The overall cigarette smoking rate among US adults has hit an all-time low, according to a story at medicalxpress.com quoting the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Preliminary data from the National Health Interview Survey is said to have shown that smoking rates declined from 15.5 percent in 2016 to 13.9 percent in 2017.
“Cigarette smoking among adults has been on a downward trajectory for decades,” said Brian King, deputy director for research translation in the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health.
“It’s the lowest percentage we’ve seen since we started monitoring smoking rates in 1965.”
Still, the preliminary 2017 data indicates 34 million Americans smoke, according to King. And an estimated 480,000 Americans die each year due to cigarette smoking and second-hand smoke exposure, according to the latest CDC data.
Category: People
Smoking incidence down
New communications chief
Amanda Pierce
Philip Morris Limited (PM UK), a subsidiary of Philip Morris International, said today that the former Burson-Marsteller CEO and McDonald’s PR chief Amanda Pierce had been appointed as its new head of communications.
‘In the newly created post, Amanda will lead on driving the overall communications strategies for Philip Morris Ltd to support the company’s ambition to create a smoke-free future,’ PM UK said in a press note. ‘Central to this is the company’s shift towards smoke free products like e-cigarettes and heated tobacco that will ultimately allow the business to stop selling cigarettes.
‘She will spearhead the company’s corporate public relations program in the UK and Ireland, as well as overseeing external communications, stakeholder engagement, corporate social responsibility, campaigns and employee engagement.’
PM UK said that Pierce was highly regarded in the PR industry and joined PMI with a first-class background in corporate communications and transformational change.
‘During her 16-year tenure at McDonald’s, she played a key role in designing and overseeing the delivery of a change strategy that reversed declining sales within the business and began restoring its reputation in the face of external criticism towards the firm. This work saw McDonald’s trust scores rise by 10 points over a two-year period…
‘In 2008, Amanda joined global communications agency Burson-Marsteller, going onto serve as its UK CEO, a role in which she advised some of the world’s leading companies including Shell, DeBeers, Kimberly-Clark, Danone, and GSK.’Juul launching in Canada
Electronic cigarette maker Juul Labs has plans to convert Canada’s five million adult smokers into vapers, according to a story by Jenny Peng for the Toronto Star.
The San Francisco-based company was quoted as saying that its proposed expansion followed the passing of a Canadian law legalizing the sale of vaping products to those 19 years and older from May this year.
The company announced on Thursday that it intends to start selling products on an e-commerce website, and that, from this week, consumers would start to see them in vapor shops and gas and convenience stores across the country.
“The idea is to transition users off of combustible cigarettes and to a vaping system,” Mike Nederhoff, general manager of Canadian operations, was quoted as saying. After the initial introduction of a five percent nicotine-level pod, the company’s plan is to offer a three percent nicotine pod, and a 1.5 percent nicotine pod.
Not everybody is happy with the plans. Carolyn Tuckwell, CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of South Coast British Columbia, which serves 12,000 young people and families annually, said that even if Juul stated it was not advertising to young people, there were features about the product and its portrayal of “happy” and “attractive” young people in its advertising that made it appealing to “underage youth”.Switching to vaping
The Serendipitymommy.com website is offering some advice on switching from smoking to vaping that could be useful to a wider audience than perhaps the website normally attracts.
It gives, among other things, five tips for making the switch:- Invest in a better device because one of the most common reasons why vapers have difficulty completely giving up tobacco cigarettes is down to the type of device that they are using.
- Find the right balance because, when choosing your ‘kit’, the trick is to strike the right balance between ease of use and an experience that provides the satisfaction that you need.
- Explore new flavors by thinking about what flavors you like in other products, because there’s bound to be a suitable vape juice for you.
- Give yourself time to make the adjustment once you have chosen your kit and flavors.
- Consider dual use because many vapers don’t make a straight switch immediately.
Smoking on the up in Africa
While the increasing demand for cigarettes in Africa seems to be driven primarily by population growth, many countries on the continent are reporting increased smoking rates, according to a News24 story citing the findings of a study by the University of Cape Town’s Economics of Tobacco Control Project (ETCP).
The University said in a statement that demand was being driven too by increasing incomes.
