Global
Online Pro-Tobacco Marketing Exposure Is Associated With Dual Tobacco Product Use Among Underage US Students
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0890117120905231
Abstract
Purpose:
To understand the effect of pro-tobacco marketing on electronic cigarette and combustible cigarette dual use among US middle and high school students under 18 years of age.
Design:
Data were derived from the 2018 National Youth Tobacco Survey, an annual self-administered school-based cross-sectional survey.
Setting:
The survey was administered in public and private middle and high schools across the United States.
Participants:
The probability sample size was 15 238 middle and high school students with complete responses who were under 18 years of age during the study period.
Measures:
The study measured self-reported exposure to online combustible and electronic cigarette advertisements, dual use of combustible and electronic cigarettes during the past 30 days, exposure to the Real Cost antitobacco campaign advertisements, and other sociodemographic factors (eg, race/ethnicity, gender, and grade).
Analysis:
Logistic regressions were used to measure pro-tobacco marketing exposure and dual use as a function of pro-tobacco marketing exposure.
Results:
Descriptive analyses show that 59.0% of respondents were exposed to pro-tobacco online marketing, and 2.9% were dual users. Dual users (odds ratio [OR] = 1.73) and high school students (OR = 1.43) were more likely to report exposure to online pro-tobacco marketing.
Conclusions:
Findings indicate that a gap in electronic cigarette pro-tobacco marketing regulatory oversight may exist. Further policy action may be warranted to protect the public health of minors and other vulnerable populations who are most susceptible to pro-tobacco marketing.
New Zealand moves to ban vaping ads, sales to minors
(Reuters) – New Zealand’s government said on Sunday it will introduce laws banning all advertisements of e-cigarettes and the sale of such products to people under 18 in a move to regulate a market that has been under pressure globally.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-newzealand-vaping/new-zealand-moves-to-ban-vaping-ads-sales-to-minors-idUSKCN20H00M
A string of vaping-related deaths and illnesses tied to e-cigarettes, which allow users to inhale nicotine vapor, often flavored, without smoking, have been reported in the United States, leading to lawsuits and restrictions.
The New Zealand bill, posted on the health ministry’s website, also seeks to ban e-cigarettes and smokeless tobacco in smoke-free areas, restrict who can sell them and give the government the powers to recall or suspend vaping products.
“We are making sure that we are protecting our kids but at the same time ensuring that smokers who want to use vaping as a quit tool still have access to those products,” Associate Health Minister Jeny Salesa told state-owned TVNZ.
Although the number of people smoking has steadily fallen in New Zealand, according to official data, nearly one in eight adults, or close to half a million people, are regular cigarette smokers.
The government said in the bill, which will be proposed to parliament on Monday, that it “acknowledges” that vaping and smokeless tobacco products are less harmful than smoking and the bill would exempt vaping products from some of the provisions that apply to tobacco products.
“(The bill) enables all retailers to display products in-store, in contrast to requirements that require tobacco products to be out of the public’s sight,” the government said.
In the United States, the Trump administration earlier this year banned some popular e-cigarette flavours to curb rising teenage use of vaping products, allowing only menthol and tobacco flavours to remain on the market.
The New Zealand government came short of prohibiting flavours, but the bill limits general stores, such as convenience outlets, to selling only three flavours: tobacco, mint and menthol.
“Flavors may be used to attract children and young people to vape or use smokeless tobacco products, however, they also seem to be an important factor in supporting smokers to switch,” the government said in the bill.
$26.75M Award in Retrial Over Smoker’s Death More Than Doubles Original Trial Verdict
https://blog.cvn.com/26.75m-verdict-in-tobacco-case-retrial-over-smokers-fatal-cancer-more-than-doubles-original-award
St. Petersburg, FL— A Florida state court jury awarded $26.75 million to the family of a Florida smoker after finding the nation’s two largest tobacco companies responsible for his cancer death. Duignan v. R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris, 13-010978-CI.
The award includes $2.75 million in compensatory damages handed down last week and $24 million in punitives imposed equally against R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris Tuesday for the 1992 cancer death of Douglas Duignan.
