Tobacco Center Faculty Blog

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.

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.