Tobacco Center Faculty Blog

Media giants sandbag Senators on child-safety data about smoking in their programming

October 2, 2019

Stanton A. Glantz, PhD

 

The entertainment industry digs in...Last April, with nicotine addiction soaring among American schoolchildren, three U.S. Senators quizzed America's media companies about their own dependence on tobacco.

The letters from Senators Blumenthal, Markey and Van Hollen posed two simple questions: In the past five years, how much of your entertainment programming contained tobacco imagery? How many kids have seen it? 

The Senators addressed thirteen companies.* Only Google provided any tobacco content and viewer data; Lionsgate did not reply at all.

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Juul suspends its campaign for SF Proposition C

September 30, 2019

Stanton A. Glantz, PhD

The San Francisco Examiner just reported that Juul has pulled the plug on its effort to pass Prop C, which would replace San Francisco’s current e-cigarette regulations with ones written by Juul.

My guess is that Juul did this for two reasons:

  1. The new Juul CEO, Philip Morris executive K.C. Crosthwaite, was put there to get Juul approved by FDA.  Continuing  a campaign that is making illegal health and therapeutic claims was likely not helping that, especially after Supervisor Walton filed a formal compliant with the FDA about them.
  2. Their private polling showed them losing or at risk of losing and they wanted to avoid the embarrassment of a defeat.

Unfortunately, Prop C remains on the ballot, which will require the health advocates to continue their campaign to make sure that it loses.  After all, some other tobacco interest could come in and revive the yes campaign.

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FDA needs to suspend its approval of IQOS until there is evidence that it will not cause the same lung disease as e-cigs

September 27, 2019

Stanton A. Glantz, PhD

While the nation is reeling from the scary reports of more than 500 severe lung illnesses and at least 9 deaths tied to e-cigarette use (and these numbers are expected to grow), Altria is rapidly moving to roll out is new IQOS heated tobacco product, beginning in Atlanta.  Like Juul, IQOS boasts a sleek, modern design that imitates Apple products, and is sold in stores around the world that imitate Apple stores.  Like Juul, IQOS is recharged electronically. And like Juul, IQOS comes in two menthol flavors (and these flavors are co-branded with Marlboro -- Marlboro Smooth Menthol and Marlboro Fresh Menthol). Nevertheless, Altria claims that IQOS will not be popular with youth, claims that the FDA has accepted.

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Uneven access to smokefree laws and policies contributes to health inequity

September 26, 2019

Stanton A. Glantz, PhD

Amy Hafez, Mariaelena Gonzalez, Maggie Kulik MC, Maya Vijayaraghavan, and I just published “Uneven Access to Smoke-Free Laws and Policies and Its Effect on Health Equity in the United States: 2000-2019” in American Journal of Public Health.  It reviews the literature and finds that although overall smoking prevalence has declined, it remains high among many subpopulations that are disproportionately burdened by tobacco use, resulting in tobacco-related health disparities. Slow diffusion of smoke-free laws to rural regions, particularly in the South and Southeast, and uneven adoption of voluntary policies in single-family homes and multiunit housing are key policy variables associated with the disproportionate burden of tobacco-related health disparities in these subpopulations. Developing policies that expand the reach of comprehensive smoke-free laws not only will facilitate the decline in smoking prevalence among subpopulations disproportionately burdened by tobacco use but will also decrease exposure to secondhand smoke and further reduce tobacco-caused health disparities in the United States.

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Altria makes a strategic move to take control of Juul

September 26, 2019

Stanton A. Glantz, PhD

With the replacement of Juul CEO Kevin burns by Altria’s Chief Growth Officer K.C. Crosthwaite, Juul has dropped any pretense of not being a tobacco company. 

Juul also announced that the company is suspending all broadcast, print and digital product advertising in the U.S., and is refraining from lobbying the administration on its recently announced policy that would pull flavored e-cigarettes from the market that haven’t received marketing authorization from FDA, and would “comply with the final policy” when effective. through the premarket tobacco product application (PMTA) process. (Juul, however, is continuing to spend millions of dollars on ads that contain unauthorized reduced risk and cessation claims in its campaign to pass San Francisco Proposition C, which would replace the City’s existing e-cig regulations with ones Juul wrote.)  

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