August 1, 2017
The FDA made big news last week (July 28, 2017) when it announced a “comprehensive nicotine strategy” last week that could include reducing the nicotine delivery from combusted cigarettes to below addictive levels. If FDA actually implements such a policy in an effective way, that would be a big step forward. (Whether or not such a policy would actually work in the real world was not clear until, over the last few years, the FDA has supported some very well-done research showing that this is possible and could be implemented quickly.) Doing so, however, will take time to develop and then survive the inevitable industry lawsuits so it is, at best, years away.
The other big thing that the FDA did was to extent the already generous amount of time that it had given e-cigarette companies to comply with the law, pushing the compliance date out 4 years, to 2022. This means that e-cigarettes will remain the Wild West, at least from a federal perspective.
July 31, 2017
It is gratifying that the national organizations appreciate the importance of the San Francisco flavor ordinance, which because even more importtant last Friday in the face of the FDA abrogation on e-cigarettes.
CONTACT:
Steph McCorkle
American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network
916 802-4033 [email protected]
Tobacco Industry: New Face, Same Dirty Tricks
San Franciscans Too Smart to Fall for Big Tobacco’s Shameful Tactics
San Francisco, CA – July 31, 2017— Leading health organizations and community groups expressed outrage today over Big Tobacco’s desperate plan to woo and mislead San Francisco voters into rolling back vital new public health laws aimed at reducing smoking. The tobacco industry, including e-cigarette makers, is shamelessly using the referendum process to maximize profits while its customers suffer death and disease, and local taxpayers continue to foot the bill for tobacco-related illnesses.
Statement from Bob Gordon, co-chair of the San Francisco Tobacco-Free Coalition
July 30, 2017
We've gotten anecdotal reports of more smoking in TV shows, but a shocker from Truth Initiative® reports that all but one of this year's drama or comedy series nominated for Emmy Award nominees feature smoking.
High-schooler Steve Harrington (Joe Keery) smokes in Netflix' Stranger Things. The series also includes Camel cigarettes.
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Here's a list of shows from Truth. We've added the names of production companies and identied their production locations, which award large public subsidies.*
Better Call Saul | New Mexico | Gran Via, Sony Pictures | Distributor: AMC Networks
The Crown | UK, S. Africa | Left Bank, Sony Pictures | Distributor: Netflix
The Handmaid's Tale | Ontario, Canada | MGM | Distributor: Hulu
House of Cards | Maryland | Media Rights Capital | Distributor: Netflix
July 27, 2017
Shu-Hong Zhu and colleagues at UCSD just published “E-cigarette use and associated changes in population smoking cessation: evidence from US current population surveys,” a well-done sequential cross-sectional study in which they concluded that in 2014-2015 there was a substantial increase in quit attempts and successful quitting among people using e-cigarettes compared to previous years.
I was particularly struck by the care with which the authors placed their results in the context of the larger literature, including changes to the policy environment which could be affecting quit attempts, such as tax increases and the CDC TIPS from Former Smokers media campaign (which the Republicans in Congress are working to defund despite its proven success).
July 26, 2017
We have another great lineup this year.
Keynote:
Smokefree or Up in Smoke? Reinvigorated tobacco control policy in an era of legalized marijuana
Karen L. Smith, M.D., M.P.H.
Director & State Public Health Officer
California Department of Public Health
Using social media to help young adults quit smoking.
Danielle Ramo, PhD, UCSF Associate Professor of Psychiatry
Learning from tobacco industry to fight back: Peer-crowd targeting in e-cigarette advertisements
Minji Kim, PhD, UCSF Postdoctoral fellow
Chasing the cloud or choking on it: E-cigarettes and lung health
Jeffrey Gotts, MD, UCSF Assistant Professor of Medicine
Containing Diffusion: The Tobacco Industry’s Trade Strategy to Block Tobacco Standardized Packaging
Eric Crosbie, PhD, UCSF postdoctoral fellow
Closing speaker (comments and reactions)
Janet Napolitano JD, President, University of California
This is a public symposium open to all members of the University community, public health and health professionals, the media, and the public
The symposium runs from 8:30 to 12:30 on Friday February 2 at the UCSF Parnassus campus.