply put, like most studies conducted on this topic, the authors cannot establish a causal pathway from vaping to smoking. Claims of a gateway from vaping to smoking are about as convincing as they were for marijuana being a precursor to heroin.

The FDA is planning a massive regulatory lock out for an industry and products without significant evidence to disprove that vaping could be a potentially better harm reduction product to traditional cigarettes.

While we cannot and will not deny that the epidemic and volume of teens vaping is alarming we do not believe that justifies the millions of adults who have used vaping to end horrible addictions to traditional cigarettes. Furthermore, we should also be focused on the dramatic decrease of teens who smoke that has dropped from 15.8% to 8.1% since 2011. And the current rates of high school smokers is at record lows of less than 2%. The story of teen smoking in recent years is not one of failure, but of tremendous success.

No one wants to see kids using e-cigarettes (even vaping insides and companies), just like they don't want kids to be using alcohol or marijuana. But unlike alcohol or marijuana, e-cigarettes offer a life-saving alternative to the nearly thirty-four million adults who still smoke.

In January of this year the New England Journal of Medicine published a study that e-cigarettes are almost two times more effective at helping smokers quit than traditional nicotine replacement therapies. So would it behove the regulations to target how we decrease nicotine contained in products like Juul or others that continue high levels of nicotine? Could this be a solution that would appease both sides of the argument?

According to researchers at Georgetown University, up to 6.6 million lives could be saved if vaping replaces smoking in the next decade. Gottlieb himself has said that if every smoker in America switched to e-cigarettes, it would be a significant win for public health. So why the threats to end an industry with potential life saving capabilities?

Almost half a million Americans die from smoking every year, nearly seven times the number who died from opioid overdoses in 2017. But to this day there is no information on FDA's website making clear the benefits of switching from smoking to vaping. Instead of encouraging adult smokers to vape, Gottlieb is proposing to limit adults' access to these products based on one year's worth of data.

FDA has a long and inglorious history of excessive regulation costing lives. The destruction of the vaping industry via regulatory barriers, flavor bans, and censorship about their benefits would make the errors of the past pale in comparison; the tragedy is that the people who will be most affected won't be around to complain about it, and those who introduce it won't be in office to be held accountable.

The second most popular New Year’s Resolution, behind only losing weight, is to stop smoking. It’s a lofty and great goal since smoking is one of the leading causes of preventable death worldwide.

As everyone knows, there are a multitude of ways to try and stop smoking. There is the most common method of going “cold turkey” or using medication prescribed by a medical doctor. In recent years more individuals have utilized e-cigarettes to curb their smoking habits.

There’s little doubt that e-cigarettes, more commonly known as “vapes”, are less harmful than conventional cigarettes. But discussions around exactly how harmful e-cigarettes could be to users and those within close proximity, are still ongoing.

Unlike research conducted into the effects of smoking tobacco, very little is understood about any long-term health effects relating to the use of e-cigarettes. This is mainly due to the fact they are a relatively new product and researchers struggle to study people who use e-cigarettes that have never smoked conventional cigarettes.

Public Health England reports that e-cigarettes are approximately 95% less harmful than conventional cigarettes. However, professor John Newton, Public Health England’s director of health improvement, says: “Our position on the figure is that it is the best available published estimate. It is a useful figure, but it is not a precise scientific estimate.”

Although e-cigarettes do not contain some of the more dangerous components of conventional cigarettes – such as tar or carbon monoxide – some potentially harmful products may be present, including certain heavy metals. The lack of regulation in the industry makes the work of researchers more difficult, as differences between brands can have an impact on any research findings.

Of a recent study, they have found that people who are randomly allocated to the e-cigarette groups are most likely not to take up smoking again and complete their stop smoking attempt, within the study course.

This supports previous work and anecdotal evidence in the field – but to make sure this is definitely the case, we are also dividing participants in each group between those who are successful and those who are not. We are assessing the reasons why the latter group didn’t complete their attempt.

It is hoped that in time, these findings will help to inform new guidelines around the use of e-cigarettes to quit smoking. Importantly, this work will also allow smokers to be given more options and be better informed, so that they can stop smoking for good.

Vaping has taken over traditional smoking within the military.

The rate of smoking among military service members has dropped dramatically in the last few years and appears to be at lower levels than the general population. This is according to results from a recent survey of troops regarding health related behaviours and habits.

