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Study: CVS Health’s tobacco halt reduces overall cigarette purchasing

Feb 17th, 2017
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Author
Daphne Howland @daphnehowland

Published
Feb. 17, 2017

http://www.retaildive.com/news/study-cvs-healths-tobacco-halt-reduces-overall-cigarette-purchasing/436470/

Dive Brief:

• Since CVS stopped selling tobacco products in 2014, Americans are now less likely to buy cigarettes, with CVS shoppers in particular 38% less likely to buy cigarettes anywhere, according to a study conducted by CVS researchers recently published in the American Journal of Public Health.
• Those who purchased three or more packs per month were more than twice as likely to stop buying cigarettes altogether, according to the study.
• The CVS researchers analyzed data from a nationally representative survey of consumers’ cigarette purchasing behavior at drug, food, big box, dollar, convenience and gas station retailers prior to and one year following move, according to a press release.

Dive Insight:

CVS Health is eager to tout its findings that its decision two years ago to cease tobacco sales, leaving an estimated $2 billion worth of business behind, has helped diminish tobacco sales. The research confirms and expands on initial impact data the retailer released a year after the move.

“When we removed tobacco from our shelves, a significant number of our customers simply stopped buying – and hopefully smoking – cigarettes altogether instead of just altering their cigarette purchasing habits,” CVS Chief Medical Officer Troyen A. Brennan, M.D., said in a statement. “This research proves that our decision had a powerful public health impact by disrupting access to cigarettes and helping more of our customers on their path to better health.”

Several medical experts and anti-tobacco advocates have pushed other retailers to follow in CVS’s footsteps, but so far its main rivals have resisted the peer pressure. At its shareholders meeting in January, for example, many more shareholders pressed Walgreens on its cigarette sales than on its merger outlook. One noted the incongruence of Walgreens’ position as a healthcare provider (especially one offering products and services to help people quit smoking).

Executive chairman James Skinner said the company spends a lot of time “trying to convince people to stop smoking … but we also respect the choice of our consumers — that’s also part of our decision over time.”

While CVS’s decision to halt tobacco sales has strengthened its position as a health care provider, the company hasn’t done enough to support its other retail sales, analysts say. Fourth quarter revenue in CVS’s retail/long-term care pharmacy increased 4.7% to $20.8 billion, largely driven by the addition of Target pharmacies acquired in December 2015, the company said. Q4 pharmacy same-store prescription volumes rose 2.0% on a 30-day equivalent basis, and Q4 same store sales decreased 0.7%, with pharmacy same store rising 0.2% but front store same-store sales falling 2.9% on softer customer traffic and efforts to rationalize promotional strategies (partially offset by an increase in basket size).

GlobalData Retail managing director Neil Saunders said earlier this month that his firm’s analysts were “surprised at the complete lack of evolution in the format and the paucity of innovation” in some CVS stores. “An attempt to dial back on front of store promotions and difficulties in driving traffic to shops diluted sales on the pure retail side,” Saunders said in a note emailed to Retail Dive. “However, in our view, these factors are simply part of the wider malaise in CVS’s store-based business. We have, for a long while, been critical of CVS’s lack of thinking in retail — an opinion that remains largely unchanged.”

Of Course Trump’s Health Secretary Is a Friend of Big Tobacco

Feb 9th, 2017
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Tom Price has taken tobacco money and voted against rules on cigarettes.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/02/tom-price-hhs-tobacco

The man Donald Trump has chosen to direct health policy for the federal government has close ties to the tobacco industry he will soon be charged with regulating. Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), who will likely be confirmed as health and human services secretary by the end of the week, has repeatedly voted against bills that could harm big tobacco. At the same time, he’s received thousands of dollars in political contributions from the industry and held investments in tobacco companies—investments he says he didn’t know about.

Early in Barack Obama’s presidency, Congress renewed the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. In order to pay for the program, lawmakers raised cigarette taxes by 62 cents per pack and cigar taxes by 40 cents per cigar. Price blasted the new fees. “Today’s tax hike serves as a useful reminder that the president is comfortable raising taxes on hard-working Americans to feed his reckless agenda,” Price said in an April 2009 statement. “President Obama has done nothing to demonstrate that he is a responsible steward of taxpayer money. Yet, he is forcing the American people to burn through even more of their income in the name of more government.”

A few months later, Congress passed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which empowered the Food and Drug Administration regulate tobacco products. (The Supreme Court had ruled in 2000 that the FDA did not have that authority under existing law.) The legislation has enabled the agency to ban certain flavored cigarettes that might entice young people to begin smoking. It also allows the FDA to require additional warnings on packages.

