May 6, 2019
Mark Olfson and colleagues’ new paper E-cigarette Use Among Young Adults in the U.S. published in American Journal of Preventive Medicine adds to the strong and consistent case the e-cigarettes are making the tobacco epidemic worse by maintaining cigarette smoking. Far from “harm reduction,” they found that young adults who used e-cigarettes were more likely to be heavier smokers and a lot less likely to be former smokers (adjusted OR 0.14). No wonder all the big cigarette companies are now taking over the e-cig business. They help them sell cigarettes.
How many more years will it take the FDA and some evidence-impervious scientists to read the handwriting on the wall?
Here is the abstract:
Introduction. Use of e-cigarettes is increasing among young adults in the U.S. Whether e-cigarette use serves as an aid to smoking reduction or cessation among young adults remains a matter of contention. This analysis examines patterns of e-cigarette use in relation to cigarette smoking in a nationally representative sample of U.S. young adults.
May 3, 2019
They probably hope Congress will notice | The Motion Picture Association of America has added one of its rare “smoking” descriptors to a PG-rated Netflix documentary called Knock Down the House
Actually, the MPAA does more than note there's “smoking” in this movie — it's described as “brief smoking.” (Nothing to worry about there.)
Timing is everything | The MPAA announced its rating for Knock Down the House on April 17, 2019, in the MPAA's official rating bulletin.
That was just two days after Netflix and other entertainment companies received a strong letter from three US Senators, on April 15, asking the companies to report about smoking in their films and TV shows and how many kids watch it.
May 1, 2019
After disappearing from the screen in 2018, e-cigarettes are back — with a vengeance — in the 2019 PG-13 film After. Breathe California reports that four college-age characters use e-cigs fourteen times in this story of “self-discovery and sexual awakening" (Deadline).
The actors involved are:
- Pia Mia (22)
- Inanna Sarkis (25)
- Samual Larsen (27)
- Khadijha Red Thunder (24)
The MPAA has rated After "PG-13 for sexual content and some college partying." Since e-cigs debuted on screen in 2010, more than three quarters of films with e-cigs have been R-rated.
Early in IMDbPro.com's synopsis of After, a college freshman's mother complains that the room where her roommate vapes "reeks of weed." Ordinarily, drug use earns a movie an R-rating from the MPAA, while more than half of films with tobacco use are youth-rated.
April 29, 2019
CNBC reported that PMI is starting a life insurance company in the UK that will give discounts to smokers who switch to e-cigarettes (2.5% discount) or its heated tobacco product IQOS (25% discount). Smokers who quit entirely get 50% off.
It will be interesting so see how long this lasts, since it is fundamentally unsound financially. PMI’s own data shows that IQOS is no safer than conventional cigarettes in terms of clinical measures of effect (even though it lowers exposure to some toxins, while increasing exposure to others). (More blog posts on IQOS.) Another think that does not make financial sense is treating IQOS as less toxic than e-cigs. Independent research shows that IQOS delivers more toxins than e-cigs.
The fact that the e-cig discount is so small is certainly consistent with the growing evidence that e-cig risk is approaching that of conventional cigarettes.