Electronic Cigarettes Makers Under Fire in Senate

By JENNIFER C. KERR Associated Press

E-cigarettes with fruity flavors like “cherry crush” ignited an intense Senate debate Wednesday about whether manufacturers are trying to appeal to youngsters similar to the way that Big Tobacco used Joe Camel decades ago.

“The last thing anyone should want to do is encourage young people to start using a new nicotine delivery product,” Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said as he opened a hearing on the battery-powered devices and worries that e-cigarette makers aim to tempt young people to take up something that could prove addictive.

Jason Healy, president of blu eCigs, and Craig Weiss, president of NJoy, were challenged for more than two hours about industry marketing practices that include running TV commercials and sponsoring race cars and other events. Both men insisted they aren’t trying to glamorize smoking and don’t target young people and that their products are a critical alternative for people desperate to quit traditional smokes.

Electronic cigarettes heat a liquid nicotine solution, creating vapor that users inhale. E-cigarette users say the devices address both the addictive and behavioral aspects of smoking without the thousands of chemicals found in regular paper-and-tobacco cigarettes. But there’s not much research on any health risks of e-cigarettes, and the studies that have been done have been inconclusive.

As the Food and Drug Administration considers regulating e-cigarettes, critics wonder whether e-cigs keep smokers addicted or hook new users and encourage them to move on to tobacco.

Healy of blu eCigs, which is owned by the tobacco company Lorillard Inc., testified that his company has voluntary restrictions in place, such as limiting advertising placements to media and events where the target audience is at least 85 percent adults.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., questioned the youthful-sounding flavors for e-cigarettes. Healy’s company, for example, sells electronic cigarettes that come in flavors like Cherry Crush, Peach Schnapps and Pina Colada. Healy countered that the average age for consumers of his e-cigarettes is 51.

Rockefeller was not swayed, bluntly admonishing both men and telling them: “I am ashamed of you. I don’t know how you sleep at night.”

About 2 percent of U.S. teenagers said they’d used an e-cigarette in the previous month, according to a survey done in 2012 and released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And about 7 percent said they’d tried an e-cigarette at least once in 2012, which translates to nearly 1.8 million.

In April, the FDA proposed regulating e-cigarettes, banning sales to anyone under 18, adding warning labels and requiring agency approval for new products. But the FDA didn’t immediately place marketing restrictions on e-cigarette makers or a ban on fruit or candy flavors, which are barred for use in regular cigarettes. The agency has left the door open to further regulations, but says it wants more evidence before it rushes into more restrictions.

————

AP Tobacco Writer Michael Felberbaum in Richmond, Virginia, contributed to this report.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/electronic-cigarettes-makers-fire-senate-24202582

Big Tobacco Looks to Keep Pace With E-Cigarettes

ABC News — NEW YORK June 17, 2014 (AP)

Tobacco companies are moving quickly to keep pace with the evolution of their industry by embracing the increasingly popular e-cigarettes and making them more available to consumers.

Reynolds American Inc., the second-largest tobacco company in the U.S., moved forward on its ambitious goal for sales, announcing Tuesday that next week it would begin distributing its Vuse brand electronic cigarette nationwide.

Altria Group Inc., which owns the nation’s biggest cigarette maker, Philip Morris USA, is seeking to expand its MarkTen electronic cigarette brand nationally during the first half of the year.

Lorillard, the nation’s third-largest tobacco company, acquired e-cigarette maker Blu eCigs in April 2012. Blu now accounts for almost half of all e-cigarettes sold and can already be found nationwide.

Reynolds said Tuesday that retail outlets in all 50 states will be carrying Vuse starting on June 23. More stores will be added throughout the remainder of the year.

Reynolds launched Vuse in Colorado last summer and expanded into Utah earlier this year. The Winston-Salem, North Carolina company said that Vuse quickly became the top-selling brand in both states with high levels of repeat purchase.

Like other tobacco companies, Reynolds American is looking to capitalize on the fast-growing e-cigarette sales and to diversify its business more. To that end, the company announced last month that it was expanding its Tobaccoville, North Carolina manufacturing complex ahead of Vuse’s national rollout in order to meet anticipated market demand.