‘Consumers in Africa are now able to afford cigarettes and coupled with weak tobacco control laws, this has resulted in the tobacco industry focusing its attention on increasing its market presence,’ the university said.
The study, Trends in cigarette demand and supply in Africa, says that Africa has become a ‘prime target’ for the tobacco industry.
The study examined cigarette consumption in 22 countries that account for 80 percent of the continent’s population and found that between 1990 and 2012, cigarette consumption increased from 165.6 billion to 238.5 billion: 44 percent.
“This upward trend in consumption continues today,” Nicole Vellios, researcher at the ETCP and co-author of the study, was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, the report said that cigarette production had increased in the 22 countries by 106 percent during the same period as Africa had moved from being a net importer to a net exporter of cigarettes.
At the same time, cigarette production had become more concentrated as the tobacco industry had identified certain countries as its main production hubs: South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Egypt and Algeria.
The researchers said they had had to rely on commercial data due to the lack of official statistics; and they concluded that African governments needed to collect and report reliable production, sales and trade data.
‘This could be achieved by improving surveillance systems with the help of new technologies,’ they concluded.
‘To avoid further increases in consumption, African governments should implement and enforce policies such as higher excise taxes, advertising bans, smoke-free areas and warning labels as outlined by the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.’Smoking incidence down
The incidence of tobacco use in the Americas has dropped to 17 percent, which is below the global average of 20 percent, according to a new report by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
However, while the PAHO says that progress has been made to address the ‘tobacco epidemic in the Americas’, it adds that more than one-third of countries in the region have yet to implement the highest level of effective tobacco control measures.
Governments must urgently increase efforts to apply these measures and save lives, says the PAHO’s Regional Report on Tobacco Control in the Americas 2018.
“While we are certainly heading in the right direction when it comes to reducing the number of tobacco users and protecting the population from the adverse effects of tobacco exposure, we are just not moving fast enough,” said Dr. Anselm Hennis, director of the Non-communicable Diseases and Mental Health Unit at PAHO.
“The fact remains that more than 2,000 people die each day in the Americas as a direct consequence of tobacco use and this epidemic will continue unless countries accelerate the speed at which effective policies are being implemented.”
The report highlights the progress that countries in the Americas have made towards implementing the measures outlined in the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. These measures include regulations to protect people from tobacco smoke by establishing 100 percent smoke-free environments; the mandatory inclusion of large, graphic health warnings on all tobacco packaging; raising taxes on tobacco; and a total ban on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.
But it reports that 12 out of 35 countries in the Americas have yet to implement even one of these ‘effective tobacco control measures’.
And it says that while implementation of tobacco control measures has increased in the region over the past decade, progress has recently slowed down.What price truth?
The US Food and Drug Administration is being urged by The Heartland Institute to recognize the reduced harm of Camel Snus products
The FDA recently issued a ‘public comment of modified risk tobacco product applications (MRTPAs) for six Camel Snus smokeless tobacco products submitted by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company’.
In a comment to the FDA, Lindsey Stroud, state government relations manager at the Institute said the Institute had researched the effects of smokeless tobacco and tobacco harm reduction products for more than 20 years.
‘According to our research, the smoke in combustible cigarettes poses the biggest threat to smokers,’ Stroud said. ‘Therefore, smokeless tobacco can deliver nicotine more safely. Evidence indicates snus products, including Camel Snus, deliver nicotine effectively without the associated harms of combustible cigarettes.
‘FDA recognizes a continuum of risk among tobacco products: Combustible cigarettes are the most harmful and smokeless tobacco and snus are less harmful. However, despite this acknowledgement, FDA regulations prevent snus manufacturers from marketing their products as less harmful than combustible cigarettes. In fact, the warnings required on snus products misinform the public.
‘Therefore, The Heartland Institute urges FDA to regulate Camel Snus products and combustible cigarettes differently.
‘Because FDA has recognized and accepted the continuum of harm posed by different tobacco products, FDA should approve the modified risk tobacco product application. Approving the application would clarify the health effects of different tobacco products and hopefully incentivize smokers to quit using combustible cigarettes.’The upside of a ban
India’s ban on vaping products comes with an upside for the country’s dominant cigarette manufacturer, ITC, according to a story by Kiran Kabtta Somvanshi for the Times of India quoting the ET Intelligence Group.
