January 11, 2018
David Bareham and I just published “E-Cigarettes: Use, Effects on Smoking, Risks, and Policy Implications” in Annual Review of Public Health. The review, which includes 151 references, is a comprehensive overview of all aspects of e-cigarettes, including an updated meta-analysis on the association between e-cigarette use and smoking cessation (still shows depressed quitting overall).
Here is the abstract:
Since e-cigarettes appeared in the mid-2000s, some practitioners, researchers, and policy makers have embraced them as a safer alternative to conventional cigarettes and an effective way to stop smoking. While e-cigarettes deliver lower levels of carcinogens than do conventional cigarettes, they still expose users to high levels of ultrafine particles and other toxins that may substantially increase cardiovascular and noncancer lung disease risks, which account for more than half of all smoking-caused deaths, at rates similar to conventional cigarettes. Moreover, rather than stimulating smokers to switch from conventional cigarettes to less dangerous e-cigarettes or quitting altogether, e-cigarettes are reducing smoking cessation rates and expanding the nicotine market by attracting youth.
January 3, 2018
The California Office of Traffic Safety is running an ad campaign produced by Prosio Communications that makes the important point that “DUI doesn’t just mean booze.” That’s a good idea.
And one of the ads, which compares marijuana to tobacco, is quite good. People need to make the connection that smoke (including secondhand smoke) is smoke, whether it is from a tobacco cigarette or a joint. (I know that is not the point of the ad, but it is part of the implicit message, which is a good thing.)
Another of the Office of Traffic Safety ads shows several mellow marijuana users extolling the virtues of getting high (just don’t drive). The implicit message of this one is “marijuana is great stuff.”
While marijuana is legal in California now, the State shouldn’t be out there promoting it. After all, the same State of California has identified marijuana smoke as “known to cause cancer.”
January 2, 2018
Janice Tsoh and our colleagues at UCSF just submitted this public comment to the CDC on improving their smoking cessation efforts. The tracking number is 1k2-90p6-pbgp and a PDF of the comment is available here.
CDC should employ evidence-based strategies to help people quit using tobacco that support the initiation of quit attempts and maintaining long-term abstinence, including: social media interventions, clinician-extender or point-of-care technology tools, interactive voice response systems, market segmentation, insurance coverage for cessation treatment, tobacco-free policies in substance abuse treatment, mental health and other institutional settings including prisons and military settings.
Janice Tsoh PhD, Dorie Apollonio PhD, Noah Gubner PhD, Joseph Guydish PhD, Sharon Hall PhD, Gary Humfleet PhD, Pam Ling MD, Danielle Ramo PhD, Jason Satterfield PhD, Maya Vijayraghavan MD, Lauren Lempert JD, MPH, and Stanton Glantz PhD
Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, University of California San Francisco
Docket control number CDC-2017-0103
January 2, 2018
January 2, 2018
Shannon Watkins, Ben Chaffee, and I just published “Association of Noncigarette Tobacco Product Use With Future Cigarette Smoking Among Youth in the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) Study, 2013-2015” in JAMA Pediatrics. This paper shows that use of any non-cigarette tobacco product, including but not just e-cigarettes, predicts smoking cigarettes a year later. Importantly, the effects of these different products in stimulating future cigarette smoking are independent of each other, which means that dual and poly-product increases the odds of progressing to smoking more than using one product alone. This is very concerning because poly-product use is becoming the norm among young people.
Here is the UCSF press release on the paper:
Nonsmoking adolescents who use e-cigarettes, smokeless tobacco or tobacco water pipes are more likely to start smoking conventional cigarettes within a year, according to new research by UC San Francisco.
December 31, 2017
My colleague Gideon St. Helen submitted this comment to the FDA on December 21, 2017. The tracking number is 1k1-90hj-dh4t; a PDF of the comment is available here.
FDA should reject the tobacco industry’s efforts to guide e-cigarette manufacturing standards and instead formulate their own science-driven tough regulations to protect public health
Gideon St.Helen, PhD1
1Division of Clinical Pharmacology, Department of Medicine, University of California San Francisco
Docket Number: FDA-2013-N-0227
December 21, 2017