The market for e-cigarettes has grown from thousands of users in 2006 to several million worldwide and reached nearly $2 billion in sales last year. The battery-powered devices heat a liquid nicotine solution, creating vapor that users inhale. E-cigarette users say the devices address both the addictive and behavioral aspects of smoking without the thousands of chemicals found in regular cigarettes.

The Vuse can monitor and adjust heat and power to deliver the “perfect puff,” according to Reynolds American. It also has a smart light on the tip of to let users know when it’s getting low, needs to be replaced or recharged.

The country’s biggest tobacco companies have all entered the e-cigarette realm as they look to become less dependent on the traditional cigarette business, which is increasingly tougher to be a part of due to tax hikes, smoking bans, health concerns and social stigma.

But the growing popularity of e-cigarettes has left it open to closer examination by the government and health advocates. The Food and Drug Administration has proposed restrictions on the buying, packaging and advertising of e-cigarettes. This includes a ban on selling to minors and warning labels. The Senate will hold a hearing Wednesday to examine the marketing of e-cigarettes and potential consequences for minors.

Shares of Reynolds American shed 46 cents to $59.88 in midday trading, while Altria’s stock fell 12 cents to $41.69. Shares of Lorillard declined 59 cents to $61.39.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/reynolds-expanding-cigarette-nationally-24170948

Letter: N.D. needs a hefty tobacco-tax hike

By Brenda Jo Gillund from West Fargo, N.D.

WEST FARGO — My family and I have been really happy with North Dakota’s smoke-free indoor workplace law that passed in 2012. As a mother of young children, I feel very fortunate that young people today will have decreased exposure to secondhand smoke.

As my children get older, I worry about their exposure to marketing for tobacco products. I find it appalling that tobacco companies target their marekting to children, including enticing flavored tobacco products and colorful packaging.

We know that as we increase the price of tobacco, fewer children start smoking, and more smokers make the decision to quit.

With so many lives at stake, my question is this: Why don’t we make cigarettes more expensive so people — especially children and young adults — can really start to see how much their habits cost them?

When it hits us in the pocketbook, we start looking for a way to quit an addiction or decide never to start in the first place.

I’ve heard that North Dakota is one of the cheapest places to buy cigarettes. There’s something wrong with that, and I think it is time for action.

Gillund is a registered nurse. 

http://www.grandforksherald.com/content/nd-needs-hefty-tobacco-tax-hike

Teen Smoking Is Way Down. But What About E-cigs?

Alexandra Sifferlin, Time Magazine
Rates of cigarette smoking among high school students has dropped to lowest level in 22 years, the CDC reports.
In 2013, the smoking rate among high school students hit 15.7%, which means the U.S. government has already reached its goal of lowing the teen smoking rate to 16% of less by 2020. That’s according to the National Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), which began in 1991. Another important data set on teen smoking and drug use—Monitoring the Future (MTF)—reports the rate is at 16.3%. Regardless, both surveys show fewer kids are smoking.
That’s good news, and it’s likely thanks to a combination of several factors, the most important being the rising costs of cigarettes. Others include the growing stigmatization of smoking, with half of states prohibiting smoking in places like bars and restaurants. The adult smoking rate is dropping too, which means teens have fewer smoking role models.
If teens are passing around fewer packs of cigarettes, does that mean they’re not smoking other things? Past data has shown a 123% increase in the consumption of other smokable tobacco products like cigars and pipes, though the recent numbers from the larger data sets show no change in smokeless tobacco use since 1999, and a drop in cigar use.
yrbs_release_smoking_final-copy
One question you’re likely going to see is whether teens are switching to e-cigarettes. E-cigarettes is a subject the public health community is uncharacteristically split on. On one side of the spectrum, you have critics arguing that it’s possible e-cigarettes serve as a gateway to regular cigarettes. One vocal critic being the head of the CDC himself. “The increased use of e-cigarettes by teens is deeply troubling,” said CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden in a statement about teen tobacco use going down. “Nicotine is a highly addictive drug. Many teens who start with e-cigarettes may be condemned to struggling with a lifelong addiction to nicotine and conventional cigarettes.”
Emerging data points to certain trends, but e-cigs are still so new. Earlier this fall, a CDC report showed that e-cig use among teens, while still low, had doubled in a year, from 3.3% in 2011 to 6.8% in 2012.
Dr. Kenneth Warner, a professor of health management and policy at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, looked back through the data and found that among kids who have never smoked a conventional cigarette, only 0.7% have ever tried an e-cigarette within the last 30 days. What this shows is that the same kids who are smoking regular cigarettes are smoking e-cigs.
“Everyone thinks they are right and the logical thing is that nobody knows,” says Warner. “This is a huge-stakes issue, because the proliferation of e-cigs has the potential to either reduce the cigarette problem or increase it over time among kids.”
The reality is we have a long way to go. It took 40 years to get the adult smoking rate down to around 20%, and it won’t be easy to cut it in half again. Warner and his colleague David Mendez have created a smoking-prevalence model that’s been used since the 1990s. Their predictions show that at the rate we are going, we might not be able to hit a 10% adult smoking rate until the middle of the century. But that’s if we don’t try anything radically different.
“I believe we will do better because I don’t think we’ll stick with just status quo tobacco control,” says Warner. “In my judgment, the future lies in how effectively FDA can regulate cigarettes and other [nicotine] products.”
The FDA announced it is expanding its regulatory powers to cover more tobacco products including e-cigs, but anti-smoking advocates are arguing it’s still not enough.
“The data on kids is great, but we have a long way to go before we can pack up and go home and say we solved the problem,” says Warner.
You can read more on the latest CDC numbers here.
http://time.com/2864214/teen-smoking-is-way-down-but-what-about-e-cigs/