Across all military service branches, 7.4% of service members smoked cigarettes daily in 2015, compared with 12.9% of adults in the general population, according to the results of the most recent Defense Department Health-Related Behaviors Survey of Active-Duty Service Members.

And the number of troops who are occasional smokers, those that smoked in the last month, dropped by nearly 50% since 2011 — down from 24% to 14%.

However, when you look at electronic cigarettes 11.1% of service members said they were daily e-cigarette users, and 12.4% had vaped within the last month. In the junior enlisted ranks, nearly 20% are current e-cigarette smokers. The results would show that traditional smokers within the military have migrated to vaping.

The Marine Corps has the highest percentage of those vaping among the service branches, at 16.1%, followed closely by the Navy with 14.5%. The rates within the Navy are even despite the high restrictions on e-cigarettes imposed by the Navy. About 11.2% of Army soldiers said they regularly use e-cigs, while 10.5% of airmen vape, followed by Coast Guardsmen at 9.3%.

The latest Pentagon survey shows how different troops are consuming nicotine, albeit these results is from data from 2015. However, a new survey is currently underway and set to conclude on February 28th that would highlight continued changes of these health related behaviours among the Armed Forces.

The rise of e-cigarette use among troops occurred suddenly and correlates with the rise of e-cigs among the general population.

Sales of traditional tobacco on military bases has fallen. In the Army and Air Force Exchange Service stores, sales decreased by nearly half from 2011 to 2017, from 68 million units to 37 million units. Marine Corps exchanges showed a similar decline, down from 5.5 million in 2011 to 2.5 million in 2017. Navy exchange stores are selling about one-third less tobacco products, down from 15 million in 2011 to 10 million in 2017.

The trends for e-cigarette sales vary among the military exchanges, which started selling the products in 2012 or 2013. Like the vaping trend cited in the 2015 health survey, sales of e-cigarettes at exchanges on Army, Air Force and Navy bases increased steadily through 2015 or 2016. But the sales have decreased since then.

The new health survey among the troops that will conclude shortly will shed light if e-cigarette use among soldiers was a temporary spike of if the upward trend has continued.

We here at Cali Steam support our Armed Forces around the globe and thank them for their service. We also support safe and effective methods for those addicted to nicotine to obtain our products and others safely.

Nowadays there seems to be a growing perception that vaping is expensive. It is easy to understand why, with the sleek e-cigarette designs, wide range of flavoured e-liquids and nicotine salts on the market, as well as high-end mods making this seem like a luxury habit.

However, when you break it down, how much does vaping cost compared to a regular cigarette habit?

First, let’s look at the cost of smoking cigarettes.

Within the US, the cost of cigarettes is subject to state taxes, so the cost can vary greatly from state to state. The cheapest you will be able to pick up a pack of cigarettes is around $5.50, with this ballooning up to a whopping $14 in some states such as New York.

Now, imagine you smoke a pack a day. At the cheapest rate of $5.50 a day this would translate to $38.50 or just over $2000 a year. In the most expensive states you’ll be smoking through around $100 a week and an incredible $5000 a year, enough to cover a rather nice overseas holiday. Some reports say these figures are actually much higher, for example smokers in Connecticut are said to spend nearly $56,000 a year on costs related to smoking!

Now let’s compare that to the cost of vaping.

On average, vapours spend around $15 to $18 dollars on a 30mL bottle of e-liquid. You may even be able to get quality e-liquids for less than this – you can find Cali Steam X e-liquids, for example, on sale from $13.95. To get the equivalent hit to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, you would consume around 2.5 of these 30mL bottles per month.

So 2.5 bottles a month at $15 to $18 each works out to $37.50 to $45 a month, or $450 to $540 per year.

Of course you will also need to purchase an e-cigarette and a few accessories. There is a wide range available when it comes to vaping kit, and these vary greatly in terms of cost, but you will be able to buy a good quality e-cigarette, tanks, coils and batteries for around $60.

Now if we spread this cost over two years, your total costs associated with vaping will come to around $480 to $570 per year. This is a lot cheaper than the $2,000 to $5,000 you would spend on tobacco cigarettes!

To make an international comparison, UK vaping companies 30mL of e-liquid for around £10 ($13), which works to a projected annual cost of around £300 ($392), compared to an annual cost of smoking of  £3796 (just under $5,000).

