A border guard in the secretive country of North Korea was amazed by the sight of the vape pen being carried by British tourist Del Dinsdale, at first thinking that the device was a bomb.

Mr Dinsdale, 34, was travelling from China into the communist country when his bags were searched by the security services, the Daily Mail reports. When he told the guard that the device was actually a cigarette, his fear turned to amazement and he asked to try it out.

'He thought it was an illegal item being taken into his country but I showed him what it was and he was delighted', Dinsdale told the British newspaper. Strict laws in the reclusive dictatorship means tourists are usually forbidden from taking photos of officials - especially in a relaxed setting. But in this case, the guard made an exception and is seen vaping on the device

Eric Lindblom, senior scholar at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, and former Senior Advisor to the FDA’s Centre for Tobacco Products has published a lengthy report in the Food and Drug Law Journal entitled “Effectively Regulating E-Cigarettes and Their Advertising - and the First Amendment” (pdf download). This is an important document which gives great insight into the legal thought that will inform FDA’s actions going forward. 

Fundamentally, Lindblom supposes that the scientific questions as to safety, gateways, dual use, cessation efficacy and so forth do not need be resolved prior to the issuance of the regulation, since the law will allow the FDA to resolve these questions at its leisure once it is in place.

At the very core of Mr Lindblom’s argument is the following logic chain:

As a result of the tobacco act and the deeming

This is it. You’re ready to vape. You’ll buy some kit, power it up with your favourite vape juice and be ripping fat clouds in no time.

Well, maybe not exactly. Vaping isn’t complicated, but there are some things that you need to know about if you want to avoid embarrassment and accidents.

There are different types of e-cigarette 

While it is tempting to call all the devices e-cigarettes or vapes, there are important distinctions between product categories.

Disposable e-cigarettes like those made by Blu and NJOY are easily available from gas stations, but they aren’t very powerful. Cigalikes and pen mods are a bit more substantial, but they won’t satisfy everyone.

It’s when you graduate to a vape mod that vaping gets more fun. These larger devices give bigger clouds and they let you change the hardware and alter wattage or temperature output to suit your preferences.

Mouth-to-lung and direct-to-lung

VAPERS are to enjoy the same insurance rates as non-smokers for the first time, according to a UK report.

E-cigarette users will save thousands of pounds in health insurance after years of being put in the same category as smokers.

The change comes after a Public Health England report earlier this year showed vaping to be 95 per cent less harmful than cigarettes. Vape advocates immediately called for a subsequent change to insurance premiums to reflect vaping being a far healthier alternative to smoking.

Earlier this year, it was reported that life insurance had started to drop after experts revealed at an industry conference how insurance companies were downgrading the risk for users of e-cigarettes or nicotine-containing smoking substitutes.

It was revealed at the time, by independent

This week, San Francisco voted to uphold a ban on flavoured vape juice and other flavoured tobacco products.

The public ballot could lead to more vape restrictions applied across the United States.

Almost 70% voted in favour of ‘Proposition E’ after the city’s Board of Supervisors first approved a flavour ban last year.

The ban includes all flavoured e-liquids, menthol cigarettes and flavoured cigars. It has been labelled one of the strictest local regulations anywhere in the western world.

Several anti-tobacco interest groups and health bodies supported the flavour ban, claiming that bright packaging may encourage kids to start using tobacco.

Vaping advocates opposed the ban, pointing out that vaping is safer than smoking and claiming that limiting access to e-cigarettes could dissuade adult smokers from trying to quit.

There is also

This year, Public Health England reaffirmed their 2015 claim that e-cigarettes were at least 95% safer than combustible cigarettes.

The 2018 review came a few weeks after the US National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine concluded that, on the available evidence, “e-cigarettes are likely to be far less harmful than combustible tobacco cigarettes.”

They both agree that, as an alternative to smoking, vaping has the power to significantly improve health outcomes.

But this doesn’t mean that vaping is perfect. More than half (55%) of e-cigarette users have experienced at least one side effect while vaping.

While they are generally not as serious as the side effects of using tobacco, they can be uncomfortable.

One reported

E-CIGARETTE giant Juul has pulled some of its flavoured vape products from retail stores and vape shops, it has announced.

• Read the vaping.com guide on the best JUUL alternatives

Sales of the flavoured pods which it deems the most appealing to young people will be only available on its own secure website - and restricted to consumers aged 21, through verification.

