August 22, 2016
After 7 consecutive weeks of smokefree youth-rated movies, Hollywood falls of the wagon with Viacom’s Florence Foster Jenkins, which has more than 50 tobacco incidents.
It was good while it lasted.
This item is cross- posted from the Smoke Free Movies blog at https://smokefreemovies.ucsf.edu/blog/after-7-consecutive-weeks-smokefree-youth-rated-movies-hollywood-
August 21, 2016
Charalambos Vlachopoulos and colleagues just published “Electronic Cigarette Smoking Increases Aortic Stiffness and Blood Pressure in Young Smokers” in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, which adds to the evidence that e-cigarettes have immediate and substantial adverse effects on the cardiovascular system.
One of the many ways that smoking damages the cardiovascular system is by stiffening major blood vessels. How stiff the aorta (the big vessel leading directly out of the heart) is can be measured by how fast the pressure wave moves down the aorta, the pulse wave moving faster when the aorta is stiffer. Following use of an e-cigarette for just 5 minutes, the pulse wave velocity increased by about 40% as much as smoking a conventional cigarettes and about 80% after 30 minutes of use. The increase in blood pressure was about 80% as big as for a conventional cigarette for both.
Thus, like passive cigarette smoking, the effects of e-cigarette use are nearly as big as smoking despite the lower dose of toxins. This is more evidence for the nonlinear effects of smoke/aerosol on the cardiovascular system.
August 21, 2016
Thomas Willis and colleagues just published “E-cigarette use is differentially related to smoking onset among lower risk adolescents” in Tobacco Control. They followed 1136 youth forward in time for a year and found that e-cigarettes were attracting youth at low risk of smoking to initiate use with e-cigarettes and that kids who started with e-cigarettes were much more likely to be smoking cigarettes a year later than kids who did not start with e-cigarettes.
More important, they found that the effects were biggest in the low risk kids. In particular, if blows away the assertion made by e-cig enthusiasts that kids who start with e-cigs would be smoking conventional cigarettes anyway.
Here is their “What this paper adds” block from the paper:
August 21, 2016
I just published this piece on The Conversation at https://theconversation.com/big-tobacco-aims-its-guns-to-kill-california... (Visit that site to see the graphics.)
Big Tobacco aims its guns to kill California tobacco tax
August 21, 2016 8.21pm EDT
August 5, 2016
Despite the fact that the rules under India’s tobacco control law mandate that, “Promotional materials and posters of film and television programmes shall not depict any tobacco products or their usage in any form,” posters for the feature film Dishoom show popular actor John Abraham smoking a cigarette.
This situation echoes the US situation when Hollywood’s inclusion of smoking in television advertisements for movies effectively promoted cigarettes on television despite the prohibition on cigarette advertising on television. The difference, of course, is that what Bollywood is doing in India is a violation of law.
On August 2, 2016, the Indian NGO HRIDAY filed a complaint with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, noting that large versions of the poster showcasing Abraham, the lead actor, were prominently displayed at public places across the country and violated Indian law and urged Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to direct the filmmakers to stop using such irresponsible promotional materials.