Spring 2019
Washington house votes to raise smoking age to 21
OLYMPIA – Lawmakers who support raising the age for smoking and vaping nicotine-laced products overcame objections of those who said people who are old enough to vote and join the military are old enough to make their own decisions.
In a 66-30 vote, they passed and sent to the Senate a bill bumping the legal age from 18 to 21.
“Nicotine is the most addictive substance we have. It has no redeeming value,” Rep. Paul Harris, R-Vancouver, said. Studies show that 95 percent of people who don’t smoke by age 21, never start, he added.
Raising the age for nicotine products has been a perennial quest in the Legislature backed by the state Department of Health, Attorney General Bob Ferguson and anti-smoking advocates. The House passed similar legislation near the end of the 2018 session, but the Senate didn’t vote on it before the Legislature adjourned.
This year, House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, listed raising the smoking age as one of his priorities in his speech on opening day, saying he has served as a pallbearer too many times for relatives whose lives were cut short by smoking. To underscore the point Wednesday, he presided over the debate and vote, a task he leaves to others on most issues.
“At what age are we going to allow people to make choices?” he asked. “Is it a good choice? No.”
He offered an amendment to raise the age to 19 for those seeking to protect students, arguing that people who are 18 might be in high school, but those who are 19 wouldn’t be.
But Rep. Tina Orwall, D-Des Moines, countered that high school students often have “peers” who are 19, and “21 is more of a stretch.”
The amendment failed.
Rep. Jenny Graham, R-Spokane, objected to the lack of punishment in the bill for teens who do smoke. “The laws we seek to pass should have some teeth.”
Rep. Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen, described the bill as “the creeping nanny state,” with legislators telling adults what they can and can’t do. If 18-year-old brains aren’t able to make good choices on smoking, as some supporters of the higher age limit contend, “why are they voting?” he asked.
FDA Commissioner Gottlieb, who raised alarms about teen vaping, resigns
Food and Drug Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who used his post to tackle difficult public health issues from youth vaping to opioid addiction – surprising early skeptics worried about his drug industry ties – resigned Tuesday, effective in about a month.
Gottlieb, who has been commuting weekly to Washington from his home in Connecticut, said he wants to spend more time with his family. The 46-year-old physician, millionaire and cancer survivor known for a self-assured, sometimes brash, manner lives in Westport, with his wife and three daughters – 9-year-old twins and a 5-year-old.
“It was a very hard decision,” Gottlieb said in an interview. “This is the best job I will ever have. I’m leaving because I need to spend time with my family. I get home late Friday, work on weekends and come back to Washington on Sunday. I did the job 100 percent."
Tobacco giant Reynolds just rolled out berry and cream nicotine lozenges as it faces new pressure from Juul for smokeless products
Tobacco giant Reynolds wants to give smokers a more convenient way to use nicotine.
On Wednesday, the company rolled out nicotine lozenges that dissolve in the mouth and come in four flavors: berry, cream, and two kinds of mint. Sold under the brand Revel, the lozenges are the first new product the company has launched on a wide commercial scale since the Vuse e-cigarette in 2013.
Reynolds is the second-largest cigarette enterprise in the US and the company behind brands like Camel, Kent, and Natural American Spirit.
Its new Revel lozenges are meant to appeal exclusively to adults who already smoke. Reynolds is betting that a sizable chunk of those customers is looking for a simpler and more discrete way to use nicotine, the same addictive drug found in cigarettes and e-cigarettes.
Reynolds' new lozenges will be available in both hard and soft varieties. They do not contain cancer-causing tobacco or tar. Still, the company does not plan to market Revel lozenges as a healthier alternative to smoking or as a way to quit, according to Shay Mustafa, Reynolds' senior vice president of consumer marketing.
Instead, Mustafa said the products are intended to help meet what she called the "evolving preferences" of adult smokers.
"We are not positioning this as a cessation product. It's just a simple way for adults to enjoy nicotine in a different format," Mustafa told Business Insider.
Kids love e-cigs and hookahs — but they won’t love what they’re doing to their hearts
The days of young people thinking that smoking cigarettes is cool may be coming to an end. But there’s a catch.
Tobacco use among youth has dropped nearly 25 percent in less than a decade, from 4.5 million middle and high school students in 2011, to 3.6 million in 2017, according to findings from the 2017 National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS).
E-cigarettes, though, have skyrocketed to become the most commonly used tobacco product among both middle and high school students since 2014, according to the Morbidity and Mortality report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among the 3.6 million tobacco users in 2017, 2.1 million used e-cigarettes.
And the number of U.S. high school students who reported being e-cigarette users increased a whopping 78 percent from 2017 to 2018, to 3.5 million, reversing previous declines of tobacco use, the youth survey found. E-cig usage among middle school students increased by 48 percent to 570,000.