“How do you square reaping personal financial gain from the sales of an addictive product that kills millions of Americans every decade with also voting against measures to reduce the death toll inflicted by tobacco?”

Price joined most Republicans in voting against the FDA legislation. But thanks to that bill, as health secretary, he will now have immense influence over how the tobacco industry operates. (The FDA is part of the Department of Health and Human Services.) In 2011, the Obama administration proposed adding graphic warning labels—including images of diseased mouths and lungs—to the top half of cigarette packs. That regulation was tied up in legal challenges but was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court in 2013. After several years of inaction by the administration, a collection of medical and public health groups, including the American Cancer Society, sued the government last fall in an attempt to force it to finalize the new label requirements. Once he’s in place at HHS, Price can ask the FDA to move forward with the new rules, weaken them, or abandon them altogether.

The conservative website Hot Air celebrated the latter possibility when Price’s nomination was announced in November. “Fortunately for all of us, most of the sore spots on the HHS and FDA regulatory front don’t require cooperation from Congress or the courts,” the site said, pointing to regulations on cigars and electronic cigarettes. “These are things which can essentially be tidied up with a stroke of the pen once Trump and Price are in office.”

Price has benefited from numerous tobacco industry donations during his political career. Back when he was a state legislator in Georgia in 1998, Philip Morris gave Price’s campaign $300. More recently, the PAC for Altria Group, parent company to Philip Morris, donated $18,000 to Price’s congressional campaigns. From 2008 to 2012, Price also received $19,000 from the PAC of RJ Reynolds, the company behind Camel and other cigarette brands.

Price’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn) raised concerns about Price’s personal investments in tobacco companies during his confirmation hearing last month. According to Price’s financial disclosure forms, he sold off 768 shares in Altria and Philip Morris International for $37,000 in 2012. (Altria owns the American Phillip Morris brand. Phillip Morris International has been a separate company since 2008.) Franken started by asking Price to identify the “leading cause of preventable death” and then informed him that it was smoking.

“That hits home,” Price replied. “I lost my dad, who was a Lucky Strike smoker from World War II, to emphysema. He prided himself on the fact that he never smoked a cigarette with a filter for years and years.”

Franken expressed surprise that Price, a physician, would invest in products that lead to the deaths of about 480,000 people in the country each year. “Congressman Price, you’re a physician, which means you took the Hippocratic oath, a pledge to do no harm,” Franken said. “How do you square reaping personal financial gain from the sales of an addictive product that kills millions of Americans every decade with also voting against measures to reduce the death toll inflicted by tobacco?”

“It’s a curious observation,” Price responded, claiming that he had “no idea” about the stocks he owned; he suggested that they were purchased by a mutual fund or pension plan he had invested in. The tobacco investments were publicly disclosed in his financial report, and at other points in his hearing he acknowledged that he had the ability to direct his stock broker on other investments he held.

“I find it very hard to believe that you did not know that you had tobacco stocks,” Franken responded.

One Way e-Cigarettes May Up CV Risk: Altering HR Variability

Feb 1st, 2017
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http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/875253

Habitual e-cigarette use may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease by shifting the cardiac autonomic balance toward greater sympathetic activity and increasing oxidative stress, according to new research[1].

“The central message for cardiologists from our study is that habitual e-cigarette use is associated with altered heart-rate variability in the same pattern seen in tobacco cigarette smokers,” Dr Holly R Middlekauff (David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles) told heartwire from Medscape.

“This pattern of heart-rate variability has been associated with increased risk of myocardial infarction and sudden death in patients with heart disease, as well as in populations without known heart disease. Furthermore, habitual e-cigarette use is associated with increased susceptibility to oxidative stress, a critical component in the development of atherosclerosis,” she said.

Middlekauff and colleagues conducted a study involving 23 self-identified otherwise-healthy e-cigarette smokers and 19 otherwise-healthy nonusers between 21 and 45 years old in 2015 and 2016.

Using electrocardiography and blood tests, they analyzed heart-rate variability by high-frequency component, which signals vagal activity, low-frequency component, which mixes vagal and sympathetic activity, and the ratio of low frequency to high frequency, which reflects the cardiac sympathovagal balance.

The researchers found the high-frequency component to be significantly decreased in e-cigarette users compared with nonusers (standard error of the mean [SEM], 46.5 nu vs 57.8 nu; P=0.04). They found the low frequency and the low–to–high-frequency ratio to be significantly increased (mean [SEM] 52.7 nu vs 39.9 nu; P=0.03; mean [SEM] 1.37 vs 0.85; P=0.05) in e-cigarette users, which they write as being consistent with sympathetic predominance.

They found plasma cotinine levels to be significantly related with each heart-rate variability components, inversely to high frequency (P =0.04) and directly to low frequency (P=0.03) and low–to–high-frequency ratio (P=0.03).

They also found LDL oxidizability to be significantly increased in 12 e-cigarette users compared with 18 nonusers (mean [SEM] 3801.0 U vs 2413.3 U; P=0.01). Paraoxonase-1 tended to be lower in e-cigarette users, which they write as being consistent with less protection against oxidative stress.

The researchers pointed out that both increased cardiac sympathetic activity and increased oxidative stress are known mechanisms of how tobacco smoking increases the risk of cardiovascular disease.

“We can conclude that habitual e-cigarette use is associated with physiologic effects. Nonetheless, we cannot confirm causality on the basis of this single, small study; further research into the potential adverse cardiovascular health effects of e-cigarettes is warranted,” the researchers write in an article published online February 1, 2017 in JAMA Cardiology.

Middlekauff said cardiologists should be telling their patients, “E-cigarettes have real, physiologic, adverse effects. If you don’t already smoke tobacco cigarettes, don’t start using e-cigarettes. They are not harmless.”

As for further research, she added, “We need to know whether the cardiac risks associated with e-cigarettes are as great as those associated with lethal tobacco cigarettes. We need to know which component of the e-cigarette aerosol is driving these adverse physiologic effects.”

In an accompanying editorial[2], Dr Aruni Bhatnagar (University of Louisville, KY) writes that the nicotine in e-cigarettes “is a strong vasoactive drug that can profoundly affect cardiovascular function and health. . . . It has been shown that smoking e-cigarettes increases heart rate as well as diastolic and systolic blood pressure to levels comparable with those observed with conventional cigarettes.”

He praised the researchers involved in the new study: “Such investigations are critical for evaluating how harmful e-cigarettes are and whether their widespread acceptance will decrease the incidence of cardiovascular disease or, by renormalizing smoking and promoting nicotine addiction, erode public-health gains made by evidence-based tobacco control and regulation.”

Outside supporters of this research included the American Heart Association, the National Institute of Environmental and Health Sciences, and the Irma and Norman Switzer Dean’s Leadership in Health and Science Scholarship program. The authors and editorialist reported no relevant financial relationships.

E-cigarettes and National Adolescent Cigarette Use: 2004-2014

Feb 1st, 2017
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28115540

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

E-cigarette use is rapidly increasing among adolescents in the United States, with some suggesting that e-cigarettes are the cause of declining youth cigarette smoking. We hypothesized that the decline in youth smoking changed after e-cigarettes arrived on the US market in 2007.

METHODS:

Data were collected by using cross-sectional, nationally representative school-based samples of sixth- through 12th-graders from 2004-2014 National Youth Tobacco Surveys (samples ranged from 16 614 in 2013 to 25 324 in 2004). Analyses were conducted by using interrupted time series of ever (≥1 puff) and current (last 30 days) cigarette smoking. Logistic regression was used to identify psychosocial risk factors associated with cigarette smoking in the 2004-2009 samples; this model was then applied to estimate the probability of cigarette smoking among cigarette smokers and e-cigarette users in the 2011-2014 samples.

RESULTS:

Youth cigarette smoking decreased linearly between 2004 and 2014 (P = .009 for ever smoking and P = .05 for current smoking), with no significant change in this trend after 2009 (P = .57 and .23). Based on the psychosocial model of smoking, including demographic characteristics, willingness to wear clothing with a tobacco logo, living with a smoker, likelihood of smoking in the next year, likelihood of smoking cigarettes from a friend, and use of tobacco products other than cigarettes or e-cigarettes, the model categorized <25% of current e-cigarette-only users (between 11.0% in 2012 and 23.1% in 2013) as current smokers.

CONCLUSIONS:

The introduction of e-cigarettes was not associated with a change in the linear decline in cigarette smoking among youth. E-cigarette-only users would be unlikely to have initiated tobacco product use with cigarettes.

EvilBane gives back to the people

Feb 1st, 2017
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Donald Trump’s inauguration fueled by tobacco, oil and drug company money

Jan 31st, 2017
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Other big-spending sponsors include insurers, auto makers, tech giants

https://www.publicintegrity.org/2017/01/31/20651/donald-trumps-inauguration-fueled-tobacco-oil-and-drug-company-money

Big corporations with money riding on President Donald Trump’s policies helped pick up the tab for Trump’s inaugural festivities earlier this month, new disclosures show.

The companies’ five-to-seven-figure contributions earned company representatives prime perks, including access to events featuring the newly inaugurated president, Vice President Mike Pence, the Trump and Pence families and prospective Cabinet members and administration officials.

Pfizer Inc. and Dow Chemical Co. both disclosed making $1 million contributions to Trump’s inaugural committee in December 2016.

Microsoft Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp., Amgen Inc. and Altria Client Services LLC reported giving $500,000 each, a contribution that would have earned tickets to a similar list of events.

According to Microsoft’s report, half its contribution was in cash and half in “in-kind contribution, products and services.”

Exxon Mobil Corp. reported making its contribution on Dec. 19, the week after Trump announced he would nominate Rex Tillerson, the company’s chairman and CEO, as secretary of state. Tillerson’s nomination is still pending.

General Motors Co. reported giving $200,000. Six companies reported $100,000 contributions: Verizon Communications Inc., Valero Energy Corp., MetLife Group Inc., Clean Energy Fuels Corp., Anthem, Inc., and Aetna Inc.

Aflac, Inc. reported giving $50,000 and Monsanto Co., Florida East Coast Industries, CVS Health and Brown Rudnick LLP reported giving $25,000.

According to inauguration donor packages previously obtained by the Center for Public Integrity, donors in the “$1,000,000+” tier were to receive four tickets to a “leadership luncheon” billed as “an exclusive event with select Cabinet appointees and House and Senate leadership to honor our most generous inaugural supporters.”

Donors in the $500,000 tiers also got access to a dinner with Pence and his wife, a candlelight dinner with Trump and Pence, and other festivities. Donors in lower tiers received more limited ticket packages to inaugural events.

The inauguration committee doesn’t have to file detailed reports listing contributors until 90 days after Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.

But companies that lobby the federal government are legally required to file so-called “lobbying contribution” reports twice a year, and contributions to inaugural committees must be disclosed. The reports only cover the second half of 2016, so any 2017 contributions companies made to the inaugural committee aren’t included.

Trump’s inaugural committee raised more than $100 million, according to a report in the New York Times earlier this month, far more than previous inaugural committees. Tens of millions of dollars in inaugural contributions have yet to be disclosed.

The White House press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday night.

This article was co-published by the Buffalo News.

Trump’s Administration on the FDA Regulating Cigars

Jan 28th, 2017
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http://www.counselheal.com/articles/31659/20170128/trump-administration-on-the-fda-regulating-cigars.htm

President Donald Trump and his administration are about to get busy in the coming months. The present administration is expected to review the regulatory powers of the Food and Drug Administration of the United States over tobacco products.

The Daily Caller reports that organizations like the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation are petitioning the FDA with its programs to discourage young people from smoking pipes and cigars. The group sees the idea of the government arm of paying up to $25 per cigar as absurd.

Last year, the FDA announced that its plans to regulate tobacco products and e-cigarettes did not push through in August because of injunctions filed by tobacco organizations against the FDA and the Department of Health and Human Services in July 2016. The additional regulations aim to prohibit walk-in humidors in stores, ban colorful and artistic labels on cigars and cigar boxes and will require pipe shop owners to secure a manufacturer’s license prior to taking bulk tobacco orders.

The H.R. 563, known as the Traditional Cigar Manufacturing and Small Business Preservation Act of 2017, when taken into effect will override the FDA’s regulations for cigars and was originally sponsored by Congressman Bill Posey and Florida Democrat Kathy Castor.

Forbes reports that Trump’s views against regulations and how they hamper the U.S. economy is backed up in his First 100 Days of Action Plan where is plans on cutting the red tape at the FDA. The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act that was signed by former U.S President Barack Obama gave the FDA the regulatory powers over tobacco products.

The new President’s move against or in favor of new and existing policies in the administration is now creating speculations not only in the FDA issue but as well as in healthcare. Trump has been very expressive against the Affordable Care Act and has pledged that an appeal to Congress will be in the works once he is elected.

Modifications of his stance on these issues and how far he will deconstruct existing policies is what the nation awaits.

Anti-Tobacco Groups Worried About Trump, Congress

Jan 28th, 2017
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Lawmakers considering efforts to weaken FDA’s regulatory power

http://www.medpagetoday.com/pulmonology/smoking/62788

The federal government and most states continued to receive mostly failing grades from the American Lung Association (ALA) for efforts to reduce tobacco use among adults and teens during 2016, despite the enactment of the long-awaited “deeming” rule giving FDA regulatory authority over all tobacco products, including e-cigarettes and cigars.

The failure to require graphic warning labels on cigarette packaging and to move toward banning menthol cigarettes earned federal administrators and lawmakers an “F” grade from the ALA for tobacco regulation, according to the group’s annual State of Tobacco Control report, released late this week.

But despite these shortcomings, anti-tobacco advocates who spoke to MedPage Today say there is no question that regulatory and other actions taken at the state and federal level during the Obama administration’s 8-year tenure helped spur the record decline in tobacco use among adults and teens.

And they expressed concern that many of these hard-fought gains will be rolled back by the new administration and Congress.

“There is no question that what government does makes a big difference,” Matthew L. Myers of Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids told MedPage Today.

“During the last eight years we have seen tobacco advertising restricted through the FDA, there have been sustained (anti-tobacco) mass media campaigns, tobacco taxes have increased and internet sales have been curtailed. All of these things contributed to the dramatic decline in tobacco consumption,” Myers asserted.

Speaking with a group of corporate leaders on Monday, President Trump vowed to do away with 75% or more of government regulations and he repeated his campaign promise of massive tax cuts.

Myers said Trump’s views on specific tobacco regulations and taxes are not known.

“President Trump has not spoken about this, so it is still unclear what position he will personally take,” Myers said. “To date, the physical manifestation of our concern comes from the cigarette and e-cigarette industries urging Congress to curtail funding for successful mass media campaigns and critical regulatory measures.”

The ALA’s Erika Seward said two specific attempts now before Congress to weaken FDA’s regulatory authority over tobacco are of particular concern.

On Jan. 13, Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.) reintroduced a bill in the House to exempt premium cigars from FDA regulation. The agency’s deeming rule announced last May extended its authority to cigars, e-cigarettes, pipe tobacco, and hookah. Posey first introduced the legislation in 2015, but it failed to pass under the previous Congress.

Congress is also considering legislation to grandfather flavored e-cigarettes and other non-traditional cigarette tobacco products, which would allow them to stay on the market.

“This is especially troubling because the Surgeon General has found that these flavors are particularly attractive to kids,” Seward said, noting that flavorings are believed to be a major driver of the more than 10-fold increase in e-cigarette use among high school-age kids between 2011 and 2015.

She added that there is “real concern about what lies ahead for reducing tobacco use and, specifically, whether the FDA’s existing authority will be weakened.”

While President Trump has not yet named a new FDA director, past actions by his pick for Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary have not lessened this fear.

Rep. Tom Price, MD (R-Ga.), was one of the few members of Congress to vote against giving FDA authority over tobacco, and he also voted against continuation of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which is largely funded by tobacco taxes.

As head of HHS, Price would have authority over the FDA, the CDC, the National Institutes of Health, and other major health agencies.

Myers said lobbyists from the e-cigarette industry are working to convince lawmakers to effectively prevent the FDA from regulating the products, as are groups that oppose government regulation on ideological grounds.

On Jan. 17, a coalition of a dozen free-market and anti-tax activist groups opposed to e-cigarette regulation, including FreedomWorks and Campaign for Liberty, sent a letter to Congress urging that all products on the market before the regulations went into effect last August be exempt from key provisions of FDA oversight, arguing that regulation “is depriving smokers of a demonstrably safer alternative (to traditional cigarettes).”

“While everyone’s focus seems to be on the White House, the tobacco industry has made it clear that it intends to urge Congress to dramatically curtail what has been working to reduce tobacco use,” Myers said.”It may feel like we’ve been back this year for a really long time, but it’s still early.”

Neuhaus signs Tobacco 21 legislation

Jan 27th, 2017
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Orange is the first county in the Hudson Valley to enact such a law, which takes effect June 1

http://www.thephoto-news.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20170127/NEWS01/170129967/0/EXPERTS32/Neuhaus-signs-Tobacco-21-legislation&template=printart

Orange County Executive Steven M. Neuhaus signed legislation on Friday, Jan. 27, to enact a law that would increase the minimum age for purchase of cigarettes and other tobacco products in the county from 18 to 21.