Duignan, 42 when he died, smoked up to two packs of cigarettes a day for more than 25 years. His family contends Reynolds and Philip Morris’s role in a conspiracy to hide the dangers of cigarettes hooked Duignan to nicotine and caused his fatal cancer.
The award more than doubles the $12 million handed down in a 2015 trial in the case. That verdict was thrown out two years later, however, after the Florida Court of Appeals for the Second District found the trial judge in the case improperly discouraged a jury readback request.
The case is among thousands that stem from Engle v. Liggett Group Inc., a 1994 Florida state court class-action lawsuit against tobacco companies. The state’s supreme court later decertified the class, but ruled Engle progeny cases may be tried individually. Plaintiffs are entitled to the benefit of the jury’s findings in the original verdict, including the determination that tobacco companies placed a dangerous, addictive product on the market and hid the dangers of smoking.
To be entitled to those findings, however, each plaintiff must prove the smoker at the heart of their case suffered from nicotine addiction that was the legal cause of a smoking-related disease.
After Friday’s verdict finding class membership and awarding compensatories, the two-day punitive phase of trial turned on whether harsh financial punishment should be imposed in light of broad changes by the companies, and the industry at-large, over the last two decades.
During Tuesday’s closing statements, Shook Hardy & Bacon’s Kenneth Reilly reminded jurors that the tobacco industry now faced strict oversight by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, while Philip Morris had paid billions of dollars under a settlement with states’ attorneys-general. Meanwhile, he said, the company had gone farther than required in restricting their marketing.
“What message are you guys going to send to the people who are operating the business today and have been for a quarter of a century?” Reilly asked jurors. “They’ve never failed to comply with the FDA requirements. They’ve never failed to comply with the attorneys-general requirements. They’ve never been criticized, and look at all the voluntary things they did.”
Jones Day’s Jack Williams, representing Reynolds, agreed, and argued Reynolds now sent clear messages about smoking’s dangers while spending decades and billions of dollars trying to make a safer cigarette. “Punishing Reynolds now would… be saying that if a company changes and becomes more responsible and tries to do more of the right thing, it’s still… going to get punished,” Williams said.
But Searcy Denney’s James Gustafson argued that none of the changes the companies detailed affected Duignan’s ultimate end.
“Nothing that the defendants brought you… mitigated, or made less severe, what they did to Douglas Duignan,” Gustafson said. “If they don’t get punished for what they did, what does that do to deter others from doing the same thing?”
Psychological well-being and dual-use of cigarettes and e-cigarettes among high school students in Canada
Highlights
•6.3% of Canadian middle and high school students were dual users of cigarettes and e-cigarettes.
•Three times more Canadian youth used e-cigarettes exclusively than used cigarettes exclusively.
•High-frequency dual-users had lower psychological well-being than low-frequency dual-users.
•High-frequency cigarette dual-users had higher autonomy scores than low-frequency dual-users.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165032719331568
Abstract
Background
Cigarette and e-cigarette use are prevalent among Canadian adolescents. Evidence shows psychiatric comorbidity with adolescent cigarette smoking, but little is known about psychological well-being among dual users of e-cigarettes and cigarettes. This study examined the association between dual-use status and psychological well-being among high school students.
Methods
We used the 2016–2017 Canadian Student Tobacco, Alcohol, and Drugs Survey. Scales of psychological well-being (relatedness, autonomy, competency, prosocial behavior, and social responsiveness) were derived from self-reported data. Dual-use status was categorized into non-users, cigarette-only smokers, e-cigarette-only users, and four types of dual-users. Multivariable linear regression models examined the association between dual-use and psychological well-being.
Results
Among the participants, 6.3% were current dual-users, 4.1% were cigarette-only smokers, 12.6% were e-cigarette-only users, and 77.0% were non-users. Compared to non-users, relatedness and social responsiveness were lower for all users. When compared to e-cigarette users, most other users had lower relatedness (high-frequency dual-users [β=-6.05], high-frequency cigarette dual-users [β=-2.27], high-frequency e-cigarette dual-users: [β=-1.32], low-frequency dual-users [β=-1.91], and cigarette-only smokers [β=-1.66]) and social responsiveness. High-frequency dual-users had lower scores for relatedness and social responsiveness, while high-frequency cigarette dual-users had higher autonomy, compared to low-frequency dual-users.