The story said that the blanket ban on the import, manufacture and sale of electronic cigarettes and other electronic nicotine delivery systems had nipped ITC’s plans of entering this sector in the bud.
But, the story added, the ban might be seen as saving the company from the threat of disruptive competition.
In India, the use of e-cigarettes was still in its infancy.
ITC had launched e-cigarettes in 2014 under the brand name Eon. But the company had not committed to making a major investment in the product, probably as it waited for clarity in respect of the introduction of regulations and the reaction of consumers.
Now, the Times said, the ban prevented the entry of products such as Philip Morris’ iQOS device into the Indian market, which had the second-largest number of smokers.
‘Little wonder then that ITC’s stock closed positive despite yet another regulatory measure being introduced to discourage smoking,’ the Times said.
‘It nevertheless remains to be seen how the country’s top tobacco company looks at innovating its conventional cigarettes business besides the strategy of premiumizing its portfolio,’ it said.
ITC was said to have entered the nicotine-replacement product market in 2013 with the launch of the chewing gum Kwiknic. But the company’s latest annual report had no mention of this product; so investors would want to know the company’s Plan B for innovation in its bread-and-butter business.Making the connection
The findings of new US research will surely feed into the debate about whether it is better to take your cannabis neat, as generally in North America, or mixed with tobacco, the European way.
According to a story at sciencedaily.com, researchers at the Center for BrainHealth® at the University of Texas, Dallas, investigated the effects on the brain of concurrent cannabis and nicotine use, versus the use of solely cannabis and solely nicotine.
The results, recently published in the journal Brain Structure and Function, apparently show that not only were the effects in these three categories different, but also that the group using both nicotine and cannabis more closely resembled the control (non-user) group in brain connectivity. The isolated nicotine and isolated cannabis users showed equally less connectivity in general.
‘Previous research in rats has suggested that nicotine may be a ‘gateway drug’ leading to cannabis and other drug use,’ the story reports.
‘Studies performed with rats exposed to THC – the main psychoactive compound found in marijuana – demonstrated an increased likelihood to self-administer nicotine that was not observed with rats exposed to heroin or cocaine, suggesting that there is something unique about the cannabis-nicotine interaction.’
“Most of the literature to date has focused on associations of isolated cannabis and nicotine use, even though concurrent cannabis and nicotine use is more prevalent in society than cannabis use alone,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Francesca M. Filbey, the Bert Moore Chair in BrainHealth at UT Dallas. “Our findings confirm the limitations of existing research.”
While the outcome of the study could be, in part, due to the opposing effects nicotine and cannabis have on the brain, the difference in the brains of concurrent users versus isolated users of each product begs for further research in functional connectivity metrics in these populations, Filbey added.Malawi growers underpaid
Malawi’s Burley growers are underpaid, according to a new report cited in a Maravi Post story relayed by the TMA.
The report, entitled The Burley Tobacco Value Chain Analysis, was released by the Center For Social Concern (CFSC).
It called for crop diversification for Burley tobacco growers and the creation of a structured market for them, because currently they were not ‘adequately compensated for their contribution in the value chain’.
The report found very low levels of crop or enterprise diversification within the tobacco sector.
It said that farmers understood the need to diversify their range of crops and that most of them already grew other crops, with the most popular being maize (for food), groundnuts, soybean, and beans.
However, the consensus of the farmers was that as a cash crop, there was currently no viable alternatives to tobacco.
“There are so many factors suggesting the leaf processing companies enjoy wider profit margins which can be passed on to other players through higher prices on the auction floors,” said CFSC programs officer Lucky Mfungwe. The Malawi Government needs to be more resolute in enforcing minimum prices to make this happen.”
Mfungwe said that since the domestic tobacco sector was consolidated “there needs to be continuous efforts to bring in more buyers at the auction floors to help build up competition for the tobacco grown by independent farmers”.
He called also for a “review of the contract farming mechanism to ensure that it remains beneficial to the industry in the long term”.