'Teens choosing health': Smoking hits a landmark low

Kim Painter, Special for USA TODAY

Cigarette smoking among high school students in the United States has reached a landmark low in a survey health officials have been conducting every two years since 1991.

Just 15.7% of teens were current smokers in 2013, down from 27.5% when the survey began and 36.4% in the peak year of 1997, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday. That means the nation has already met the government’s official goal of getting teen smoking below 16% by 2020.

“I think the bottom line is that our teens are choosing health,” CDC Director Tom Frieden said.

Frieden was referring not just to the progress on smoking, but to other gains in healthy behaviors picked up in the nationally representative Youth Risk Behavior Survey of more than 13,000 teens. Data for the report also come from state and local versions of the survey. The surveys are conducted at public and private high schools.

The data show teens are drinking less alcohol and fewer sodas, getting into fewer physical fights and having less sex with more birth control. Also, despite all the recent news about school shootings, the share of students threatened or injured with a gun, knife or other weapon on school property has dropped to 6.9%, from a peak of 9.2% in 2003.

But it’s not all good news: Condom use among the sexually active (about one third of teens) is down to 59%, from a peak of 63% in 2003. Condoms remain essential for protection from HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, but teens may not be getting the message, Frieden says.

Even the news on tobacco is mixed: A once-rapid decline in cigar use has slowed, leaving cigars as popular as cigarettes with high school boys. Cigars were smoked by 23% of 12th grade boys in the month before the survey. Smokeless tobacco use hasn’t changed since 1999, holding at about 8%. Other surveys have shown increases in e-cigarette and hookah use. And the declines in cigarette use are uneven from place to place, reflecting varying tobacco control efforts, Frieden says.

“We’re moving in the right direction,” with the help of increased cigarette taxes, better educational campaigns and other measures, says Vince Willmore, a spokesperson for the non-profit Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, Washington, D.C. “But the fight against tobacco isn’t over and it can’t be over when you still have 2.7 million high school kids who smoke.”

The survey, a treasure trove of data on more than 100 risky behaviors, “tells us what kids do but not why,” says Stephanie Zaza, director of CDC’s division of adolescent and school health. Among other details:

• 25% of students were in a physical fight in the year before the survey, down from 42% in 1991. Just 8% fought at school, down from 16%.

• 32% watched three daily hours of TV, down from 43% in 1999. But some of that time apparently shifted to computers, with 41% using a computer for non-school reasons at least three hours a day, up from 22% in 2003.

• 27% had at least one soda a day, down from 34% in 2007.

• 41% of those who drove admitted to texting or e-mailing while driving. CDC first asked about texting in 2011, but with a differently worded question, so it can’t say whether rates are up or down.

