June 16, 2019
Colorado Public Radio ran an important story last week on the implications of the fact that PMI’s IQOS can already communicate back to Philip Morris and Juul is talking about activating the same capability to its e-cigs. The title says it all: As E-Cigarettes Get More Sophisticated, Questions Mount About Privacy, Potential To Maximize Addiction.
These capabilities are being presented as benign ways to give users helpful information like when to clean the IQOS or buy more heetsticks (the tobacco plugs IQOS heats), but they will also enable PMI and Juul (and any other company that adopts similar technology) the ability to track the detailed puffing behavior of users to “tune” the device so that it maximizes consumption (i.e., sales of heetsticks and pods) to maximize sales and profits.
Everyone knows that you recharge the Juul by putting it on a stand that plugs into a USB port. That takes two electric contacts (positive and negative). When I asked what the other two contacts on the bottom of the Juul are, I was told “data.”
This is a very important issue that should draw the attention of national media (NPR could pick the story up from CPR) and privacy advocates well beyond the usual public health crowd.
June 16, 2019
Here is the job description:
The (Sr.) Scientific Affairs Advisor, US Government is principal scientist role who will be providing key insight and opinion for policy and regulation, research analysis and in-depth scientific contextualization to the US Government Affairs and Regulatory teams. This position is responsible for scientific advisory to internal organizations for comprehensive, accurate scientific and clinical information within regulatory guidelines of region/country. These organizations would include: medical and clinical affairs, communications, government affairs, commercial operations, and management. This will include meeting with government officials and strategic third-party scientific partners in DC and across the US.
Duties include (among other things):
- Meeting with government officials and strategic third-party scientific partners in DC and across the US.
- Ability to manage in-depth confident conversations/debates with scientific, medical, business and government professionals.
- Work closely with regulatory, medical and clinical affairs, region presidents and global scientific affairs to disseminate and maintain integrity of corporate scientific narrative.
June 13, 2019
A federal judge in San Francisco ruled yesterday that a class action lawsuit filed here in San Francisco alleging a wide range of wrongdoing could move forward. Like the separate class action lawsuit in Florida, the complaint documents how Juul developed and marketed Juul to make it as addictive as possible.
The extensive discussion of how Juul developed and implemented its social media campaign is especially interesting because it shows just how meticulous and effective Juul was in pursuing its target market. Reading about the nuts and bolts of how they did this is really scary.
June 13, 2019
Candice Bowling and I just published “Civic Engagement in California Cannabis Policy Development” in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs. This paper tells the tale of how the California Bureau of Cannabis Control proposed a rule that would have allowed the same law enforcement officials charged with enforcing cannabis laws to go into the cannabis business themselves, an obvious conflict of interest.
This was the first time any state proposed such an exemption. After public comment, including from us, the provision was withdrawn. This paper highlights the need for clear conflict of interest laws in cannabis regulation and enforcement. It also shows the value of participating in the public comment process.
This detailed case study is a companion paper to our earlier publication on cannabis and conflict of interest laws, “Conflict of Interest Provisions in State Laws Governing Medical and Adult Use Cannabis” published a few months ago in American Journal of Public Health.
Here is the abstract:
June 8, 2019
On June 7, the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee voted 3-0 to endorse two bills on e-cigs to the full Board, which will consider them on June 18. One states that the City will no longer allow the sale, distribution, or manufacturing of any tobacco product, including e-cigarettes, on city property. (Juul’s main office is on rented city property, but would not be affected until its current lease runs out.) The other, more important, one makes it illegal to see e-cigarettes in San Francisco until they have a marketing order from the FDA.
Neither Juul nor any other e-cigarette company has even applied for such an order even though they could have done so for the last three years, since the FDA issued its “deeming rule” in August 2016.
Under the original rule, e-cig companies would have 2 years (until 2018) to submit their applications; the products could stay on the market for up to another year while the FDA considered their applications.