July 30, 2016
The MPAA, studios, NATO, and the plaintiffs in the national class action lawuit alleging that their rating system defrauds parents have agreed that the defndants' response to the plaintiff's June filing will be due on September 15, 2016 and proposed to the judge that the hearing on the Motion to Dismiss and SLAPP Motion will be held on October 27.
The judge will have to approve this schedule, but such approvals when both sides agree are usual.
You can read about the case and all the legal documents at https://smokefreemovies.ucsf.edu/take-action/class-action. The plaintiff's July 15 response is especially entertaining.
This item is cross-posted from the Smoke Free Movies blog at https://smokefreemovies.ucsf.edu/blog/mpaa-studios-and-theaters-will-fil...
July 29, 2016
Heikki Hiilamo and I just published “FCTC followed by accelerated implementation of tobacco advertising bans” in Tobacco Control. This paper shows a statistically demonstrable positive effect on implementation of national advertising bans but, as with similar positive effects on smokefree laws and health warning labels, the effect is fading.
These three papers point to the need to redouble efforts at implementation, especially in countries with limited state capacity.
July 28, 2016
The fourteen states hand out the most lavish subsidies to Hollywood film producers together spent $1.48 billion on movies proven to recruit kids to smoke from 2010 to 2016 — $150 million more than they invested over the same period to reduce smoking.
Smokefree Movies now tracks top subsidy states and countries, updating our dollar estimates weekly. Watch the totals grow at How you pay...
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2010 to 2016, six individual states spent more to subsidize smoking movies than on programs to reduce smoking: Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nevada and New Mexico.
New York State and Pennsylvania spent nearly as much to promote smoking as they did to reduce smoking. California, Connecticut and North Carolina spent at least two-thirds as much on films with smoking as they did on tobacco control.*
July 26, 2016
Matt Springer and our colleagues at UCSF just published "One Minute of Marijuana Secondhand Smoke Exposure Substantially Impairs Vascular Endothelial Function" in Journal of the American Heart Association. Here is the press release UCSF sent out about the paper, which provides a good summary:
One minute of exposure to second-hand smoke (SHS) from marijuana diminishes blood vessel function to the same extent as tobacco, but the harmful cardiovascular effects last three times longer, according to a new study in rats led by UC San Francisco researchers.
In a healthy animal, increased blood flow prompts arteries to widen, a process known as flow-mediated dilation (FMD). When FMD is compromised, as happens during SHS exposure, blood flow is impeded, and the risks of heart attack, atherosclerosis and other heart problems increase, said UCSF’s Matthew Springer, PhD, professor of medicine and senior author of the new study.
“Your blood vessels can carry more blood if they sense that they need to pass more blood to the tissues,” Springer said. “They dilate to allow more blood through. But that’s inhibited by exposure to smoke.”
July 25, 2016
Jan Czogala and colleagues just published “Secondhand exposure to vapors from electronic cigarettes” in Nicotine and Tobacco Research in which they measured the air pollution produced by e-cigarettes using both smoking machines and, more important, actual use by people in the same room.
They found, not surprisingly, that e-cigarettes pollute the air with nicotine and fine particles. This is what one would expect because, unlike conventional cigarettes, e-cigarettes do not generate any sidestream smoke because they do not smolder between puffs the way conventional cigarettes do. Because they do not burn tobacco, they do not put combustion products into the air.