May 23, 2016
Dorie Apollonio and I just published “Minimum Ages of Legal Access for Tobacco in the United States From 1863 to 2015” in American Journal of Public Health. I started work on this paper skeptical that Tobacco 21 was a good idea and ended up thinking it was an important policy to pursue. (Given how hard the tobacco companies fought it here in California was another good indication that Tobacco 21 is a good idea.)
Here is the abstract:
In the United States, state laws establish a minimum age of legal access (MLA) for most tobacco products at 18 years. We reviewed the history of these laws with internal tobacco industry documents and newspaper archives from 1860 to 2014.
The laws appeared in the 1880s; by 1920, half of states had set MLAs of at least 21 years. After 1920, tobacco industry lobbying eroded them to between 16 and 18 years. By the 1980s, the tobacco industry viewed restoration of higher MLAs as a critical business threat. The industry’s political advocacy reflects its assessment that recruiting youth smokers is critical to its survival.
May 22, 2016
Eunice Neeley and I just published "RJ Reynolds has not published a negative randomised clinical trial of Camel Snus for smoking cessation" in Tobacco Control. This paper uses previously secret tobacco industry documents to track the design and completition of a trial RJR did that, had it been positive, could have supported a claim that snus was effective for smoking cessation, thus bolstering the widely-made claim in harm reduction circles that snus was good for harm reduction. One arm of the study even included counselling smokers that snus was less dangerous than cigarettes.
It didn't work.
This paper is important because it debunks the harm reduction claim for snus. My guess is that is why RJR never bothered to publish the full results in a peer reviewed journal where it would be accessible to the FDA and other authorities considering harm reduction claims.
May 12, 2016
Bryan Slinker, Tor Neilands, and I recently published the third edition of our book Primer of Applied Regression ana Analysis of Variance. While not for everyone -- my wife refuses to read it -- it does provide an intuitive Englsih language (as opposed to math) explanation of the multivariate methods we use in our research, with lotsof practical examples, including how to actually do the analysis with widely used software packages. (There are even examples from smoking and tobacco control!)
For people interested in such things, I suggest that you check it out.
May 10, 2016
Health Care Costs Drop Quickly After Smokers Quit
UCSF Study Estimates How Much Smoking Reductions Can Save Each State
By Elizabeth Fernandez on May 10, 2016
When smoking drops, health care costs plummet the next year. A new national analysis by UC San Francisco of health care expenditures associated with smoking estimates that a 10 percent decline in smoking in the U.S. would be followed a year later by an estimated $63 billion reduction in total national health care costs.
The study examined the year-to-year relationship between changes in smoking and changes in medical costs for the entire country, taking into account differences between states as well as historical trends in smoking behavior, economic conditions, demographics, and health care expenditures.
The study provides strong evidence that reducing the prevalence of smoking and cigarette consumption per smoker is followed rapidly by lower health care expenditures – and the savings continue to grow in the short run.
May 6, 2016
This excellent discussion features a kumbaya moment between Greg Conley and Stan Glantz. Listen to it at http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201605060900