April 22, 2019
The South Korea Ministry of Health and Welfare has found 50 percent or more of Korea's most popular TV dramas, movies and online animated shows feature tobacco imagery, Korea Times reports. The government's survey covered media releases between January 2017 and June 2018.
"Children and adolescents exposed to smoking scenes repeatedly are more likely to try smoking," a ministry official observed. "We urge entertainment content creators and producers to refrain from showing smoking in content rated for minors."
South Korea is one of 181 parties to the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). Article 13 of the FCTC calls on governments to end tobacco promotion in entertainment media. South Korea's media industry ranks among the world's largest, with an active export market in Asia.
April 22, 2019
Today the California Department of Public Health Tobacco Control Program launched its latest response to the e-cigarette epidemic with the strongest message so far, Nicotine = Brain Poison. The campaign includes very strong media as well as print. My favorite detail is the use of two Juul’s to make up the equal sign in the print ads.
Here is the summary of the facts behind the campaign, which has been added to the Department’s outstanding wwwFlavorsHookKids.org website.
April 20, 2019
One of Big Tobacco’s most important strategies for thwarting public health is preemption, where they get a higher level political jurisdiction to take away communities’ rights to pass local legislation protecting public health. (Philip Morris and its sidekick Juul, are trying to preempt effective Tobacco 21 legislation both to protect against effective Tobacco 21 laws and also as part of their effort to fight bans on the sale of flavored tobacco products.)
Cal Matters’ Dan Morain pointed out that cannabis interests are now working hard to do the same thing in California to remove communities’ rights to avoid being dragged into the cannabis market. Here is his April 19, 2019 story:
Backers of the 2016 initiative that legalized commercial marijuana sales promised voters that cities and counties would be able to regulate weed sales in their jurisdictions.
Now, legislation facing its first hearing on Tuesday would hedge on that promise.
April 19, 2019
The American Thoracic Society recently sponsored a very informative webinar on e-cigarette toxicology, that explains why the fact that Juul (and others) use nicotine salts increases nicotine delivery as well as very clear information on the adverse effects of e-cigarettes, particularly flavors, on the lungs. I highly recommend everyone take the time to watch it. The longer you watch the better it gets. It is available here.
April 17, 2019
In a letter sent on April 15, 2019, three U.S. Senators — Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Edward Markey (D-MA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) — queried thirteen of America's largest media companies on how many of their films and TV shows featured toxic tobacco imagery in the past five years and asked each company to take a position on recommended policies to protect kids' health.
The Senators reminded traditional broadcast and film producers CBS, Comcast, Disney (owns Fox), Lionsgate, Sony, and Viacom that kid-rated smoking remains a major public health threat. Several of these companies also run on-demand film and TV services.
Senators also broke new ground by warning "disrupter" streaming and on-demand companies Alphabet (YouTube), Amazon (Prime), Apple (iTunes, Apple TV+), AT&T (owns Warner), Hulu (controlled by Disney), and Netflix not to make the same mistakes with tobacco that old-line companies have.