• 2.3 % had ever used heroin, a number that has remained fairly steady through the years. But in some large urban school districts, use was much higher, up to 7.4%.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/06/12/teen-cigarette-cdc-survey/10368235/

Letter to the Editor: The issue with smoking is addiction, not freedom

I am writing in response to the Herald’s editorial on tobacco use in Grand Forks parks (“Too much loss for too little gain,” Page F1, June 1).

Tobacco prevention policies have, throughout history, always been met with some resistance. Tobacco use was so common when I was a child that it was normal to see smokers in grocery stores, movie theaters, school classrooms, teacher’s lounges, doctors’ offices, airplanes, airports and hospital rooms.

Each of those changes was met with the attitude that it was beyond the pale to even consider making changes. But today, it would seem unusual to see someone smoking in their hospital room or at a movie theater.

Tobacco use rates were high, and we all paid the price of the damage tobacco use does to the human body by way of health care costs, Medicaid costs, loss of productivity and sadly, early deaths of loved ones.

As a result of sound evidence-based practices, such as 1) preventing initiation among youth and young adults, 2) promoting quitting among adults and youth, 3) eliminating exposure to secondhand smoke and 4) identifying and eliminating tobacco-related disparities among population groups, headway has been made in reducing tobacco-use rates. But there still is work to be done.

Grand Forks Park District Commissioner Molly Soeby’s column put it well: “Tobacco use kills more people than AIDS, alcohol, car accidents, illegal drugs, murders and suicides combined” (“For health’s sake, Grand Forks parks should ban tobacco use,” Page F1, June 1).

“It is the No. 1 cause of preventable death in our country. Young people in North Dakota use tobacco more than the national averages. They smoke at higher rates (19.4 percent vs. 18.1 percent), and they use more chewing tobacco than adults (13.6 percent vs. 8.2 percent).”

Tobacco use kills about 480,000 people each and every year in the United States. That equals the number of American deaths in all the U.S. wars since the American Revolution, every 2½ years.

So, what can be done to improve these numbers? What does the research show us works?

The Centers for Disease Control recommends creating tobacco-free social norms through the use of “increasing the unit price of tobacco products, sustaining anti-tobacco media campaigns and making environments smoke-free.”

Tobacco-free parks policies are part of a comprehensive combination of strategies to get our youth tobacco use rates lowered.

Tobacco-free parks policies will keep young people from ever starting. The research is done, the evidence is clear. According to the CDC, comprehensive tobacco-free policies prevent young people from seeing tobacco use as a normal adult activity and show a significant effect on reducing tobacco use initiation among youth.

Our community would not be the first to adopt a tobacco-free parks policy. North Dakota currently has 12 communities with tobacco-free parks, and Minnesota has more than 150.

According to the editorial, “secondhand smoke in indoor areas is a health hazard; secondhand smoke in parks in inconsequential.”

But it’s not about secondhand smoke, which, by the way, many people consider a nuisance that interferes with their personal enjoyment of the parks. It is about what we know will work to keep young people from starting to use tobacco.

The editorial says that this is not a good enough reason to “clamp down on personal freedom.”

But this is not a personal freedom issue, either. Tobacco use is an addiction, and most adult tobacco users report that they started using before age 18.

A policy such at this will not prohibit anyone from using tobacco. It will help to keep children, who do not use tobacco, from starting.

That is a public health issue, not a personal freedom issue.

Recent studies in Grand Forks show overwhelming support in the community for the adoption of tobacco-free policies on all of our Park District properties. (The community-wide study is available on www.tobaccobytes.com)

Tobacco-free parks policies are cost effective. They’re good for the health of North Dakotans now and, as Soeby put it, “for future generations of residents of Grand Forks.”

Knox coordinates the tobacco prevention program for the Grand Forks Public Health Department.

http://www.grandforksherald.com/content/theresa-knox-issue-smoking-addiction-not-freedom

AMA, Doctor Allies Push CVS Rivals To End Tobacco Sales

The American Medical Association and allied physician groups this week are exacting added pressure on pharmacies and others that sell health products to join CVS’ move to cease peddling cigarettes and other tobacco products.

Earlier this year, CVS grabbed international kudos that included acclaim from the White House for the giant pharmacy chain’s decision to stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products in all of its more than 7,600 stores by October 1, according to its parent company, CVS/Caremark (CVS).

Public health advocates said CVS’ move was particularly notable given its drugstores would be sacrificing $2 billion in annual sales for public health and future growth.