Of course, all of this is in addition to the health benefits of vaping compared to smoking, which means that vaping is not only better for your wallet, it could also literally save your life.

Did you know that there are over two dozen vape studies published on a weekly basis? That’s more than two reports a day!!! The majority of them are on vaping and its impact on the human body. The areas of focus are very broad and can range from health risk studies to nicotine addiction. Many of these studies are published with a political purpose or marketing initiative in tow with lots of money to back up their efforts from scientists and universities alike.

It’s almost without saying that the majority of these studies DO NOT state that vaping is “safe.” Anytime you put chemicals in your body there are risks associated with that. The consensus among these studies is that vaping is safer than smoking traditional cigarettes but still not “safe.” However, the side effects and overall health risks of vaping are debated widely among all these studies.

So, what impact does vaping have on the bodies vital organs like the heart and lungs? There is no long-term vaping research in this area because the industry is just to new to have concluded such studies. Additionally, something that has been challenging for all studies is determining pre-existing conditions since in most vapers cases they were traditional smokers before. Yet there has been one study that took a group of non smokers and tracked them for almost four years as they vaped. The research found that the vital organs of the vapers to the control group were rather similar. So although it cannot be concluded that harm my appear in later stages it does prove short term impacts of vaping could be limited. You can read more of the study at this link.

Over the last several years there have been several studies that have looked at the various scientific methods of those papers that have been published regarding vaping. The following are some of the most popular and widely shared on the topic.

• National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine

Public Health Consequences of E-Cigarettes (2018)

• Health England

E-cigarettes and heated tobacco products: evidence review (2018)

• Royal College of Physicians

Nicotine without smoke: Tobacco harm reduction (2016)

The two British reviews come to more optimistic conclusions than the American one, but all three, conclude that vaping poses far less risk than smoking. Take a look at the articles that are carefully indexed to allow you to search for general topics easier.

Stacey Hess was born in the heart of the tobacco industry, and tried her first cigarette when she was attending grade school. "It's kind of what you did in the South, when you're 13 years old. I think things are a little different down here.” For the next 20 years, she couldn't kick the habit: "I tried the gum, I tried the patches, I've tried the lozenges, and none of that stuff worked." What ultimately did work was vaping.

"I immediately realized I was feeling better," Hess said. "I could breathe better. It doesn't take long for your lungs to kind of heal themselves."

Reporter asked, "Did you feel like there were changes going in your lungs?"

"I did," she replied. "I wasn't coughing when I woke up in the morning any more. That was a big thing. I think a lot of smokers go through that: They cough as soon as they wake up. I wasn't doing that any more, and I haven't done that since."

Hess is now hoping to share that feeling and, she's convinced, help save lives, as a volunteer for an advocacy group called the Louisiana Smoke-Free Association.

But e-cigarettes are winning over more than just former smokers. In fact, they are gaining cautious support from a growing number of public health experts. In June no less than the American Cancer Society noted that while the long-term effects of e-cigarettes are "not known," they are "markedly less harmful" than traditional smoking.

"Nicotine's not. It's all the components of combustion. Nicotine's not a completely benign compound – it has side effects. But the cause of cancer, and the carcinogens in tobacco, are the products of the combustion."

In other words, it's not the nicotine that will kill you, it's the smoke. But Gottlieb and others are quick to point out that what may be a helpful for adults looking to quit is also enticing to teenagers.

"What I've learned, not only in the tobacco industry but also taking on the sugary beverage industry, is that they also falsify data. And so that's what's most alarming. If the FDA's going to really be studying this, I want independent, pure, empirical research and data to drive this policy conversation."

But walk into a vape shop anywhere in the country, and you see another side of the industry. About half of the vape market is still made up of small businesses mostly staffed and owned by former smokers like Steve Nair and his wife, Brandy.

The FDA is still reviewing the impact of vaping, and figuring out how to regulate the entire world of smoke-free tobacco products, a process that is expected to take years.

People like Stacey Hess, though, aren't waiting. She's now trying to convince her father – a smoker for 40 years – to try vaping ("It's not for me," he laughed), while also enjoying what she says are the benefits of a smoke-free life.

Like father, not quite like daughter: Stacey Hess swears by vaping, but her dad is sticking with traditional cigarettes.

