April 12, 2015
My colleague in the Division of Cardiology Matt Springer and I just released this policy briefing on secondhand marijuana smoke exposure. These findings highlight the importance of including marijuana in smokefree laws as marijuana legalization continues to develop. A PDF version of this briefing is available here.
Marijuana Use and Heart Disease:
Potential Effects of Public Exposure to Smoke
Matthew L. Springer, PhD and Stanton A. Glantz, PhD
April 13, 2015
April 12, 2015
My colleagues Ben Chaffe, Chaffee, Elizabeth Couch, and Margaret Walsh just released a report, Smokeless Tobacco in Sport and Use Among Adolescents, that provides a current summary of the evidence on sports as promotional venues for smokeless tobacco use. This report is particularly timely given debates around the state on whether cities and the state should prohibit smokeless tobacco use in baseball stadiums.
Here is a summary of the main points:
• Smokeless tobacco use substantially increases the risk of oral and pancreatic cancer, gum disease, nicotine addiction, and initiation of cigarette smoking among adolescents.
• Nearly 15% of U.S. high school males currently use smokeless tobacco, and use prevalence is higher among high school students who participate in organized sports than among non-athlete peers.
• There is little evidence that smokeless tobacco improves athletic performance, yet use among participants in certain sports and athletic events, such as ice hockey, baseball, wresting, and rodeo, far exceed levels observed in the general population.
• Modeling of smokeless tobacco use by family, friends, respected coaches, and elite athletes is strongly associated with smokeless tobacco initiation among adolescent males.
April 9, 2015
The CDC TIPS for former smokers has release an ad warning people who are trying to quit smoking about the dangers of dual use of e-cigarettes and cigarettes. This is an important and timely addition to the Tips from Former Smokers campaign that the CDC has been running.
This is an important message to counter the misinformation that just replacing some cigaretters with e-cigarettes is a good thing.
When people ask me about using e-cigarettes to quit, I tell them that e-cigarettes are not FDA approved for smoking cessation and that there are other products that have been tested and demonstrated to be effective. But if they want to try quitting cigarettes using e-cigarettes, it is very important that they stop smoking cigarettes entirely. (Read more)
You can learn more about Kristy and hear her story in her own words here.
The CDC needs to make this one of their TV and radio ads.
April 5, 2015
A March 31, 2015 “policy analysis,” E-cigarettes Poised to Save Medicaid Billions, prepared by J. Scott Moody, the Chief Executive Officer and Chief economist at the organization State Budget Solutions, has started popping up state legislatures all over the country.
The basic argument in this “policy analysis” is that
April 4, 2015
On March 23, 2015, Dr Richard Cottrell, the Director General of the World Sugar Research Organisation, published comment criticising of the paper, "Sugar Industry Influence on the Scientific Agenda of the National Institute of Dental Research’s 1971 National Caries Program: A Historical Analysis of Internal Documents" Cristin Kearns, Laura Schmidt and I published in PLoS Medicine.
The most interesting thing about Dr. Cottrell's criticisms is that they are all contrdicted by the sugar industry's own internal documents. Here is our response to what he wrote:
The World Sugar Research Organization’s (WSRO) response [1] to our paper Sugar Industry Influence on the Scientific Agenda of the National Institute of Dental Research’s 1971 National Caries Program: A Historical Analysis of Internal Documents [2] illustrates how the sugar industry continues to try to protect itself from potentially damaging research.
None of the criticisms in the WSRO letter contest the substantive results of our analysis of internal sugar industry documents.