Now, the largest doctor group in the U.S. and affiliated state and national medical societies are voicing a more unified chorus against retail sales of tobacco products at the AMA’s annual policy-making House of Delegates meeting that runs through Tuesday in Chicago.

Several doctor groups said Sunday that they want the AMA to push pharmacies and “providers of health services and products” to stop-selling cigarettes and tobacco products or work to pressure them to limit sales of such products. An AMA reference committee Sunday considered two resolutions urging the organization to step up the pressure on pharmacies and other retailers.

The American College of Cardiology, for example, said even limiting tobacco has led to its reduced use.

“We urge retailers that sell health related products to follow the example set by CVS Caremark CVS +0.38% and discontinue the sale of all tobacco products,” said Dr. L. Samuel Wann, an AMA delegate representing the American College of Cardiology. “Selling both prescription medicines and cigarettes in the same store is hypocritical. Large pharmacy chains that continue to sell cigarettes appear irresponsible to society. The ACC supports all possible action to reduce tobacco access and use, especially when it comes to our nation’s youth.”

The resolutions before the AMA didn’t name retailers specifically. CVS rivals Wal-Mart (WMT) and Walgreen WAG -0.75% (WAG) continue to sell tobacco products.

The AMA reference committee ultimately reaffirmed the organization’s existing policy which opposes “the sale of tobacco at any facility where health services are provided.” 

The AMA’s annual House of Delegates’ meeting serves as more of a bully pulpit for health issues than anything.

“The power of the AMA is in its role as a single umbrella organization that covers all physicians, across specialty, geography, practice type or career stage,” Dr. Robert Wah, the incoming AMA president, said in a statement at the meeting’s open. “We have the ability to convene all the parties that need to come to the table to work on solutions to the challenges physicians face today. It’s the bringing together of different perspectives that makes the organization stronger.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2014/06/08/ama-doctor-allies-push-cvs-rivals-to-end-tobacco-sales/

Andrew Knight: Extend to parks the push to reduce smoking

By Andrew Knight, Grand Forks Herald

Smoking should be allowed in Grand Forks parks because banning it “clamps down on personal freedom?” (“Too much cost for too little gain,” editorial, Page F1, June 1)

Is the argument really about progress vs. freedom?

The Herald’s “ThreeSixty” opinion section on June 1 includes the phrases “enjoy a cigarette on a park bench,” “cigarette smoke smells like roses,” and that a “(smoking) ban is ‘pointless’ from a traditional perspective.” It felt more like an opinion section from the 1960s.

Grand Forks Park District Commissioner Molly Soeby expertly lays out the issues with several pieces of evidence for this ban, and then non-local public policy wonks (Dennis Prager et al.) are trotted out as the counterpoint, with nary a point made specific to smoking in parks.

Soeby explains 78 percent of the Grand Forks community and 82 percent of golfers and softball managers are for a comprehensive tobacco-free policy. Even with sampling error, we can discern a clear majority opinion here.

How then, does Grand Forks City Council President Hal Gershman think the ban would be “very unpopular?” (“Banning smoking in parks a ‘needless intrusion,’” letter, Page A4, June 4).

This isn’t to say that I don’t expect a small but vocal backlash from the “hey, freedom!” crowd.

The supposed “counter” to Soeby’s arguments and statistics is a smattering of excerpts on the topic of smoking, starting with Simon Chapman from Australia (yes, Australia). Chapman compares car exhaust to secondhand smoke because we breathe in benzene from both sources. There are a LOT of car owners and not nearly as many smokers. How much benzene shoots out of exhausts in cars versus a single cigarette?

This argument fails because he’s using two different scales.

Chapman finishes the tortured analogy saying “we hear no serious calls for the banning of cars.” First, no one is calling for banning cigarettes; it’s about reducing smoking.

Second, there is substantial market pressure on car companies to reduce emissions. Science told us vehicle emissions are pretty bad, so we are trying hard to reduce them. Science also told us smoking is bad, so that’s why the push to reduce places where smoking is allowed needs to continue to parks and other public places.

The slippery slope fallacy continued with an excerpt from a New York Times editorial (from three years ago) to that city’s smoking ban, comparing it outright to alcohol prohibition 90 years ago. If we ban smoking in parks, it may lead to “a civic disaster,” according to the writer.

