Change of tack

A man described as ‘no friend of big tobacco’ has embarked on a mission to educate public health professionals and policy makers about the public health gains that might be realized through vapor products, according to a piece by Brian Fojtik, a senior fellow with Reason Foundation, published at huffingtonpost.com.

The man in question, Iowa’s Attorney General Tom Miller, aims to encourage regulators toward an approach that would encourage those who can’t quit smoking or won’t quit smoking to switch to electronic cigarettes.

Fojtik describes Miller as a nine-term Democrat who was one of the attorneys general that led the charge toward suing big tobacco companies that culminated in the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, under which cigarette manufacturers have been forced to pay the states billions of dollars.

He said it came as a surprise to some that the immediate past chairman of the anti-smoking Truth Initiative and the former head of the National Association of attorneys general had embarked on this new mission.

‘Miller has taken his message across the globe,’ Fojtik said

‘In a speech in London last year, Miller thanked British leaders for understanding the health benefits of transitioning smokers away from combustible cigarettes to much safer vapor products that contain no tobacco and produce no smoke.’

But Miller was said to have expressed concerns about misleading messages coming from tobacco control groups and government agencies with whom he had worked side by side for decades.

Fojtik’s piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/59694944e4b022bb9372b193.