While U.S. tobacco regulations prevent marketers from truthfully informing smokers about lower-risk products, the U.K. appears to be fostering more harm reduction-oriented tobacco laws. The Wall Street Journal reports that tobacco giant British American Tobacco is establishing a new unit — Nicoventures — devoted to the manufacture of “innovative, regulatory-approved” smokeless products.
Harm Reduction
The 22nd International Harm Reduction Conference is underway this week in Beirut, Lebanon, and an article published yesterday in The Lancet underscores the goals of the “Beirut Declaration on HIV and Injecting Drug Use: A Global Call for Action,” a new document released at the annual meeting. In the paper, the International Harm Reduction Association is asking world leaders to scale up global efforts for evidence-based HIV harm reduction programs among injection drug users.
In a survey asking approximately 250,000 people about their current and past smoking habits, researchers learned that smoking causes half a million deaths annually in the U.S. — an increase from the prior estimates of about 450,000 deaths. To put this in perspective, about 2.5 million Americans die each year from all-cause mortality, indicating that smoking-related deaths account for approximately 20 percent of all fatalities. Published in the journal Epidemiology, researchers from the Center for Global Health Research at St.
In a surprise ruling, the FDA determined last week that tobacco product maker Star Scientific Inc. is free to market and sell its Ariva-BDL and Stonewall-BDL dissolvable tobacco lozenges independent of FDA regulation since the products do not fall under the jurisdiction of the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.
Explaining the FDA’s decision, Dr. Lawrence Deyton, the director of the FDA’s new Center for Tobacco Products, stated, “At this time, only cigarettes, cigarette tobacco, smokeless tobacco and roll-your-own tobacco are subject” to the law, and these particular Star Scientific products are not currently subject to regulation.
Following a report issued by the Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee (TPSAC) last week claiming that a menthol cigarette ban would be beneficial to public health, journalist Denise Mann revisits the issue in her article for WebMD, “Are Menthol Cigarettes Riskier Than Non-Menthol?” Ms. Mann cites a study published in yesterday's Journal of the National Cancer Institute, co-authored by ACSH friend Dr. Joseph K.
In March 23 article for WebMD, Denise Mann quotes ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross in his response to the proposed ban on menthol cigarettes:
In Friday’s Dispatch, we reported that the Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee (TPSAC) called for a ban on menthol cigarettes, but the committee didn’t actually go quite that far. The TPSAC report, without making any specific recommendations to ban or restrict the flavoring, simply stated that removing menthol cigarettes from the market would, in their opinion, benefit public health.
The Tobacco Product Scientific Advisory Committee (TPSAC) issued a draft report earlier today advocating a ban on menthol cigarettes. Their statement said, “removal of menthol cigarettes from the marketplace would benefit the public health.” This was based on studies which have indicated a higher rate of smoking-related diseases among African-Americans, who overwhelmingly prefer menthol cigarettes. As ACSH has detailed in its own menthol report, which ACSH's Dr.
Though the rate of smoking among U.S. adults has remained relatively stagnant over the past few years — hovering around 20 percent as reported by the CDC in September — there is still some good news to be had. A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association uses two large, population-based surveys comprising a total of 1,662,353 respondents to determine if smokers are smoking fewer cigarettes. In 1965, 22.9 percent of Americans were high-intensity smokers, meaning they smoked at least a pack a day. But by 2007, that number fell to only 7.2 percent.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is fuming over the latest animation flick Rango, featuring the voice of Johnny Depp as a desert town chameleon, stating that the depiction of smoking in the PG-rated movie will encourage younger audiences to think the habit is appealing. Multiple characters, including Rango’s two sidekicks, a toad and fox, use cigars and a long cigarette holder in the film, while Rango himself swallows a cigar and breathes fire in the face of a villain during one scene.
ACSH would like to issue a correction to yesterday’s Dispatch item regarding the FDA’s Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee (TPSAC) draft report, which noted the incidence of mentholated cigarette smoking among American teens.
While we still don’t know the true extent of the radiation threat from the Japanese nuclear reactors damaged during the historically unprecedented earthquake and tsunami, there is one thing we do know — U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin needs a refresher course in medicine. When asked by a reporter about the sudden increase in purchases of potassium iodide (KI) pills in the U.S. due to fears of radiation spreading to the California coast, Dr. Benjamin said this was not an overreaction and supported the idea.