Hess said, "I wish I had never started smoking to begin with."

The reporter asked, "How's your health?"

"My health is improved. I actually went to Denver last month. And, you know, the elevation is a little different up there, and I actually did a hike and I wasn't winded. And I was like, man! There was no way I could have done this before!"

According to health experts, parents whose children vape, often don't know what to do or where to turn for help. A growing epidemic, with federal authorities grappling with how to regulate e-cigarettes on a broad scale, parents are scrambling to deal with nicotine dependence or to stop their children from getting hooked to something that seems to be ever-present at schools.

According to a story published, when Sonya Kennedy learned that her 12-year-old son, Ryder, had tried vaping, she was "mortified." However, she soon realised that the trend had far-reaching implications than she earlier realised. Kennedy, the owner of a dance studio in Northern California, found that most of her dancers too had tried vaping and that children were vaping even inside schools, sometimes charging their e-cigs in their teacher's own computers. Parents were oblivious.

A shocked Kennedy knew that she had to do something about it and Kennedy asked a local business to print a few t-shirts with a straightforward message: "Athletes don't vape."

The trend caught on and she started receiving requests from people in Los Angeles, Sacramento and Canada who wanted in on the positive message. She even invited local athletes to a photo shoot and posted the results on social media and they actually showed up on a Sunday morning, to her surprise. According to Meredith Berkman, co-founder of Parents Against Vaping e-cigarettes, the first thing parents can do is educate themselves.

E-cigarettes work by heating a liquid until it turns into vapor. The liquid commonly contains varying concentrations of nicotine, sometimes no nicotine at all. The primary ingredients in most e liquid is propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin, common ingredients found in many food products.

Researchers are worried that e-cigarettes could put children's developing brains at risk, get them hooked on nicotine early in life and be an initiation to smoking and other drugs, albeit no proof has been provided to date to show that e liquid is a gateway drug for minors or adults.

They also recommend that parents be familiar with signs their children might be vaping. If they notice a faint, sweet scent if they show a change in mood, take frequent breaks to puff and share vape-related posts on social media.

According to experts, symptoms that children are vaping include anxiety, distractibility, headaches and stomachaches. Other symptoms may include increased thirst, nosebleeds and mood changes.

Parents too can set an example by not vaping or smoking themselves, says Partnership for Drug-Free Kids. They should also have open conversations with their children, experts add. Understanding why a child may take to vaping is also important.

Pat Aussem, a master addictions counselor with the Parent Coaching Program at the nonprofit Partnership for Drug-Free Kids said parents can also use positive reinforcement to offer their kids something more interesting to them than vaping. However, she adds, it is important to understand that there may be no quick fix.

As we ring in the new year we look to the hottest topics that’ll shape 2019 in the world of vaping. Below are our top five categories of items we believe will impact the industry.

1. Regulations & Taxes
2. Technology
3. Consolidation of the Industry
4. Continued Growth in Users
5. Product Diversification

Regulations and taxes will continue to be the focus around the globe as the FDA in the United States continues to fight “the epidemic of youth vaping” and local cities fight for various flavor bans. We’d also expect governments to continue to look for additional revenue streams from vapor products as they are an easy voter target for more government funding.

Technology again will be at the forefront of the industry with lightning fast innovations coming to closed pod systems, e liquid flavors and nicotine levels etc. We’ll see the focus of products on safety and reliability as those have been struggling points for the industry in the press for many years. Expect to see cross over products within the closed pod systems sector with interchangeable systems that’ll be adaptable to multiply systems.

We’re also expecting to see a ramp up of companies consolidating within the industry. This could mean vape companies themselves will begin to join forces or cross industry consolidation similar to the Juul and Altria partnership. As the industry matures the thousands of vape companies that sprung up over the years will look to consolidate to further grow and expand their offerings.

As with any new industry the vape industry will continue to grow. There will be a huge push into 2019 to convert additional traditional smokers to vaping. This will be a continued trend across the globe as additional research will point to the benefits of vaping over traditional cigarettes.

Lastly, rounding out our top five choices is product diversification. We are already starting to see traditional vaping companies pivot into industries like CBD and hemp. This will continue as vaping companies grow and look to increase their brand loyalty on other similar products. We expect to see some exciting ventures into new product offerings from vapes, CBD and cannabis in those areas where it’s legal.

