Tobacco Center Faculty Blog

December 2, 2013

Stanton A. Glantz, PhD

New York City is considering the sensible step of adding e-cigarettes into its smokefree law.  This makes sense because, as I have noted earlier, e-cigs pollute the air with exhaled nicotine, fine particles.

Even more important, there is direct human evidence that passive vapers absorb nicotine from secondhand exposure to e-cigarette aerosol at levels compariable to that found in people breathing secondhand smoke. (Here is the study.)

The policy issue is whether e-cig companies (which are more-and-more becoming cigarette companies) can force people who chose not to use their nicotine delivery products to suffer the consequences of absorbing secondhand nicotine (and other chemicals) into their bodies.

I say "no."  New York has cleaned up the indoor air.  There is no reason to allow it to be re-filled with nicotine and other toxic chemicals. 

November 28, 2013

Stanton A. Glantz, PhD

I am cross posting the CPATH analysis of the TPP because it is so well done.
 
Intellectual Property Chapter of Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement, Tobacco, and Public Health

 
CPATH Analysis - November 25, 2013
New analysis of the leaked Intellectual Property Chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) finds potential threat to tobacco-control measures, and the sovereign ability of nations to protect public health from tobacco-related disease and death.  (See complete CPATH Analysis.)
 
Understandings Regarding Public Health Measures provide significant loopholes for tobacco companies to file trade charges, while offering no clear legal protection of public health.

November 25, 2013

Stanton A. Glantz, PhD

E-cigarettes have been widely promoted as a way for people to quit smoking conventional cigarettes.  Now, in the first study of its kind, UC San Francisco researchers are reporting that, at the point in time they studied, youth using e-cigarettes were more likely to be trying to quit, but also were less likely to have stopped smoking and were smoking more, not less.
 
 “We are witnessing the beginning of a new phase of the nicotine epidemic and a new route to nicotine addiction for kids,” according to senior author Stanton A. Glantz, PhD, UCSF professor of medicine and director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at UCSF.  

E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that look like cigarettes and deliver an aerosol of nicotine and other chemicals. Promoted as safer alternatives to cigarettes and smoking cessation aids, e-cigarettes are rapidly gaining popularity among adults and youth in the United States and around the world. The devices are largely unregulated, with no effective controls on marketing them to minors.  

In the UCSF study, the researchers assessed e-cigarette use among youth in Korea, where the devices are marketed much the way they are in the U.S. The study analyzed smoking among some 75,000 Korean youth.

November 25, 2013

Stanton A. Glantz, PhD

Twenty-seven attorney general have submitted a comment to the FDA calling for a complete ban on menthol.  Their full letter is here.  Some key statements in the letter are:

November 24, 2013

Stanton A. Glantz, PhD

A couple years ago the California Legislature passed a sensible law designed to stop inappropriate outsourcing of state government positions, a favorite ploy of Republicans to give tax money to their corporate pals at the expense of middle class workers.  While I support this position the reality is that there are some times when it does make sense for the Department of Public Health to contract with outside agencies.  The way that the California Department of Public Health has interpreted this law has led to some longstanding elements of the California Tobacco Control Program being defunded.
 
The Tobacco Education and Research Oversight Committee, which has responsibility to oversee the program and advise the department and State Legislature has been pressing the Department on this issue.
 
Given the potential seriousness of this situation I decided to add my voice to the discussion by sending the following letter:
 
November 21, 2013
 
Secretary Diana Dooley
California Health and Human Services Agency
1600 Ninth Street, Room 460
Sacramento, CA 95814

Ron Chapman, MD, MPH
Director and State Health Officer
California Department of Public Health
1615 Capitol Avenue
Sacramento, CA 95814

Dear Secretary Dooley and Director Chapman:

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