Tobacco Center Faculty Blog

June 4, 2018

Stanton A. Glantz, PhD

Sarah Aleyan and her colleagues from the University of Waterloo just published “Risky business: a longitudinal study examining cigarette smoking initiation among susceptible and non-susceptible e-cigarette users in Canada” in BMJ Open.  This longitudinal study followed Canadian high school students for two years and found that never cigarette smoking kids who used e-cigarettes at baseline were much more likely to be smoking cigarettes two years later. 

Most important, the gateway effect was nearly twice as big for low risk kids (adjusted odds ratio of 5.28 for the low risk kids compared to 2.78 for kids who were susceptible to smoking at baseline).  In addition, never smoking kids who used e-cigarettes who had not started smoking yet because became susceptible to future smoking.  These findings, which are consistent with all the earlier studies that looked at this question, shows that the argument by e-cig enthusiasts that “kids who use e-cigs would smoke anyway” is wrong.  E-cigarettes are supporting and expanding the nicotine addiction and smoking epidemics.

May 31, 2018

Stanton A. Glantz, PhD

I live in San Francisco, so am getting buried in mail supporting (health groups) and opposing (RJ Reynolds tobacco) Proposition E, which would end the sale of flavored tobacco products in San Francisco.

RJR’s earlier advertising was all about prohibition, but the latest mailer I got (which is also on the No on E website; reproduced below), is more nuanced.   It admits that Prop E does not ban all tobacco products, just flavored tobacco products.  That is correct.

If the voters uphold Prop E, people will still be allowed to sell and buy tobacco products in San Francisco, just not the flavored products that are so important to hooking kids.  Not only is that not a flaw, it's the whole point of Prop E.  (There are, of course, people advocating to prohibit the sale of all tobacco products; Prop E specifically does not do that.)

May 31, 2018

Stanton A. Glantz, PhD

The best measure of the effectiveness of a tobacco control policy is how hard the tobacco companies fight it.  This is an even better measure than fancy statistical analysis by people like me because, after all, nobody knows the tobacco business better than the tobacco companies.

The importance of local flavor bans like San Francisco Proposition E (supported by health groups, opposed by RJ Reynolds Tobacco) was reinforced in Illinois when the tobacco industry agreed to drop its opposition to a state Tobacco 21 law in exchange for preempting local flavor bans (and also prohibiting local governments from setting the tobacco age above 21, which is also remarkable).

The tobacco companies absolutely hate Tobacco 21 laws because they make it harder for them to market to kids.  Their last minute compromise offer in Illinois says that they know that ending the sale of flavored tobacco products will make it even harder for them to recruit kids to nicotine addiction (and sustain industry profits).

May 30, 2018

Stanton A. Glantz, PhD

The biological and clinical evidence that e-cigarettes are really bad for lungs has been rapidly piling up;  now the first evidence linking e-cigarette use with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has been presented.  At the American Thoracic Society meeting in May 2018, Mario Perez and colleagues presented an analysis of the NIDA/FDA PATH study and found a strong link between e-cigarette use and COPD.

They compared having been told they were diagnosed with COPD (including COPD, chronic bronchitis, or emphysema) among current (some day or every day) with people who did not use e-cigarettes.  They controlled for other tobacco product usage and secondhand smoke exposure using a technique called propensity score matching.  Accounting for matched propensities, there were 1321 e-cigarette users and 1321 nonusers. E-cigarette users were about twice as likely to have COPD (odds ratio, 1.86; 95% CI, 1.22-2.83).

May 30, 2018

Stanton A. Glantz, PhD

My colleagues and I just submitted this public comment to the FDA.  The tracking number is 1k2-93fq-mfpc.  A PDF (including all the footnotes) is here.

 

To minimize illicit tobacco trade, FDA should reject any partnership with the tobacco industry, reject industry estimates and exaggeration of illicit trade, and use the FCTC Protocol on Illicit Trade as a model to counter the supply side of illicit trade

Pages