Conclusion
Dual-users had poorer psychological well-being, which differed among dual-user sub-groups. This study highlights an opportunity for specialized programs to promote psychological well-being and reduce tobacco product use among adolescents.
Limitations
The study is based on respondent self-report, and the use of cross-sectional data precludes us from determining the temporal order between dual-use and psychological well-being.
Tobacco Retail Density and Initiation of Alternative Tobacco Product Use Among Teens
https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(19)30447-1/fulltext
Purpose
The rise of noncigarette, alternative tobacco product (ATP) use among adolescents may be due in part to an increase in retail availability of ATPs. We examined whether proximity and density of tobacco retailers near students’ homes are associated with a higher likelihood of initiating ATP use over time.
Methods
Using data from 728 adolescents (aged 13–19 years at baseline) residing in 191 different neighborhoods and attending 10 different California high schools, longitudinal multilevel and cross-classified random effect models evaluated individual-level, neighborhood-level, and school-level risk factors for ATP initiation after 1 year. Covariates were obtained from the American Community Survey and the California Department of Education.
Results
The sample was predominantly female (63.5%) and was racially and ethnically diverse. Approximately one third of participants (32.5%) reported ever ATP use at baseline, with 106 (14.5%) initiating ATP use within 1 year. The mean number of tobacco retailers per square mile within a tract was 5.66 (standard deviation = 6.3), and the average distance from each participant’s residence to the nearest tobacco retailer was .61 miles (standard deviation = .4). Living in neighborhoods with greater tobacco retailer density at baseline was associated with higher odds of ATP initiation (odds ratio = 1.22, 95% confidence interval = 1.07–2.12), controlling for individual and school factors.
Conclusions
Tobacco retailers clustered in students’ home neighborhood may be an environmental influence on adolescents’ ATP use. Policy efforts to reduce adolescent ATP use should aim to reduce the density of tobacco retailers and limit the proximity of tobacco retailers near adolescents’ homes and schools.
SNOWPLUS, the Maker of China’s E-cigarette Standard
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/snowplus-maker-china-e-cigarette-070000958.html
China had just celebrated its 70th Founding Anniversary, and is vigorously developing its diversified economy, one of which is e-cigarette, a special industry being taken more and more seriously.
As an emerging alternative to traditional tobacco, the new tobacco products created a global sales amounted to USD $24.7 billion in 2018, and the figure is expected to be up to USD $45 billion in 2024. More than 95% of all the world’s e-cigarettes are made in China, and over 90% are exported from here.
In China where e-cigarette is invented, nearly 700 independent e-cig brands are working on winning over the 300 million Chinese smokers in many ways. “Quality is above all other marketing techniques,” said a senior manager of SNOWPLUS – the leading producer in China’s e-cig industry. Every single SNOWPLUS product will be given an ultimate toxicity test to verify its safety by authoritative inspection agencies before it is put onto the market – this is second to none in China.
Besides, SNOWPLUS is vigorously pushing on the standardization of e-cigarette industry in China. On August 29, 2019, China’s first e-cigarette bluebook was presented by Tsinghua University’s Public Health and Technical Supervision Research Group with the title of Public Health and Technical Supervision Studies: Report on the Supervision of the E-Cigarette Industry. The ownership of the report was finally granted to SNOWPLUS by the research group of Tsinghua University.
“We appreciate SNOWPLUS’s contributions, as its ultimate goal is to set up the industrial standards and to make China’s e-cigarettes go much further and more stably.” said Yao Jide, the executive vice president of the Electronic Cigarette Industry Committee. SNOWPLUS is expected to be the vice-chairman unit of this committee at the end of this year.
The e-cigarette incident in the USA once insinuated doubts of the public about the new product. On September 28, however, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed the truth on its official website that, “the latest findings from the investigation into lung injuries caused by vaping, suggest that THC products played a role in the outbreak. Most of the people (77%) were found using THC-containing products, or both THC-containing products and nicotine-containing products.”
“That is exactly the reason why we should strive to push forward the introduction of industrial and national standards,” said the above senior manager of SNOWPLUS, “our ultimate goal is to improve the health of 1 billion smoking population worldwide.”