The study authors listed three causes for the big jump: the appealing design of e-cigarette products, the high nicotine content, and the enticing flavor options, namely fruit and candy flavors.
Also popular is a smoking device that has spanned centuries, with origins tracing back to ancient Persia and India. Enter the hookah — an unmistakable staple among South Florida’s night life scene, with hookah bars and cafés being a major draw among college students.
“It’s becoming problematic to say the least,” said Dr. Metee Comkornruecha, director of the division of adolescent medicine at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital. “Unfortunately, these two forms of smoking are wrongly perceived by the public to be less harmful and thus parents may not be as concerned if they see their kids partaking. They may see it as a “lesser of two evils” situation,” he said, compared to cigarette use.
How Juul made nicotine go viral
Juul tried to design a solution to a public health problem. It wound up creating another one.
Since the first patent in 1930, electronic cigarettes have taken many shapes. At first they mimicked the packaging and physicality of cigarettes, with a cylindrical shape and light-up tip. Then they trended toward boxier designs, with low nicotine levels and high amounts of vapor. The Juul did things differently: it packed a high-nicotine, low vapor hit in a small, USB drive-shaped package, with a colorful range of flavors and a buttonless, intuitive design. It wasn't just a hot new e-cigarette — it was a hot new tech gadget. Now, middle schools and high schools across the US are nervous about how many kids are getting hooked on Juuls.
‘Tobacco 21’ goes up in smoke
The Florida Legislature won’t pass a proposal to raise the minimum age to buy tobacco and vaping products from 18 to 21, House Speaker José Oliva told reporters Wednesday, a day after the Senate signed off on the measure.
Florida is one of several states that have considered legislation supporting an issue known as “Tobacco 21,” or T21, backed by e-cigarette giant, JUUL Labs.
The Senate overwhelmingly approved its version of the bill (SB 1618) on Tuesday, sending the proposal to the House for consideration.
Both chambers’ measures include a “pre-emption” provision that would ban local governments from passing ordinances dealing with the age to purchase tobacco or vaping products. And both plans would exclude members of the military from the age restrictions.
But, speaking to reporters after a floor session Wednesday, Oliva said the issue is dead.
Individuals and organizations from across the Americas to receive WHO World No Tobacco Day Award
Washington, D.C., 28 May 2019 (PAHO/WHO) –Individuals, organizations and authorities from six countries across the Region of the Americas, including Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Colombia, El Salvador, the United States of America and Uruguay are to be honored with a 2019 World No Tobacco Day award. These honors, awarded each year by the World Health Organization (WHO), aim to recognize outstanding contributions to advancing the fight against the harmful effects of tobacco smoke.
The awards were announced in the run-up to World No Tobacco Day (May 31), the theme of which is “Tobacco and lung health.” This year’s winners have all paved the way towards the advancement of policies and measures contained in the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in the Region of the Americas.
“Tobacco use is a huge determinant of lung health and is responsible for 65% of all deaths from pulmonary cancers in the Region,” said Dr. Hennis, Director of the Department of Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health at PAHO. “This prize recognizes the vital role that organizations and individuals play in developing and supporting policies to protect the people of the Americas from the harmful impact of tobacco smoke on lung health.”
The six winners of the award in the Americas are:
Ministry of Health, Wellness and the Environment of Antigua and Barbuda for becoming the third country in the Region to approve, within a single comprehensive legislation, a ban on smoking in indoor public places and workplaces; mandatory graphic health warnings on tobacco products; and a ban on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.
Gerbert Marcelo Marquelli Canales of El Salvador. This posthumous award recognizes Mr. Marquelli’s work as legal counsel for the Health Solidarity Fund (FOSALUD) in El Salvador, where he played a pivotal role in drafting, promoting and supporting the adoption of the smoke-free regulations.
Dr. Ana María Lorenzo García, President of the Uruguayan Tobaccology Society. Dr. Lorenzo is being honored for her long trajectory in working for the development of strong tobacco control legislation in her country and beyond, particularly counteracting interference from the tobacco industry.
A coalition of seven Colombian scientific medical organizations (the Colombian Internal Medicine Association, Colombian Society of Family Medicine, Colombian Association of Pulmonology and Thorax Surgery, Colombian Association of Pediatric Pulmonology, Colombian Society of Cardiology and Cardiovascular Surgery, Colombian Association of Pathology, and the Colombian Association of Hematology and Oncology) for their in efforts warning about the negative health impact of new products such as the Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems and Electronic Non-Nicotine Delivery Systems.
The Interamerican Heart Foundation - Argentina (FIC Argentina), which is among the first tobacco control organizations to adopt a human rights approach to guide its agenda. The organization’s research and policy work have been instrumental in supporting and advocating for the adoption and implementation of tobacco control regulations.