Strict measures will include consumers having to input their social security number to match records as well as verifying identity through a phone number and photo at checkout.

Flavours which have been pulled off shelves from over 90,000 retail stores across America include mango, fruit, crème and cucumber.

Juul has also announced plans to delete its social media channels including Facebook and Instagram, because of its potential draw for teens.

THE US government is considering banning the online sales of e-cigarettes, it has been revealed.

Head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Scott Gottlieb has admitted the shock move is one of the proposals "on the table" as part of its crackdown on teen vaping.

While speaking on a panel discussion on e-cigarettes hosted by US news website Axios on Tuesday, Gottlieb explained the FDA will reveal more about its future plans in November when they release new data on the use of e-cigarettes by minors.

The proposal has already been heavily criticized as a potential disaster to America's health with thousands of ex smokers having quit their deadly cigarette addiction thanks to vaping.

Gottlieb told the panel: “One of the things we’re looking at is whether or not we should change our regulations to address how these products are being sold, particularly how they’re being sold online.

“We have two problems

FLAVOURED e-cigarettes could only be sold in vape stores under a plan to stop underage sales, the US Food and Drug Administration has claimed.

The government agency believes many teens are getting away with illegally buying flavoured vape products in retail shops and is considering taking drastic steps to curb it.

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb told America’s CNBC that he believes vape stores are better at checking ID from customers and is considering confining some e-cigarette sales, specifically flavoured products, to specialist shops and disallowing them in stores such as 7-Eleven and Circle K.

He said: "We're looking at what can be sold in brick-and-mortar stores and whether or not flavoured products can be sold in regular stores like a 7-Eleven and a truck stop

E-CIGARETTE manufacturer Juul Labs Inc is creating a new Bluetooth-linked vape which can detect if it’s being used by a minor.

The inbuilt system, to be launched in some Western European countries and Israel, will be able to detect a users age in a bid to stop teenagers from vaping their popular brand.

The Bluetooth tracker was originally designed to help former smokers watch their nicotine intake but CEO Kevin Burns has revealed it will now show how old its vaper is.

The move comes as Juul’s sleek e-cigarette, which looks like a USB, has been at the centre of media controversy this year with headlines and anti-vaping groups accusing it of getting a whole generation of teenagers and young people addicted to nicotine.

It has also been criticized by health and school officials who claim its not just it’s pocket-sized design which entices 15 to 24 year olds who make up the bulk of its demographic, but its range of fruit and candy flavours.

More

Senate Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin has teamed up with Senator Lisa Mirkowski, a Republican, to launch a new offensive on e-liquid flavours.

On Monday, Illinois Democrat Durbin announced plans for a bipartisan bill to restrict ‘child-friendly’ flavourings.

Arguing that e-cigarettes were part of a Big Tobacco ploy to get a new generation of kids hooked on nicotine, Durbin’s bill would require manufacturers to prove that flavourings aren’t harmful, don’t tempt kids into using nicotine and help adults quit.

Manufacturers would have to one year to provide such evidence to the FDA.

“We have made great progress in convincing kids not to start smoking cigarettes. They know that cigarettes kill and that, nowadays, it’s hard to find someplace where smoking cigarettes is even allowed,” Durbin

Vapers that use e-cigarettes at work have the potential to be healthier, happier and more productive. So should employers encourage them by allowing vaping in the workplace?

Or should vapers be more mindful of their colleagues?

As vaping gets more popular, the potential for conflict between vapers and non-vapers increases. This problem is made worse by the fact there is no set of universal written or unwritten rules around vaping etiquette.

The law

Many states have enacted state-wide smoking bans and the majority of employers have their own rules about smoking tobacco cigarettes in the workplace. But most of these rules don’t include vaping.

The law on vaping is different. About a dozen states, including New York and California, have implemented vape bans in workplaces and other public places.

In other states, certain localities have passed their own rules about vaping. But many employers are still free to decide whether to allow

ONE of the strictest countries in the world for vaping has reportedly taken its first step towards lifting its notoriously rigorous e-cigarette ban.

Thailand’s Foreign Trade ministry is currently considering allowing tourists to bring their personal vape gear and liquids into the country for personal use, according to news reports.

Importing vape products to sell or to use in public, however, will remain strictly forbidden.

