July 18, 2016
One of the things that make the discussion of e-cigarettes complicated is that no one knows precisely how the market will develop, how the advent of e-cigarettes will interact with cigarette use, and how dangerous e-cigarettes turn out to be.
Last year Sara Kalkhoran and I published a model that sought to address these issues by examining how different future scenarios would impact public health as a function of how dangerous e-cigarettes turn out to be. The modeling approach we took was to model the steady state situation after the new market is fully developed and stable. The broad conclusion that we drew was that, under the most likely future scenarios, the overall population effect of e-cigarette use would be positive if e-cigarettes are not very dangerous and negative if they are more than about 20-30% as dangerous as cigarettes.
July 15, 2016
Today the plaintiffs responded to the motion to dismiss in the national class lawsuit filed against the MPAA, the studios that control it, and the National Association of Theater Owners for fraud on the grounds that they certify films with smoking as "appropriate for children" despite knowing that smoking in movies causes kids to smoke.
The brief is all legal arguments, but it contains some great examples of statements that the MPAA made defending the unique value of the ratings system to parents for deciding what films their kids can watch in other cases that will likely help the plaintiffs in this case.
You can read the full filing here.
Learn more about the lawsuit here.
July 14, 2016
Check it out at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/13/the-problem-with-s...
They say that's why they have to pay more money than most.
July 14, 2016
Jonathan Polansky and I just published “Tobacco product placement and its reporting to the Federal Trade Commission” through the University of California eScholarship initiative. This report compares the product placement activities by the cigarette companies between 1978 and 1994 that are discussed in the companies’ internal correspondence with what they reported to the US Federal Trade Commission. We found that only about half the activities were reported.
Our report also contains a list of the movies that appeared to have product placement.
This information illustrates the need for the FTC (and FDA) to act to at the very least ensure accurate reporting and to make sure that movies (and other entertainment media like video games) are not being used to engage in subliminal advertising for tobacco products.
Here is the Executive Summary:
The historical record strongly suggests that asking tobacco companies to report their product placement activities and expenditures did not capture all activity in this area.
July 12, 2016
Today the CDC published a very well done study showing that 81% of residents in multiunit housing have already made their units smokefree. Unfortunately, the Obama Administration is still sitting on a rule that would make HUD subsidized multiunit housing smokefree. (As it has done with FDA rules on tobacco, the Administration’s cost-benefit analysis also vastly overstates costs and understates benefits.) The CDC’s national data provides powerful evidence on the importance of this issuing a final rule. It also supports local and state legislation mandating smokefree multiunit housing.
People who do the right thing and make their homes (apartments) smokefree should not be accosted by toxic chemicals in other people’s secondhand smoke.
Here is the CDC press release, which is a good summary of the paper: