E-cig advertising, e-cigarette advertising, e-cigarettes, e-cigs, FDA

Time Magazine: The e-cig industry has won the regulatory battle

FRANCE-SMOKING-TOBACCO-CIGARETTE

Sobering story from Time magazine: The e-cig industry has won the regulatory battle.

Sobering because of two main reasons: There will be no FDA control over sugary, fruity flavourings for e-cigs and there will be no FDA control over e-cig marketing.

A couple of months ago, the FDA issued its draft regulations for e-cigs. It was a mixed bag. Fortunately, the FDA came right out and banned e-cig sales to minors (but did not ban Internet sales of e-cigs), but completely steered away from trying to control the marketing of e-cigs.

This was a big disappointment, because it’s become pretty obvious that e-cig companies (which are increasingly becoming cigarette companies) are marketing aggressively to young people, using sexy and “come hither” imagery, just like tobacco companies have done since Kingdom Come.

Time magazine jumped on the story, saying the proposed FDA regs were a big win for the e-cig industry, especially over the marketing of e-cigs. The Time article also brings up a point I have mentioned in previous blog posts, that the agency is likely afraid of a big lawsuit over the First Amendment in trying to limit e-cig marketing.

Stanton Glantz, one of my favourite anti-tobacco advocates, is quoted extensively in the Time article.

“The deeming rule that the FDA has proposed is very, very, very limited in its scope,” says Stanton Glantz, a cardiology professor at the University of San Fransisco and one of the most vociferous proponents of strict rules for e-cigs. “It requires a useless warning label and says they can’t be sold to kids under 18, but it doesn’t put any restrictions on internet sales, which means kids under 18 can easily get them. It has no restrictions on marketing at all.” This puzzles Glantz. “You would think that the Obama administration would be supporting tobacco control because it would reduce health care costs.” As far as Glantz is concerned, the administration has erred on the side of the tobacco interests.

Naturally, one of the biggest concerns among health advocates is children’s access to e-cigarettes—and marketing of e-cigs to teens is up 321%, as TIME recently reported. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that almost 2 million students in the U.S. have tried e-cigarettes. Policies to address the issue run the gambit from the least controversial—like establishing an age restriction on purchasing e-cigs and child proof packaging—to the more divisive, like prohibiting marketing to teens, prohibiting internet sales, and restricting the use of kid-friendly candy-like flavors.

But even the most basic restrictions—like better product labeling, and child proofing—were absent from the FDA’s initial deeming rules, making other restrictions on advocates’ wish lists seem that much further away. “Any meaningful rules on marketing of e-cigarettes are years, and years, and years away,” says Glanz, pointing out that if restrictions were imposed, e-cig companies would likely sue over marketing restrictions on first amendment grounds.

A spokesman for an c-cig company had this predictably weasel word response:

Craig Weiss, the CEO of NJOY in Scottsdale, Arizona, one of the leading electronic cigarette brands, says there are appropriate curbs, but there is no reason e-cigarette marketing should be as strict as tobacco. “You are confusing the arsonist with the firefighter,” he says. “Why would you treat products that are part of the solution as products that are part of the problem?” he says. Though NJOY is careful not to make direct claims that their products can help smokers quit, Weiss is a big believer in the potential for electronic cigarettes to replace cigarettes. Weiss supports limits on the age of actors in ads and rules against e-cigs appearing in cartoons, but he rejects the idea that there is anything wrong with his ads, which do feature young adults.

Well, the problem, Craig, is that while e-cigs might be a solution for some adult smokers (the jury is out whether e-cigs are a very effective quitting tool) to quit smoking, they are not any kind of “solution” when 16-year-olds are using them instead of cigarettes.

 

 

1998 Master Settlement Agreement, Teen smoking

Good news everyone, teen smoking rate drops to lowest point in 22 years

good news

Good news. According to new figure from the Centers for Disease Control, the smoking rate for teens has dropped to 15.7 percent, the lowest in 22 years that the National Youth Risk Surveys have been tracking the smoking rate.

The high point (or low point depending upon your perspective) of teen smoking rates was in 1997 at an astounding 36.4 percent. In 1998, the rate began dropping, in one year to 34.8 percent. Why? One big reason. The much-maligned Master Settlement Agreement.

teen smoking graphic

I’m the first guy to say the MSA didn’t do nearly as much as it should’ve, nor as much as we all thought it was going to do when it was announced. The biggest problem is not nearly enough money was earmarked for tobacco education, but one of the good things that came out of that agreement was that it killed Joe Camel.

Joe Camel and other cartoon characters promoting tobacco products were banned by the 1998 MSA. It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time, but check this out — teen smoking rates by year: 2001, 28.5 percent; 2003, 21.9 percent; 2005, 23 percent (about the time tobacco education funds started getting cut); 2007, 20.0 percent; 2009, 19.5 percent; 2011, 18.1 percent; 2013, 15.7.

teen smoking graphic2

A steady decline, with one blip in 2005, since Joe Camel was killed off. Now, the teen smoking rate is less than half it was 22 years ago. This is how we’re really going to win, not with regulations, but with education. Smoking is no longer seen as being cool and hip by a lot of teens today — at least 84.3 percent, and that has been through education.

One concern I do have is that perhaps one of the reasons the teen smoking rate has dropped so dramatically is because more kids today are using e-cigs. No data to back that up … but a bad feeling I have. While e-cigs are not as bad as cigarettes, nicotine is nicotine, addictive as crap, no matter what the delivery system.

 

cigarette advertising, Cigarette labels, Ireland, Tobacco advertising

Ireland to try and follow Australia’s lead in requiring plain cigarette packages

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Ireland, a longtime leader in the tobacco control movement (Ireland was actually the first countries to impose a nationwide smoking ban way back in 2004, which may or may not have had anything to do with the decline of the pub industry in that country, depending on who you ask), is making a push to force cigarette companies to remove all their branding from their packages and sell cigarettes in plain packaging only.

Australia has already taken this step, and New Zealand is the other country considering it. Australia was sued by several tobacco companies but ultimately, the Australian Supreme Court upheld the law. Tobacco companies are fighting New Zealand’s law, too, so Ireland can be assured that if they try a similar law, they will be taken to court.

(I’m guessing that because of the First Amendment, a similar law would likely not be upheld in the U.S.)

At this point, the legislation has passed the Irish Cabinet. Leading the cause in Ireland is Dr. James Reilly, the Irish Minister of Health and an ardent tobacco opponent. He wants to get the Irish smoking rate under 5 percent by 2025 (currently, it is at 22 percent).

The thought behind the plain packaging is that each cigarette package is a miniature advertisement for their product. If you remove the packaging logos, then you will no longer have ubiquitous advertising for that product every time someone remove a pack of cigarettes out of their pocket.

Not an outrageous concept, because really, what cigarette company do you think of when you see this to the left? logo_marlboro-box_usa-1 See you already know what the brand is, even without the brand name in the logo. The logo has become that recognizable.

Dr. Reilly says:

The introduction of standardised packaging will remove the final way for tobacco companies to promote their deadly product in Ireland. Cigarette packets will no longer be a mobile advertisement for the tobacco industry.”

British American Tobacco, obviously opposed, responds that there’s no evidence plain packaging would lower smoking rates and that it would just play into the hands of black marketeers, who could sell any tobacco product in any box, without anyone knowing the wiser:

“There is no credible evidence that plain packaging will work in terms of stopping children taking up smoking or encouraging current smokers to quit,” the firm said.

“Instead, Minister Reilly’s plain packaging bill will simply play into the hands of the criminals who are ready and waiting to supply people, regardless of their age, with cheap tobacco products.”

I have no idea if removing branding will decrease smoking and is an effective tactic toward combating smoking. Somewhat on the fence on this, but I find it an interesting debate.

 

 

Engle case, Florida

U.S. Supreme Court leaves Florida jury awards intact in Engle cases — this is a big deal

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Howard Engle

This is a continuation of the long-running Engle case in Florida.

Many years ago, a jury issued a $145 billion class action judgement against Big Tobacco for knowingly selling a toxic, addictive product to people, and then lying about it. This came to be known as the Engle case ($110 million settlement reached by Liggett Group in Engle case) , named after Howard Engle, one of the main plaintiffs. The Florida Supreme Court  overturned that ruling several years ago, but made a subtle and very important ruling in favour of the plaintiffs that while they could not sue for class action damages, they could individually sue Big Tobacco for the effects of its lies and cover ups on them on their families.

Since then, there’s been literally hundreds of lawsuits filed against Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds and Lorillard and many judgements have been handed out in the millions of dolalrs.

R.J. Reynolds appealed a number of these judgements (RJR has always been the most aggressive company in fighting anti-tobacco court cases and laws), to the U.S. Supreme Court. The total amount of the judgements is about $70 million (the largest single judgement is $25 million). The U.S. Supreme Court categorically refused to hear their appeal, in effect letting the judgements stand.

So, another loss in the courts for Big Tobacco; this is not the area in which they’re going to win much anymore. There is simply too much documentation, much of it coming out through the discovery process in countless lawsuits over the years against Big Tobacco, of the industry’s lies, subterfuge and cover-ups. They were selling a poisonous product and were killing people and they knew it. The evidence is all there.

There are thousands of these cases that will be tied up in the courts in Florida for the next 10 to 20 years. Keep forcing those tobacco company to pay and keep forcing them to pour millions into their legal fees. (Passing on their costs to the consumers and encouraging more people to save money by quitting — seriously, one of the reasons cigarettes are so expensive today compared to 20 years ago is because of all the legal expenses and the $280 billion Master Settlement Agreement reached by Big Tobacco.).

 

Third World smoking

The country with the highest smoking rate — East Timor

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If you had flat out asked me this question, what country has the highest smoking rate in the world, I might have said Belarus or Bulgaria, something like that. It’s not an Eastern European country, it’s a county called East Timor.

All right, having to whip out my atlas to see where the hell East Timor is.

East Timor is a tiny nation on the Indonesian island of Timor (but not part of Indonesia, sort of like Papua New Guinea.) It’s only 5,000 square miles and the population is about 1.1 million. It’s separate from Indonesia primarily because it was a longtime Portuguese colony, while most of the rest of Indonesia was colonised by the Dutch.

Anyway, enough geography lessons (reminds me of a really, really bad newspaper editor I once knew who for some mystifying reason decided to write a geography lesson sidebar about Yellowknife, NWT, because a fisherman from Yellowknife drowned in the area. Only problem was, throughout the article, he referred to it as “Yellowfish, NWT.” I had fun sending that article to the Yellowknife newspaper and seeing their angry editorial ripping on ignorant Americans. Anyway, I digress). According to this BBC article, East Timor has an incredible smoking rate of 61 percent among men — that percentage hasn’t been that high in America since about 1960. That’s just a shocking figure.

According to the article:

At the moment the big killer is tuberculosis but Dr Dan Murphy, a Canadian who’s been running a local hospital and clinic in Dili for 20 years, is worried about the future.

Some 80% of the world’s smokers live in developing countries and “young people are learning that what they’re supposed to do to be Western and advanced is to smoke cigarettes,” he says.

“Now we have to change their whole way of thinking and start worrying about tomorrow. I’m afraid we’re going to have to go through a phase of learning the hard lesson that’s been seen throughout poor countries.”

Another interesting part of the story is that East Timor has not seen a big influx of health problems connected to smoking. Why? Because it’s a brand new burgeoning market. Most of that 61 percent of men are young men who have only been smoking a few years. Give it another 10 and 20 years and watch East Timor’s medical infrastructure swamped with middle age men dying of COPD, heart disease and lung cancer.

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What East Timor highlights is that the developing world, Third World, whatever you want to call it, is the future of the tobacco industry. The tobacco industry is in the midst of a long, slow decline in North America and western Europe. But, Africa and Asia markets await. Big Tobacco has been drooling over these markets for years (to the point where China very strictly controls western tobacco sales in its country).

These countries tend to be poor and don’t have the resources for tobacco education. Never mind the fact that the tobacco industry created a damn holocaust of death and disease in the West all during the 19th century, now that the West has gotten wise to the evils of tobacco, Big Tobacco wants to export their product to a new, unwitting market. It’s really beyond amoral, it’s just sick.

BTW, the BBC article created a nice infographic about the heaviest smoking countries in the world. I wasn’t far off with Bulgaria, it makes the top 6.

Countries with highest smoking rates

  • Kiribati
  • Macedonia
  • Papua New Guinea
  • Bulgaria
  • Tonga
  • East Timor

Figures for 2012. Source: Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, published by JAMA

Kiribati is another country I’ve never heard of. Used to be called the Gilbert Islands.

 

E-cig advertising, e-cigarette advertising, e-cigarettes, e-cigs

USA Today, NBC News take on e-cig advertising

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Good, it’s more than me who is bothered by e-cigarette marketing techniques and how they mirror cigarette marketing techniques from 20, 30, 40 years ago.

Both USA Today and NBC News jumped all over this story with extensive articles on a study in the journal Pediatrics explaining how much exposure children have to e-cig advertising.

Researchers from RTI International found that kids aged 12 to 17 experienced a 256 percent increase in exposure to ads touting e-cigs during the study period of 2011 to 2013. The exposure of young adults, those ages 18-24, increased by 321 percent.

Man, and it’s just a coincidence that e-cig use among teenagers has exploded in the last couple of years … right, e-cig industry?

I will reiterate. I don’t have a big problem with e-cigs. They apparently help some people quit smoking, are not nearly as toxic as cigarettes and the steam is not as toxic or annoying as cigarette smoke. I honestly have the attitude that if they genuinely help people quit cigarettes, more power to ’em and to their customers. However, I have a HUGE problem with some the e-cig advertising I have seen in the past year or two … ads making e-cigs look sexy and glamourous and cool. As the headline in the NBC News story reads: “The new Joe Camel?”

The problem is kids starting up with nicotine via e-cigs rather than cigarettes because of all the advertising they’ve seen making it look cool and hip. Nicotine is nicotine. I don’t care what the delivery system is. It’s incredibly addictive and really has little or no redeeming values. It also is bad for your blood pressure and can lead to further addictions (most drug addicts started using tobacco as their first drug — fact.)

According to the NBC News article (with a photo of that anti-vaccination loon — thanks for the return of childhood Measles, dimwit — and e-cig pitchwoman Jenny McCarthy):

The researchers used a common measurement to gauge how many people saw an e-cigarette, and how often they likely saw it. Based on that data, they estimated that 50.0 percent of all kids between the ages of 12 to 17 in U.S. TV households were exposed to an average of 21 e-cigarette ads from October 2012 through September 2013.

They also say data could represent an exposure to an average of 105 advertisements for 10 percent of all U.S. youth or an exposure to an average of 13 ads for 80% of all U.S. youth over the 1-year period.

Those numbers have researchers and other public health advocates worried.

“We don’t know the extent to which an e-cigarette is really a gateway to other tobacco products,” explains lead researcher Dr. Jennifer Duke, senior public health analyst at RTI. “What we do know is that nicotine spurs changes in the brain that leads to addiction. And no one knows what the ramifications of e-cigarettes and potential addiction will be.”

USA Today’s article is titled “An explosion of youth exposure to e-cig ads”

In the USA Today story:

Results of the new media study provide “the strongest evidence that there has been an absolute explosion of youth exposure to e-cigarette advertising on television,” says Matthew Myers, president of the advocacy group Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

“It’s particularly disturbing precisely because Congress removed cigarette advertising from television because of the unique impact TV advertising has on young people,” Myers says. ” When e-cigarette manufacturers say that they don’t market to minors, it’s deja vu all over again. This study demonstrates the importance of FDA moving rapidly and decisively to protect our nation’s children.”

What’s especially galling to me about this is the Food and Drug Administration does have some power over e-cigs. The agency has recommended, finally, banning the sales of e-cigs and while advocates were hoping to some rules on e-cig advertising, the FDA deferred on this issue. It’s an OK first step, but the FDA needs to do more to try to prevent kids from taking up e-cigs.

 

 

Diabetes

Anti-soda activists look to war on cigarettes as a model with warning labels

Benjamin Lesczynski takes a sip of a "Big Gulp" while protesting the proposed "soda-ban," that New York City Mayor Bloomberg has suggested, outside City Hall in New York
French Press Agency (AFP)

Interesting article from Raw Story and the French News Agency (which does a lot of articles on tobacco and e-cigs).

Activists trying to fight obesity in kids and adults got together at the Center for Science in the Public Interest to discuss how to combat the epidemic of obesity and diabetes. One of their proposals was to copy a technique used by anti-tobacco advocates many, many years ago –legislation calling for warning labels on surgery drinks. It’s not as goofy as it sounds. Such a bill has already passed the State Senate in California.

The language is similar to warning labels for cigarettes: “Drinking beverages with added sugar contributes to obesity, diabetes, and tooth decay.”

“Give people the information at least,” said Harold Goldstein, one of the doctors and experts who attended the “Soda Summit.”

 “Once they have the information, then they will be ready for more.”

Now a warning label isn’t going to stop a 10-year-old kid from buying a soda, but maybe just maybe it will make parents think before buying a 12-pack of Coke for their kids if they are seeing that warning on the box.

Interesting, I have seen the period between 1960 and 2000 often referred to as either the “Tobacco War” or the “Cigarette War.” This article references the “Soda War.” I guess with the severe epidemic of diabetes, especially in the Deep South, it’s reaching the same level of urgency as the battle against tobacco 50 years ago (which obviously lingers to this day, or I wouldn’t be here doing this.).

The good news is, the education is having an effect:

“The signs of early victories in this war are that soda consumption, particularly consumption of sugar sweetened sodas, is down significantly” from a peak in 1998, said Jim Krieger, an organizer. “People are getting the message.”

Annual US consumption has dropped from 55 gallons to 44 gallons, a 17 percent decline, and water consumption has increased 38 percent over that period.

Russia, Smoking bans

Russia bans smoking in restaurants, cafes and hotels — yes, Russia

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Russia, one of the most heavily smoking nations in the world is cracking down on tobacco use. I’m honestly kind of shocked by this.

Russia passed a smoking ban that had already been implemented at schools, public transportation and hospitals. Now, part two of the ban is coming into play — bans on smoking in restaurants, cafes and hotels (apparently not bars, yet, however.).

Russia joins most of the rest of Europe in implementing various levels of smoking bans.

In addition, according to this article from the French Press Agency, Russia has also raised the taxes on cigarettes, more than doubling the price of  a pack from 25 rubles in 2010 to 59 rubles in 2014. (Still cheap, that’s $1.25 Euros vs. $1.70 Euros per pack).

Here is a funny article from NBC News about Russians complaining about the smoking bans, one of them saying, “We are a doomed country.” (Oh, Christ that reminds me of the some of the doom and gloom stuff from smokers’ rights weasels in the U.S. 10 years ago about smoking bans.).

Russia, like much of Eastern Europe, is a region of the world where people smoke heavily. According to this article, 40 million of the 143 million people in Russia smoke, about 28 percent, compared to about 19 percent in the U.S. And according to the same article, about 400,000 people in Russia die every year from smoking -related illnesses.

Unfortunately, Russia basically being the Wild, Wild west, especially when it comes to tobacco control, I fully expect these smoking bans to be flouted by a lot of people. The higher tax rate on cigarettes has created a huge black market in Russia, with dealers buying cigs in Belarus or Kazakhstan. Still in the French Agency article, tobacco officials concede their sales are dropping, and that blaming the black market is an excuse.

 

 

baseball, cigarette advertising, Gil Hodges, Heart disease

Gil Hodges ad promoting cigarettes — Gil Hodges died of heart attack at 47

2 Comments

Gil Hodges

My old Oregon friend Bill posted this on a Gil Hodges should be in the Hall of Fame page.

As I posted a few weeks ago, a lot of baseball players endorsed cigarettes. I found literally dozens of ads of baseball players endorsing either chew or cigarettes — and a hell of lot of them died young of cancer.

Gil Hodges was only 47 when he died in 1972. He literally keeled over dead from a massive heart attack while golfing. He was also a chain smoker. I’ve often wondered if he would have long ago been in the Hall of Fame had he lived and continued to manage and had his face and profile out there. He was 10th all time in home runs when he retired, an integral part of a number of Dodger champion teams, and arguably the best first baseman in the National League during the 1950s. On top of that, he managed a World Series-winning team with the Mets in 1969. But, he was quickly forgotten when he died. He was good, but wasn’t quite as good as Duke Snider, Willie Mays, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Henry Aaron and a few others. Still, when you see guys like Tony Perez, Ron Santo and Orlando Cepeda in the Hall of Fame, it’s really hard to believe Hodges can’t get in. (And my point stands that one of the reasons Santo got in was he had a high-profile job for many years as an announcer.).

Hopefully, that will be cured soon. Gil Hodges is on a short list of serious contenders for the Hall of Fame from the Veterans Committee. He is such an obvious oversight.

Anyway, I always cringe at the irony of stars endorsing cigarette products — stars who later died  of cancer such as Humphrey Bogart or John Wayne. Or in the case of Gil Hodges, heart disease.