Students Working Against Tobacco (SWAT) from Florida, United States of America, for their work in addressing the youth tobacco epidemic. Their latest initiative “Not a Lab Rat”, campaigns against the dramatic rise in youth e-cigarette use.
To Vape and JUUL: Teenagers Are Doing It. What Schools Are Doing About It.
You used to be able to see it – and smell it – from down the hall. In high schools across America, boys rooms turned into smokers lounges for the few minutes between class periods. When you opened the door, a cloud of pungent cigarette smoke would waft into your face.
Kids had their systems – a lookout watching the door, a secret knock on the stall when a teacher came in – but it was tough to hide what they were doing. A smoldering cigarette butt is an obvious piece of evidence.
Not so with an electronic cigarette. E-cigarettes, or vapes, are battery-powered devices that heat cartridges of nicotine-mixed liquids into inhalable vapors. Unlike a cigarette, a vape smoker can take one quick drag and stuff it in his or her pocket. Some devices look like household devices, even thumb drives that can even be plugged into laptops to charge. Many of the vapors have aromas like air fresheners or give off little scent at all. They’re so easy to use that students can take a puff while their teachers are standing at the blackboard and exhale in their sweatshirts.
All of this has made it far harder for school employees to catch a student vaping than smoking cigarettes. And where there’s an opening, there has been no shortage of students willing to exploit it.
According to the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General, just 1 percent of high school girls and 2 percent of boys were e-cigarette users in 2011. By 2015, those numbers had ballooned to 13 and 19 percent, respectively. In fact, USA Today reported that e-cigarette use has been declared an “epidemic” by the FDA, with the FDA issuing a warning to manufacturers that they may suspend sales entirely unless certain conditions are met regarding curtailing youth access to the drug.
The unchallenged heavyweight of the vape market is JUUL. Like Dumpster or Tupperware, JUUL is a company so prominent in its space that their products have become synonymous with the whole genre – thus, smoking e-cigarettes is commonly called “Juuling”. And just as they are with e-cigarette smokers as a whole, JUUL products are wildly popular among young people.
Crime and Punishment?
The question is what to do about it.
In a regulatory environment where many schools are burdened with increasingly onerous requirements to log and report potentially dangerous behaviors, such as the HIB regulations in New Jersey, schools are increasingly seeking out solutions that make it easier to report and manage escalation of troublesome behavior and incidents. Historically, teachers have shouldered most of the responsibility for identifying and reporting, but technology-assisted solutions such as anonymous reporting apps are making it easier and safer for students to own their courage. With a few simple taps on their mobile phone, students can alert trusted personnel to incidents that threaten themselves or others, like cutting and other suicidal ideation behaviors, drug use, threats of deadly violence and now, vaping.
But reporting is only the first step in resolution. Once a report is submitted, the protocol for escalating and resolving that incident is extremely important — and the decision of who is the best, first responder and the criteria for involving partners from other organizations is important. For instance, vaping is treated as a misdemeanor offense in many communities, so school administrators and law enforcement are equally rational choices as a first responder to vaping reports? But which is best?
Responses have been all over the map in American schools.
Vaping linked to violence, property theft among teens in US
Puffing could be the gateway to delinquency.
Teens who vape are more likely to steal and commit violent crimes, according to a new study out of the University of Texas and San Antonio.
The study, published this month in the Journal of Criminal Justice, tracked a national sample of US youths in the 8th and 10th grades — and found that those who vaped were at an elevated risk for committing acts of violence and property theft. (Those who vaped marijuana instead of smoking it were at an even more at risk for criminal activities, researchers say.)
This is in part due to the vape’s ability to conceal illicit substances, says lead study author Dylan Jackson, a UTSA criminal justice professor. Parents may think their kid is smoking tobacco — but it’s difficult to really tell.
The study grouped “delinquent” behaviors into four categories:
Violent delinquency including fighting at school, engaging in gang activity and carrying a weapon to school.
Property delinquency such as stealing or damaging property.
“Other” types of delinquency such as trespassing or running away from home.
Some triple-threat combo of the above behaviors.
Jackson says, “Our hope is that this research will lead to the recognition among policymakers, practitioners, and parents that the growing trend of adolescent vaping is not simply ‘unhealthy’ — or worse, an innocuous pastime — but that it may in fact be a red flag or an early marker of risk pertaining to violence, property offending, and other acts of misconduct.”
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 4.9 million middle and high school students used some type of tobacco product in 2018, up from 3.6 million in 2017. Moreover, the percentage of high school-aged children who report using e-cigarettes increased by more than 75 percent between 2017 and 2018.
Separate research recently revealed that e-cigarette flavorings may be bad for the heart — a serious drawback for longtime smokers who switch to avoid tobacco smoke’s cancer-causing chemicals. The flavorings have also been found to harm the lungs by causing inflammation, making vaping arguably as damaging as traditional smoking.