The Month of June in E-Cig World

What a month June has been. It brought a roller coaster of events to the electronic cigarette world and may well of been one of the biggest months for e-cigs since they hit the market. With news on regulation, conspiracy, new investments, public uprisings, and battles in the board rooms, its been a non stop month for the electronic cigarette world.

MHRA regulation

UK E-Cig Ban

The big one. The MRHA came out and said they would regulate electronic cigarettes as medicines in the UK from 2016. They cite being worried that electronic cigarettes could undermine years of anti-smoking efforts, and promote them to children and non smokers. Jeremy Mean, group manager from the MHRA stated the products on the market where not safe, and where of poor quality and efficacy. They then said they recommended people not use them.

Vapers stand up and fight

When the news broke there was uproar and dismay from the electronic cigarette community on twitter and forums. The MHRA youtube video was quickly barraged with comments condemning the decision and a e-cigarette UK ban petition was quickly established for people to sign.
Clive Bates released a great article on ’10 reasons not to regulate e-cigarettes as medicines’ and thefreesociety.org investigated the reasons behind the MHRA’s decision, revealing that over half of the specialist advisory board to the MHRA, including the board chairman, Professor Ian V D Weller where funded or had specific interests in the pharmaceutical industry, specifically Champix and other tobacco cessation products. It later surfaced that the MHRA organisation as a whole receives large funding from the pharmaceutical industry. There was a glimmer of support from government when Lib Dem MEP Chris Davis stood up and questioned the decision by MHRA, pointing out flaws in there judgement.
 

Big investment into ecigs

The electronic cigarette company NJOY announced it was investing $75 million dollars raised from a group of silicon valley investors notably Sean Parker, former president of Facebook and co founder of Napster. Endorsements by the likes of Bruno Mars Courtney Love where reported and Altria who owns Philip Morris, one of the biggest cigarette makers became the last of all the major tobacco companies to announce their investment in electronic cigarettes.
And finally an unlikely name in electronic cigarettes; Playboy announced they where launching their own line of disposable e-cigs.

This again brought into question the timing and motives of the new regulations. These new regulations would require extensive development and testing of new electronic cigarette devices. Something only extremely well funding companies like big tobacco could afford. The irony was obvious, the guys who made a fortune getting us hooked on nicotine were now setting up to profit from the solution to tobacco addiction.
 

New Research Released

A new study by Dr Riccardo Polosaof on electronic cigarettes was recently published in medical journal PLOS one.
“Efficiency and Safety of an Electronic Cigarette (ECLAT) As Tobacco Cigarettes Substitute.”
The aim was to find how many, out of 300 cigarette smokers who had no intention on giving up would quit or diminish their cigarette use without encouragement. The group given the highest amount of nicotine (13%) No longer smoked. The next lowest dose resulted in 9%, and a no nicotine dose resulted in 4% not smoking.
Dr. Polosa commented “I think the main message of the study is that we can use these products as an extraordinary tobacco control tool.”
Dr. Michael Siegel said “This really is the first clinical trial that’s ever been reported on electronic cigarettes. There has been survey evidence and anecdotal reports, but this is the first serious study”.

A electronic cigarette study from Dr. Konstantinos Farsalinos was published in PubMed, reporting evidence that e cigarette vapour causes significantly less damage to cells.
“Cytotoxicity evaluation of electronic cigarette vapour extract on cultured mammalian fibroblasts (ClearStream-LIFE): comparison with tobacco cigarette smoke extract”, compared the effects of electronic cigarette vapour against cigarette smoke on rodent cells. Of the e cigarette brands tested 20 of the 21 brands tested showed no adverse effects on the cells.

The study reports: “smoke was extremely toxic, with only 5.7% of the cells surviving after 24 hours of exposure. Twenty e-cigarette liquids were absolutely non-toxic (survival more than 70%, in most cases close to 100% or even more), while 1 sample was slightly toxic. Even for that sample, cell survival was 795% higher relative to tobacco smoke.”
 

Heads roll at Totally Wicked

It seemed the MHRA’s decision was to much for some. CEO of totally wicked, Jason Cropper stood down this month after reports of Mr Cropper calling the motivation and ligitmacy of the MHRA’s decision into light. The Totally Wicked barod of directors where quick to distance them selves from Mr Cropper’s comments and came to a mutual decision that he should resign from his position.
 

Closer to Home

Cigelectric saw their release of the iClear electronic cigarette starter kit which has so far gone down very well. This is in our opinion the best introductory starter kit yet, offering high quality performance at low cost. A great start for any new electronic cigarette user.

What a month it has been! All the goings on seemed to revolve around the announcements by the MHRA on regulation. It clearly stoked a lot of emotions in the electronic cigarette community and hopefully that will drive us to oppose over regulation and misinformed opinions. If you haven’t already signed the petition make sure you do. Subscribe to our RSS and social media pages to stay updated on any news and announcements from CigElectric.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

in blog, News