Although there are many challenges and hurdles yet for the industry to endure we see a bright future for our customers and vapers alike. Welcome to 2019 and have a safe and Happy New Year from the Cali Steam Team.

The FDA calls teen vaping an “epidemic,” but the influence of e-cigarettes on teens’ overall health might be more complicated than assumed, according to a new study out Thursday in the journal Tobacco Control. It suggests that while teens and young adults in the U.S. did start flocking to e-cigarettes these past few years, they also significantly cut back on smoking traditional tobacco cigarettes during the same time period. So could vaping be the silver bullet that kicks tobacco to the curb?

Vaping advocates have long claimed that e-cigarettes can and will help current smokers wean themselves away from smoking tobacco cigarettes, with the eventual goal of making it easier for them to quit nicotine altogether. But the evidence supporting this prediction has been mixed. A study earlier this year, for instance, found that adults who became dual users of e-cigarettes and tobacco cigarettes were actually less likely to quit their habit in a year’s time than people who only smoked cigarettes.

When it comes to teens, other research has found that vaping’s popularity has had no major positive effects on their smoking rates. Some studies have even suggested that vaping is creating new smokers, with teens who start vaping becoming more likely to eventually transition into tobacco than non-vaping teens.

But researchers behind current research say that past studies haven’t looked at teen vaping trends alongside smoking trends long enough for us to be sure of anything. So they decided to analyze and combine data from five different nationwide surveys of teens and young adults in the United States.

Mirroring other research, they found that vaping shot up in popularity around 2014 and has stayed popular in the years since. But they also found a faster, inverse drop in traditional smoking rates during those same years.

According to one survey of teen drug use, annual rates of any smoking in the past 30 days among 12th graders have been declining by 4.5 percent over the long term. But during 2014 to 2017 there was an additional 9.1 percent annual reduction of any level of smoking.

There are a few caveats to the study’s findings, though. Like other population studies, it can only tell us that an indirect connection between teen smoking and vaping exists, not whether one trend is directly impacting the other or vice versa.

“The most important takeaway from the study is that the public health implications of vaping are complex. We should not just focus on vaping, but should consider its effect on smoking,” he said. “Smoking presents far greater health risks, so that any reduction in smoking that arise as a result of vaping needs to be given strong consideration in evaluating any additional health risks that vaping may present.”

The latest from a statement by FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., on proposed new steps to protect youth by preventing access to flavored tobacco products and banning menthol in cigarettes.

One of the first things the FDA is looking to ban is to have all flavored ENDS products (other than tobacco, mint and menthol flavors or non-flavored products) sold in age-restricted, in-person locations. All ENDS products, including e-liquids, cartridge-based systems and cigalikes, in flavors except tobacco, mint and menthol, would be included. For instance, the proposed policy would apply to flavors such as cherry, vanilla, crème, tropical, melon and others. So this means any products sold in convenient stores, that permit underage individuals to enter, would not be permitted.

Additionally, the FDA is revisiting the compliance policy on PMTA authorization for such flavored products sold in physical locations where people under the age of 18 are permitted. This could be a detrimental action to vapor products as the process is excessively expensive and many believe with the current laws vapor products won’t be able to pass the high litmus test a PMTA application requires.

Furthermore, the FDA is continuing to look at how they believe ENDS products are marketed towards children. The FDA will pursue the removal from the market of those ENDS products that are marketed to children and/or appealing to youth. This could include using popular children’s cartoon or animated characters, or names of products favored by kids like brands of candy or soda.

Another area that’ll be targeted is those flavored ENDS products (other than tobacco, mint and menthol flavors or non-flavored products) that are sold online. The FDA will seek to curtail the sale of applicable flavored ENDS products that are sold online without heightened age verification processes. The FDA will be working to identify these heightened measures for age verification and other restrictions to prevent youth access via online sales. These best practices would be available soon, so sites can quickly adopt them. Because no tobacco products should be sold to kids (including non-flavored ENDS products or those with tobacco, mint and menthol flavors), the FDA will continue to enforce the law whenever we see online sales of these products to minors and will closely monitor online sales of mint and menthol ENDS products.

So although the measures are broad in what the FDA will continue to enforce we hope for a balanced approach as they continue to regulate the market. We fully support at Cali Steam a fair set of regulations that continue to allow customers to have choices of nicotine containing products.