July 27, 2017
Shu-Hong Zhu and colleagues at UCSD just published “E-cigarette use and associated changes in population smoking cessation: evidence from US current population surveys,” a well-done sequential cross-sectional study in which they concluded that in 2014-2015 there was a substantial increase in quit attempts and successful quitting among people using e-cigarettes compared to previous years.
I was particularly struck by the care with which the authors placed their results in the context of the larger literature, including changes to the policy environment which could be affecting quit attempts, such as tax increases and the CDC TIPS from Former Smokers media campaign (which the Republicans in Congress are working to defund despite its proven success).
July 26, 2017
We have another great lineup this year.
Keynote:
Smokefree or Up in Smoke? Reinvigorated tobacco control policy in an era of legalized marijuana
Karen L. Smith, M.D., M.P.H.
Director & State Public Health Officer
California Department of Public Health
Using social media to help young adults quit smoking.
Danielle Ramo, PhD, UCSF Associate Professor of Psychiatry
Learning from tobacco industry to fight back: Peer-crowd targeting in e-cigarette advertisements
Minji Kim, PhD, UCSF Postdoctoral fellow
Chasing the cloud or choking on it: E-cigarettes and lung health
Jeffrey Gotts, MD, UCSF Assistant Professor of Medicine
Containing Diffusion: The Tobacco Industry’s Trade Strategy to Block Tobacco Standardized Packaging
Eric Crosbie, PhD, UCSF postdoctoral fellow
Closing speaker (comments and reactions)
Janet Napolitano JD, President, University of California
This is a public symposium open to all members of the University community, public health and health professionals, the media, and the public
The symposium runs from 8:30 to 12:30 on Friday February 2 at the UCSF Parnassus campus.
July 25, 2017
The Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids has been keeping an eye on the campaign expenditures for the “local concerned citizens” that are working to force a referendum on the menthol/flavor ban. Here are the numbers as of July 15, 2017 (campaign filing on July 20):
- RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company has spent $723,769 in support of the Let’s Be Real referendum to undo the SF flavor ordinance. That includes $600,000 in loans and $123,769 in in-kind support (polling, data support, consulting/expenses, and employee time).
- The campaign has paid $150,000 to Goco Consulting in Sacramento (petition circulating) and $2,000 to Rojas Communication Group in Tarzana for campaign consulting.
- The campaign has an outstanding bill of $10,927.12 owed to the Monaco Group in Santa Ana for campaign literature and mailings.
- Cash on hand is $448,000.
This investment shows that there is going to be a major effort to roll back the law. This is the best evidence that advocates should keep pushing replications of the law everywhere.
July 25, 2017
While the evidence that kids who initiate tobacco product use is already pretty bulletproof, all the studies so far have been from the US. Now two new studies, one from Scotland and one from Canada, are taking the case global.
The first study, "Relationship between trying an electronic cigarette and subsequent cigarette experimentation in Scottish adolescents: A cohort study," by Catherine Best and colleagues, followed 3807 Scottish adolescents (11-18 years old) who had never smoked a cigarette forward in time for 1 year. The youth who smoked e-cigarettes at baseline were twice as likely to have smoked a conventional cigarette by follow-up 1 year later. The authors controlled for a wide range of variables, including susceptibility to smoking, a well-established predictor of future smoking. The fact that the authors followed the youth forward in time supports concluding that e-cigarette use was increasing the liklihood of subsequent cigarette smoking.
July 14, 2017
When I testified in support of Supervisor Malia Cohen’s ordinance ending the sale of flavored and menthol tobacco products in San Francisco, I talked about how it had the same feeling as in 1983 when I testified for San Francisco’s new smoking restriction law. While laws restricting flavored tobacco product sales already existed, the San Francisco ordinance, now signed into law to take effect in April 2018, is the strongest to date and will serve as a model for other local governments looking to adopt legislation.
When I made the comparison I didn’t realize how closely history would be repeating itself.
As with Supervisor Cohen’s flavor/menthol law, back in 1983 the Francisco passed clean indoor air ordinance (which was not even 100% smokefree) attracted national attention, the tobacco companies knew that it could become the model for others around the country and world. In a last-ditch effort to stop the law they forced a referendum (popular vote) on the law.