March 15, 2019
Kim Nguyen, Laura Schmidt, Casey Palmer and I just published “Tobacco industry involvement in children’s sugary drinks market” in BMJ. This paper use previously secret tobacco industry documents to show how the tobacco companies transformed marketing of sugar sweetened beverages (SSBs) to target kids using the strategies that the tobacco companies had developed to sell cigs to kids.
This paper is also relevant to the current concern over how the tobacco companies (including Juul) are using flavors to attract and hold kids. The tobacco companies have known all about flavors, colors, and kids for a long time and how to transfer that technology between products.
Here this the UCSF press release on the paper. There is also an excellent story in the New York Times.
Soft Drink Companies Copy Tobacco Playbook to Lure Young Users
Cigarette Giants Bought Food Companies, Used Cartoon Characters, Colors, Flavors to Boost Sales of Sweetened Beverages
March 14, 2019
Samir Soneji and colleagues’ new paper “Use of Flavored E-Cigarettes Among Adolescents, Young Adults, and Older Adults: Findings From the Population Assessment for Tobacco and Health Study” adds to the overwhelming case that flavors are an important reason that kids use e-cigarettes. They also specifically debunk the claim – made in all the debates over local laws banning the sale of flavored tobacco products -- that flavors are necessary to encourage adults to use e-cigs to quit smoking.
This argument also ignores the fact that, for most smokers, using e-cigs makes it less not more likely that they will successfully quit smoking.
March 13, 2019
With the vote on Sacramento City tobacco flavor ban approaching, the Sacramento Bee recently published opposing op-eds on the subject, one supporting the ban by Drs. David Cook and Phil Gardner, “To save African American lives, flavored tobacco ban must include menthol cigarettes,” and one opposing the law by vape store owner Noordidin “Noor” Kachhi, “Ban on flavored vaping products will kill small businesses like mine.”
Cook and Gardner frankly lay out the racial dimension of the importance that flavor bans include menthol, not just because many kids start with menthol cigarettes, cigars, and e-cigs, but because menthol has been a key element of tobacco industry targeting of the African American community. They pointedly note that “In California, 70 percent of African American adults who smoke consume menthols compared to just 18 percent of white adults who smoke.”
March 13, 2019
Jeremy E. Drehmer and colleagues just published “Parental Smoking and E-cigarette Use in Homes and Cars“ in Pediatrics showing that adults with children who are dual users of cigarettes and e-cigarettes are less likely to have and enforce smokefree policies in their homes and cars than parents who just smoke. This matters because it is yet another way that the advent of e-cigs is harming the health of children (and their parents and other bystanders).
As the authors point out, most people think e-cigs are safer than cigs (even “safe”). This perception seems to be spilling over to affect policies even when the same people are smoking cigs. The authors repot, “a perception may exist among many parents that e-cigarette aerosol is safe for their children because the majority of dual users had a strictly enforced smoke-free home policy (63.8%), whereas a statistically significant lower percentage of these parents had a strictly enforced vape-free home policy (26.3%)... Additionally, parents who dual use cigarettes and e-cigarettes were less likely to have strictly enforced smoke-free policies for the car and vape-free policies in the home and car than parents who only use traditional cigarettes."
March 11, 2019
Today (March 11, 2019) FDA Commissioner Gottlieb released a statement on the FDA’s new budget request. He continues to express enthusiasm for e-cigs as an alternative to combusted cigarettes, but there are finally some notes of caution appearing in his assessment of their health effects for adults.
Here is the relevant part of the statement (my emphasis):
“The FDA is fully committed to a pathway for the efficient and effective regulation of ENDS products. These products have the potential to offer currently addicted adult smokers a way to fully transition off cigarettes, but still enable them to get access to satisfying levels of nicotine, but potentially without the same risks as combusting tobacco. But the e-cigarettes must be put through an appropriate series of regulatory gates to properly assess their risks and to understand their potential to help smokers who completely switch from combustible tobacco.