If this is the best group of arguments to keep smoking legal in parks, maybe it means there are few, if any, locals willing to write against the ban (in which case, kudos to Gershman and the Herald’s editorial board for being lone wolves on this minority opinion).

You have freedom to smoke on your property, in your car, while you walk around town and so on. You have freedom to do a LOT of things in your own home that you cannot do in a park because many of us believe it is better not to expose nature, playgrounds and children to it.

Add smoking to the list. We don’t want children to see adults smoking, feel cigarette butts in their toes or smell the cigarette smoke. Leave the cigarettes in the car for a round of golf or a volleyball match.

Soon my family is moving to Colorado — a state with acres ravaged by fires in recent years. Herald readers can probably understand that the residents there are skittish about smoking in places such as parks and playgrounds, and therefore have enacted smoking bans.

Like people in Grand Forks, they have natural beauty worth preserving, would prefer not seeing people “enjoying a cigarette on a park bench” and don’t want to take the chance that an errant cigarette butt could take down a forest range.

We’re packing up for the move and are already missing people we’ve befriended here, but we won’t miss the overly cautious, conservative approach to environmental protections.

This is not a simple false choice of progress or freedom. The Park Board should feel very confident moving forward in enacting this policy.

And to the Herald editorial board: Yes, the benefits are more than worth the costs.

Knight is an assistant professor in the music department at UND. 

http://www.grandforksherald.com/content/andrew-knight-extend-parks-push-reduce-smoking

Teens and young adults confronted by more TV ads for e-cigarettes

By: Karen Kaplan, LA Times

Commercials for electronic cigarettes have become so ubiquitous that millions of American teens have seen them since 2012, a new study says.

About 4 out of 5 of the TV ads seen by these young viewers were for blu eCigs, a brand that was purchased by tobacco giant Lorillard Inc. in April 2012. Though the ads are ostensibly aimed at adults, they employ language that makes e-cigarettes seem desirable to teens, researchers write in a study published Monday by the journal Pediatrics.

Electronic cigarettes are battery-powered devices that allow users to inhale nicotine vapor. The devices have generated billions of dollars in sales but remain extremely controversial. Advocates for e-cigarettes like that the vapor contains fewer toxins than the smoke from traditional cigarettes, and some studies suggest they can help smokers kick the habit. But public health advocates contend that e-cigarettes get young people hooked on nicotine, increasing the risk that they will become regular smokers. The devices also undermine efforts to make smoking seem taboo and may make it harder for smokers to quit by keeping them hooked on nicotine, they say.

Though the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced its intention to prohibit sales of e-cigarettes to minors, the agency has not taken steps to limit advertising aimed at kids. The authors of the new report wanted to quantify how often teens and young adults saw e-cigarette ads on TV.

To do, so they turned to data from Nielsen, the company that keeps track of what Americans are watching. The data reported in the study was in the form of “target rating points,” or TRPS, a measurement that combines the proportion of viewers exposed to an ad and the number of times it may be seen.

The researchers found that nationally televised e-cigarette commercials were not particularly common through the first half of 2012. But in the second half of 2012 and the first nine months of 2013 – the period after Lorillard entered the industry – such advertising increased dramatically.

Between 2011 and 2013, the TRPs for viewers between the ages of 12 and 17 rose by 256%, according to the study. In the year that ended Sept. 30, 2013, those TRPs were high enough that 80% of teens could have seen 13 e-cigarette commercials, on average. Those TRPs also could work out to half of all teens viewing an average of 21 e-cigarette ads over the course of a year, or 10% of viewers watching an average of 105 commercials over a year.

The researchers also calculated the exposure for young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 and found that it increased by 321% between 2011 and 2013. The TRPs for this group were high enough to allow half of these young adults to see 35 e-cigarette commercials, on average, over the course of a year.

About 75% of these commercials aired on cable TV channels, including AMC (which aired 8% of them), Country Music Television (6.1%), Comedy Central (5.9%), WGN America (5.4%) TV Land and VH1 (both 5.3%), the study authors found. The commercials also ran during network shows that are popular among teens, including “The Bachelor,” “Big Brother” and “Survivor,” according to the study.

