April 24, 2019
The law firm Churchwell White LLP filed suit April 4, 2019 on behalf of 25 California jurisdictions challenging the California Bureau of Cannabis Control's regulation provision, adopted in December 2018, forcing local jurisdictions to allow delivery of cannabis in their communities. The Public Health Institute and other organizations protested this change as violating the letter and spirit of Proposition 64, which legalized adult-use cannabis and the implementing legislation (MAUCRSA), both of which assured local control. They are seeking additional jurisdictions to join the suit.
These state regulations undermine the autonomy not only of communities with bans in place, but also communities that rightly adopted public health oriented restrictions on products that appeal to youth like cannabis orange soda or mango flavored vaping fluid, whose residents will no longer be protected, or who have stores but opted to not allow delivery, or who limited the number of outlets intentionally, or who taxed high potency products at a higher rates, for example.
April 23, 2019
As I reported in a previous blog post, Altria (Philip Morris) and its sidekick Juul are blitzing the country trying to preempt effective Tobacco 21 legislation. There have been two changes since my earlier posting: (1) The big health groups (Heart, Lung, Cancer et al) have unified behind strong legislation that includes meaningful enforcement and is specific in not preempting (taking away) the rights of localities to pass and enforce their own strong bills (but are still supporting bad bills in Washington and Texas), and (2) Mitch McConnell, US Senate Majority Leader and staunch industry ally has announced that he will be introducing a national Tobacco 21 bill.
In the States
April 22, 2019
The South Korea Ministry of Health and Welfare has found 50 percent or more of Korea's most popular TV dramas, movies and online animated shows feature tobacco imagery, Korea Times reports. The government's survey covered media releases between January 2017 and June 2018.
"Children and adolescents exposed to smoking scenes repeatedly are more likely to try smoking," a ministry official observed. "We urge entertainment content creators and producers to refrain from showing smoking in content rated for minors."
South Korea is one of 181 parties to the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). Article 13 of the FCTC calls on governments to end tobacco promotion in entertainment media. South Korea's media industry ranks among the world's largest, with an active export market in Asia.
April 22, 2019
Today the California Department of Public Health Tobacco Control Program launched its latest response to the e-cigarette epidemic with the strongest message so far, Nicotine = Brain Poison. The campaign includes very strong media as well as print. My favorite detail is the use of two Juul’s to make up the equal sign in the print ads.
Here is the summary of the facts behind the campaign, which has been added to the Department’s outstanding wwwFlavorsHookKids.org website.
April 20, 2019
One of Big Tobacco’s most important strategies for thwarting public health is preemption, where they get a higher level political jurisdiction to take away communities’ rights to pass local legislation protecting public health. (Philip Morris and its sidekick Juul, are trying to preempt effective Tobacco 21 legislation both to protect against effective Tobacco 21 laws and also as part of their effort to fight bans on the sale of flavored tobacco products.)
Cal Matters’ Dan Morain pointed out that cannabis interests are now working hard to do the same thing in California to remove communities’ rights to avoid being dragged into the cannabis market. Here is his April 19, 2019 story:
Backers of the 2016 initiative that legalized commercial marijuana sales promised voters that cities and counties would be able to regulate weed sales in their jurisdictions.
Now, legislation facing its first hearing on Tuesday would hedge on that promise.