Today is World No Tobacco Day, and the media have commemorated the occasion from a variety of perspectives. The New York Times today features an article focusing on new state laws that seek to ban or limit hookah use, which many teens and young adults wrongly believe is a safer alternative to cigarette smoking. Paul G. Billings, a vice president of the American Lung Association, tells The Times that such anti-hookah policies are “a top priority” for the group.
Harm Reduction
An editorial warning about the alleged dangers of smokeless tobacco — posted on a local South Dakota news website, TheDailyRepublic.com — had ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross riled up this morning since it “contained more falsehoods and misleading statements in the fewest words that I’ve had the displeasure to read recently.”
The editorial castigates the tobacco industry, specifically R.J. Reynolds Inc., for its newly launched ad campaign for Camel Snus, which the author wrongly asserts is a smokeless brand of chewing tobacco. In fact, it isn’t — it’s a moist tobacco product in a tiny pouch that doesn’t involve either chewing or spitting.
On his tobacco blog, Tobaccoanalysis.com, ACSH scientific advisor Dr. Michael Siegel, a professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences, Boston University School of Public Health, addresses the misleading claims of a recent article published in Tobacco Control, in which the authors reprimand the tobacco industry for not doing enough to lower the levels of tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs) in cigarettes over the years.
Tennessee Lieutenant Governor Ron Ramsey released a statement last week proposing that his state approve funding smoking cessation drugs and counseling under their Medicaid program, TennCare. Mr. Ramsey maintains that funding for these cessation methods should remain in the state budget because such programs will “make a difference in the overall health of fellow Tennesseans — all while saving taxpayer dollars in the long-run.” ACSH sympathizes with Lt. Governor Ramsey’s endorsement of tax-payer subsidized cessation programs in his state, but, adds ACSH's Dr.
Can smokeless tobacco products satiate a smoker’s nicotine craving while simultaneously serving as a smoking cessation aid? And if so, is it conceivable that such a transition might result in net harm, paradoxical as that seems? These are the pivotal questions that Matthew Carpenter, an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the Department of Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina, aims to answer with his new year-long study on 1,250 smokers nationwide. In his upcoming research, funded primarily through the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Carpenter will provide half of the study participants with Camel Snus while the other half will not be given anything.
Speaking of snus, three members of the Swedish Parliament recently wrote a letter to the editor of the Swedish newspaper Göteborgs-Posten, requesting that the E.U. lift the ban against Swedish snus. The writers argue that, while the E.U. considers the sale of snus outside of Sweden illicit, all other oral tobacco products are fully legal and loosely regulated — a policy that, Dr. Ross says, is among the most ironic. Why should Swedish snus be prohibited when as many as 50 million Europeans have tried oral tobacco in the past year and between five and ten million use some form of smokeless tobacco daily?
Today readers of a number of newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, U.S.A. Today and The New York Daily News, will encounter a full-page advertisement for Camel Snus.
New York City anti-smoking laws are today extended to include city parks, public beaches and pedestrian malls. The ban is controversial, in that many consider it an infringement of personal rights for the sake of health benefits that are decidedly questionable, or non-existent. However, the city has shifted the emphasis of the law to its effect on residents’ quality of life instead, pointing to the absence of both smoke and cigarette-strewn public grounds as reason enough for the ban. ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan notes that she would be indignant if the new law were characterized as protecting public health; however, “if it’s presented as a quality of life issue, I can support that,” she says.
Indiana’s Republican governor (and potential presidential candidate) Mitch Daniels is expected to sign an omnibus bill that includes tobacco harm reduction language specifically stipulating that tobacco taxes reflect the potential for adverse health effects posed by the product. Notably, the bill establishes that moist snuff (known as snus), a smokeless tobacco product, should be taxed at a lower rate than other tobacco products because it poses fewer health risks. ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan applauds the new bill, noting that the concept of tobacco taxes reflecting variable risk is not widely understood by politicians and activists.
A potential ban on menthol cigarettes got some momentum, based upon three studies published in the latest edition of The American Journal of Public Health. Together, these studies were commissioned by Legacy and supported by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American Public Health Association, and the Center for American Progress.
Is there a link between smoking and blindness? If you weren’t aware that there is, it’s probably for lack of a national awareness campaign. Smoking is indeed causally associated with a number of visually impairing eye diseases, including cataracts and age-related macular degeneration, but a recently released international study in the journal Optometry found that most people simply aren’t aware of the risk. (They might have been, had they perused our classic monograph: Cigarettes: What the Warning Label Doesn’t Tell You).
ACSH gives two cheers to the New Zealand Ministry of Health for acknowledging that electronic cigarettes are “far safer” than traditional cigarettes. This statement was made to Members of Parliament (MPs) as they prepare to vote on the Smoke-Free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill, which includes a proposal to legislate electronic cigarettes containing nicotine as a tobacco-related product. Currently, however, the Ministry still considers electronic cigarettes to be unregulated medical devices and recommends that clinical trials be conducted to prove their safety and efficacy (i.e. to facilitate smokers’ efforts to quit) before allowing their distribution.