Among the nationally televised ads seen by teens, 82% were for blu eCigs, the data show. For young adult viewers, ads for blu eCigs accounted for 80% of the total.

The researchers also reported that 19 e-cigarette makers aired commercials in some local markets between 2011 and 2013. These ads aired in groups of cities that were home to as many as 40% of American teens.

The study authors expressed great concern over Lorillard’s ad campaign for blu eCigs. They noted that other studies have found a strong correlation between smoking in movies and the number of teens and young adults who pick up the habit. They also wrote that the ads were running at much higher frequency than the levels needed for anti-tobacco ads to influence teens that smoking is harmful.

The most widely aired blu eCig commercials featured actor Stephen Dorff. In one, he is seen smoking in restaurants, a taxi, a subway, at a rock concert, on a hike and even while riding his bike. In another, he ticks off the benefits of e-cigarettes versus traditional cigarettes and winds up by saying, “We’re all adults here. It’s time we take our freedom back.”

That kind of explicit reference to e-cigarettes being an adult product may seem like a responsible move by Lorillard, but it also serves to make the devices more appealing to teens, the study authors wrote.

The study was conducted by researchers at RTI International in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park and a colleague at the Florida Department of Health in Tallahassee. Funding was provided by the state’s Tobacco Free Florida program.

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-electronic-cigarette-tv-advertising-20140602-story.html

An 'explosion' of youth exposure to e-cigarette TV ads

Michelle Healy, USA TODAY

As the federal government moves to set rules that would ban the sale of electronic cigarettes to minors, a new study shows that TV ads for the products have increased dramatically during programs most likely to be watched by adolescents and young adults.

According to the study published online today by the journal Pediatrics, between 2011 and 2013 exposure to e-cigarette TV ads increased by 256% among adolescents ages 12 to 17 and by 321% among young adults, ages 18 to 24.

Approximately 76% of the ads seen by each of the two age groups occurred while watching cable networks — most often AMC, Country Music Television, Comedy Central, WGN America, TV Land and VH1. They also appeared on broadcast network programs that were among the 100 highest rated youth programs for the 2012-2013 TV season, including The Bachelor, Big Brother and Survivor, the study finds.

One brand, blu eCigs, owned by tobacco company Lorillard, accounted for almost 82% of all nationally aired e-cigarette ads viewed by 12- to 17-year-olds.

“The tobacco industry and e-cigarette industry say that they are not advertising products to youth, but they are advertising products on a medium which is the broadest based medium in the country,” says Jennifer Duke, lead author of the study and a public health researcher at RTI International in Research Triangle Park, N.C.

With a national television audience that includes 24 million viewers between the ages of 12 and 17, “as e-cigarette advertisements increase for adults they are by default also increasing exposure to youth,” Duke says. “It’s hard to argue that only adults are seeing these ads,” she adds.

Ads for traditional cigarettes have been banned from TV since 1971. A proposed rule, released in April by the Food and Drug Administration, would ban the sale to minors of tobacco products that are currently unregulated, including e-cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco and hookahs. The rule would also require require ingredient disclosure, federal approval and warning labels. Marketing and advertising restrictions are currently not part of the proposed rule.

Commercial: blu eCigs ad that aired during study

Commercial: NJOY ad that aired during the study

In a statement, blu eCigs said it has “proactively set limitations on when and where” its product “can be marketed in an effort to minimize any potential exposure to minors.” A part of the criteria used “is to screen all marketing opportunities to ensure that our TV ads only run with media targeting an adult audience of 85 percent or greater.”

The new study, which analyzed Nielsen television audience measurement data, did not focus on the content of the commercials or the audience intentionally targeted by the ads, only who had exposure to them, Duke says.

The finding that these “unregulated advertisement messages about the benefits of e-cigarettes are out at a large and increasing volume” is alarming because “there are no counter messages by the public health community,” she says.

Among the safety concerns about the battery-powered devices that turn nicotine-laced liquid into a vapor that users inhale, is that nicotine (derived from tobacco leaves) is addictive and may lead users to try other tobacco products.

E-cigarettes have not been fully studied by the FDA, but a laboratory analysis of several samples conducted by the agency in late 2008 found trace amounts of carcinogens and toxic chemicals, such as diethylene glycol, an ingredient used in antifreeze.

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.”