In what is being seen as a positive move, a working group within the government has now been set up to look at the repercussions of lifting Thailand’s outright ban, which would mean foreigners are not found guilty of importing e-cigarettes when they bring vape products with them on holiday.

According to reports, concerns within government about the law change include the possibility of turning more people into cigarette smokers and their appeal to teenagers and young people.

Thailand remains

A TV money expert has highlighted how vaping is destroying the cigarette industry after last week’s drastic drop in shares of key tobacco stocks.

‘Mad Money’ host Jim Cramer has spoken out about the huge shifts within the long-standing cigarette industry after it was “obliterated” on Wall Street.

He went further by urging viewers not to invest in the tobacco market after investors realized it was facing an “existential threat” from its vape competition.

Speaking on his CNBC show, Cramer - a former hedge fund manager - addressed the shock share price drop in Altria, the parent company of Marlboro-makers Philip Morris International, by 16 per cent, which was blamed on rapidly declining cigarette volumes.

Billed as its “worst day” in a decade, Altria also suffered after being downgraded from “buy” to “neutral” on the stock market by Citigroup analyst Adam Spielman following its weak earnings report.

"We saw the market's sudden

On Monday this week the MHRA (the UK medicines body that has responsibility for regulating e-cigarettes) issued its draft guidance on eliquids. Amongst other stipulations, it listed the ingredients that manufacturers may not use in eliquid:

So, it's official: companies will not be able to notify e-liquids which contain DA/AP, and these liquids will have to come off the UK market by May 20th next year.

I'm reliably informed that this is unlikely to affect many vape juice currently manufactured in the UK, but US liquids have become something of a phenomenon

Anti-vaping spammers posted more than a quarter of a million comments on the FDA’s public flavour ban consultation in one weekend last month.

It is reported that the online public forum was flooded with 255,000 fake comments in a single weekend, with almost every spam comment asking the FDA to ban e-liquid flavours.

FDA sources described these fraudulent comments as “extraordinary” and “unprecedented”, according to Regulator Watch.

Internet bots entered the quarter million comments between June 8 and June 11, before the FDA finally located the source of the comments and blocked four IP addresses used by the spammers.

Most of the comments were posted without a first or last name and used similar anti-vaping comments including ‘I am a concerned

“If anything, restricting e-cigarettes may incentivize youth to try combustible cigarettes instead.” 

The man who invented nicotine patches to help smokers quit has raised serious doubts about the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) strategy to combat youth vaping.

Last month, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb launched a raft of new enforcement measures as he deplored a new youth vaping ‘epidemic’.

New measures included a clampdown on shops selling to minors and the possibility that some products - particularly flavoured e-liquids - could be removed from shelves.

While Dr. Gottlieb acknowledged that e-cigarettes are a helpful smoking alternative for adults, he said that this needed to be balanced against the risk of nicotine addiction in kids.

“It’s now clear to me, that in closing the on-ramp

The makers and distributors of some popular vape juice flavours, including One Mad Hit Juice Box, V’Nilla Cookies & Milk and Unicorn Cakes, have withdrawn products from sale, following warnings from the FDA and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Last week, the FDA announced that 17 companies had agreed to take products off the market, because they were packaged or advertised as ‘child-friendly' food products like juice boxes and candies.

“When companies market these products using imagery that misleads a child into thinking they’re things they’ve consumed before, like a juice box or candy, that can create an imminent risk of harm,” said Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the agency’s commissioner.

vaping.com did not stock any of the affected products and our range of vape juice will

Lots of people use exercise to help them ditch their tobacco habit. Exercise can help in limiting weight gain, reducing hunger and managing your stress levels as you try to leave tobacco for good.

Research also shows that exercise can be used to combat cigarette cravings. In a study published in the British Journal of Pharmacology, researchers gave three groups of nicotine-addicted mice an exercise wheel for 24, 2 or 0 hours each day.

The mice who could exercise showed large reductions in the typical chemical symptoms associated with nicotine withdrawal.

Alexis Bailey, who led the study at St George’s, University of London said: “The evidence suggests that exercise decreases nicotine withdrawal symptoms in humans; however, the mechanisms mediating this effect are unclear.”

But what kind of exercise should you do? Here are 14 ideas to get you started.

Walking

Exercise may seem daunting at first, particularly if you aren’t in great shape.