November 16, 2016
E-cigarette advocates love to present e-cigarettes as a disruptive technology developed in China to compete with the big cigarette companies. Lauren Dutra, Rachel Grana, and I looked in the previously secret tobacco industry documents and found that Phillip Morris had been working on what became e-cigarette technology since 1990 and had developed a functional system well before the Chinese
This work, summarized on our new paper “Philip Morris research on precursors to the modern e-cigarette since 1990” just published in Tobacco Control found
▸ Hon Lik, a Chinese pharmacist, is often cited as, in 2003, inventing the modern e-cigarette, which some see as a disruptive technology to compete with conventional cigarette companies.
▸ Philip Morris has researched nicotine aerosol technology similar to the modern e-cigarette since 1990.
▸ Philip Morris developed nicotine aerosol technology to attempt to keep health conscious smokers from using nicotine replacement while circumventing regulation and restrictions on cigarettes.
▸ In the 1990s, concerns about triggering Food and Drug Administration regulation of cigarettes led Philip orris to shift its focus towards pharmaceutical applications of aerosol technology
November 15, 2016
Last week federal judge Richard Seeborg ruled against the plaintiffs in the national class action lawsuit that claimed that the MPAA ratings were a form of commercial speech that did not warrant First Amendment protections.
The MPAA, studios, and theaters argued successfully that the ratings were “opinions” and not subject to restrictions on commercial speech that were designed to protect the public interest.
The scientific evidence that smoking in movies causes kids to smoke was not at issue. The court simply said, that despite the science showing that onscreen smoking caused kids to smoke, the MPAA was free to award youth ratings to movies with smoking.
This item is cross-posted from the Smoke Free Movies blog at https://smokefreemovies.ucsf.edu/blog/court-rules-mpaa-award-youth-ratin...
November 9, 2016
California voters handed Big Tobacco a resounding defeat Tuesday when they passed Proposition 56 to raise the cigarette tax by US$2 a pack (with increases in e-cigarettes and other tobacco products). This is the first increase in cigarette taxes in California in 18 years.
The money will fund health care for poor people and reinvigorate California’s tobacco control program.
Economists project that the effect of the price increase alone will cut smoking prevalence from today’s 9.4 percent to 7.1 percent in 2020; the fact that Prop 56 quadruples the funding for the state’s aggressive tobacco control program will make that effect even bigger.
The drop in smoking due to Prop 56 is so large that it will save California families, taxpayers and businesses $1 billion a year in health costs starting next year.
November 1, 2016
Despite Big Tobacco spending US$71 million to snuff out Proposition 56, an initiative to raise cigarette taxes by $2, 56 percent of Californians said they planned to vote yes just 13 days before the election.
California is the biggest tobacco market in the country, but at just 87 cents, it has one of the lowest cigarette taxes in the country. That low tax makes cigarettes more affordable and boosts tobacco sales and profits.
Prop 56 will cut tobacco sales by a quarter of a billion dollars a year, which will take a hefty chunk out of Big Tobacco’s profits.
Only tobacco companies are fighting the tax
October 31, 2016
As part of their ongoing deceptive campaign opposing California Proposition 59, they ran an ad in which a "white lady gardening" who bore a remarkable resemblance to actress Kathy Griffin urged women to vote against Prop 56. As the ad urged, Griffin "followed the money" and found that Big Tobacco paid for the ad.
She then posted her own ad on YouTube correcting the record.
I've been telling the Yes on 56 campaign that the best response to Philip Morris and Reynolds' disinformation campaign was humor. Griffin proves it. The campaign should get her permission and put the video on TV.