The Orange County Legislature unanimously approved the proposal in December. Legislator James DiSalvo, R-Highland Falls, introduced the law a month earlier.

DiSalvo’s father, Mike, a member of the American Heart Association’s Executive Leadership Team, represented him at the signing. Neuhaus was joined at the event by Legislator Barry Cheney, Deputy Commissioner of Health Chris Ericson and representatives from the American Heart Association, American Cancer Society and American Cancer Society Action Network, and the American Lung Association.

“I am pleased to take this proactive step toward keeping cigarettes out of the hands of young people,” Neuhaus said. “I want all Orange County residents to be healthy. As a parent of three, with another child on the way, I want to do all we can to reduce access to cigarettes.”

The Tobacco 21 law takes effect on June 1. Retailers who sell tobacco to someone under 21 could be fined $300 to $1,000 for a first offense and between $500 and $1,500 for further violations.

There are currently nine other counties in New York State where the minimum age for buying tobacco products is 21: Albany, Schenectady, Chautauqua, Suffolk and the five counties that make up New York City.

In Onondaga and Nassau counties, the minimum age is 19. In all other counties the minimum age remains 18.

“We want all county residents to live longer, healthier and more productive lives,” James DiSalvo said. “This measure will help to reduce Medicare and Medicaid tobacco related costs in the future. I am thankful this legislation received bi-partisan support and appreciate everyone who assisted in getting this accomplished.”

3,200 first-time young smokers each dayAccording to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), if smoking continues at the current rate among youth in this country, 5.6 million of today’s Americans younger than 18 will die early from a smoking-related illness.

Approximately nine out of 10 cigarette smokers first tried smoking by age 18. Each day in the U.S., according to the CDC, more than 3,200 youth aged 18 years or younger smoke their first cigarette, and an additional 2,100 youth and young adults become daily cigarette smokers.

Proof ‘we can work together’“This legislation is proof of the good work we can do when we work together,” Chairman of the Legislature Steve Brescia said. “I see this as a model of how we can advance serious, substantive legislation going forward.”

Added Commissioner of Health Dr. Eli Avila: “This is a proactive move in public health and another important step to keep our younger population from becoming addicted to tobacco products.”

For more information, contact Justin Rodriguez, Assistant to the County Executive for Communications and Media Relations at 845-291-3255 or jrodriguez@orangecountygov.com.

E-cigarettes attracting more youths towards world of tobacco

Jan 23rd, 2017
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You might have thought e-cigarettes cut down tobacco consumption, but the reality is a bit different.

A study, by University of California- San Francisco,suggests that it actually attracts more youths towards tobacco consumption.

It has been published in Pediatrics.

Researchers from University Of California in the United States of America said they did not find any evidence of decline in the consumption of tobacco. In fact, the usage of e-cigarettes & cigarettes has gone higher among adolescents in 2014 compared to the numbers from 2009.

“We didn’t find any evidence that e-cigarettes are causing youth smoking to decline,” said lead author Lauren Dutra.

The analysis by the researchers also saw that section of youth who start smoking e-cigarettes are more likely to draw themselves in consuming traditional cigarettes in later part of their lives.

“While some of the kids using e-cigarettes were also smoking cigarettes, we found that kids who were at low risk of starting nicotine with cigarettes were using e-cigarettes,” Dutra said. “Recent declines in youth smoking are likely due to tobacco control efforts, not to e-cigarettes.”

In August 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, already restricted the purchase of e-cigarettes to adults aged 18 years and older. The FDA also directed to have a warning label on e-cigarettes which will start from August 2018.

The authors also said that there has been a decline in cigarette smoking youth but the decline has not been rapid after the advent of e-cigarettes in the U.S. between the years 2007 and 2009.

The authors performed an in-depth analysis of the psychological characteristics of the consumers of e-cigarettes. The research showed that the smokers tend to display some characteristics which non-smokers are less likely to show.

Characteristics like the tendency to live with a person who smokes or to wear clothing which displays tobacco product logo. The smokers in the national youth survey showed these characteristics, while the youth who were only using e-cigarettes displayed less of these qualities.

“E-cigarettes are encouraging – not discouraging – youth to smoke and to consume nicotine, and are expanding the tobacco market,” said senior author Stanton A. Glantz.

These new results are consistent with a similar study that took place in California last year by the researchers at the University of Southern California. The researchers also found that adolescents who consumed ecigarettes, but not traditional cigarettes have displayed less risk factors which were commonly found among cigarette smokers. (ANI)

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