April 18, 2016
In results released 1 April 2016, Canadian tobacco control groups found 79 percent of Ontario adults wanted to end smoking in movies rated 14A or lower (similar to US PG-13 and lower in the US). Seventy-seven percent opposed the display of tobacco brand logos in films. Two out of three adults backed an 18A rating for future films with tobacco.
Support for smokefree movie initiatives has grown since 2011, when the Paris-based public opinion pollster Ipsos last surveyed Ontario adults on the same questions (see chart).
Half of those polled agree that tobacco companies have paid for tobacco product placement in movies, compared to 11 percent who disagree. Twice as many agree than disagree that kids who see lots of smoking in movies are more likely to start smoking. Twice as many also agree that the tobacco industry has paid actors to smoke on screen.
April 18, 2016
I just arrived back from vacation to hear that, based on the advice on the investment consulting firm Wilshire Associates, the California Public Employee Retirement System (CalPERS) was considering reversing its longstanding policy of not investing in tobacco stocks.
There are lots of reasons to stay out of tobacco stocks, most notably that CalPERS would be supporting an industry that drives up medical costs for California (paid by CalPERS for state retirees). Another reason is that the tobacco companies are established racketeers, still under the supervision of Federal Judge Gladys Kessler.
In addition to these obvious issues (which CalPERS seems to be avoiding), they need to address possible undisclosed conflicts of interest for their investment advisors, Wilshire Associates, who have also worked for Philip Morris in the past, including helping them muster arguments against divestment in the late 1990s (document 1, document 2).
March 24, 2016
Nicholaw Kusnetz at the Center for Public Integrity just published an excellent in-depth story, How Big Tobacco lobbies to safeguard e-cigarettes, about the massive lobbying effort that the big cigarette companies are mounting to protect e-cigarettes. While national in scope, there is strong coverage in California, including how the industry uses large strategic campaign contributions to the Assembly Government Organization Committee to block tobacco control bills and also the raw threats being made to the governor and other unless he vetoes a lackage of bills, including one including e-cigarettes in the state's clean indoor air law. (One wonders if they are overplaying their hand by so openly threatening politicians who like to pretend that they don't pay attention to campaign contributions.) These bills passed in a special session where there was no Government Organization Committee.
NIH webcast meeting is a great opportunity to learn about science and policy issues around marijuana
March 22, 2016
The NIH held a fascinating meeting Marijuana and Cannabinoids: A Neuroscience Research Summit on March 22-23, 2016. It highlighted a wide range of scientific issues around marijuana and cannabinoids, including a policy session at the end of Day 2.
The videocasts are now available. The policy session was the last one on Day 2, before the concluding remarks by Nora and Robert Califf starting at 2:59. Enjoy!
Day 1: https://videocast.nih.gov/summary.asp?Live=18464&bhcp=1
Day 2: https://videocast.nih.gov/summary.asp?Live=18468&bhcp=1
I learned an amazing amount of material; the speakers worked hard to speak to a broad audience. Definitely worth watching.
March 19, 2016
A second paper, “The influence of electronic cigarette age purchasing restrictions on adolescent tobacco and marijuana use,” was just published in Prevnetive Medicine by Michael Pesko and colleagues from Cornell. They found that youth cigarette smoking rates in states that prohibited e-cigarette sales to youth were 0.8 percentage points higher than in states without such laws. (This estimate is similar to the 0.9 percentage point increase Friedman reported a few months ago.)
Overall, this is a reasonably done paper. In interpreting the result, however, it is important to note, that, like the Friedman paper, this new paper indicates that, as overall cigarette use continues to fall, e-cigarette youth access controls are associated with relatively fewer kids initiating nicotine use with cigarettes.
Not surprisingly, Brad Rodu and Clive Bates have jumped on this finding to argue against minimum purchase age laws.