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‘Vaping’ Santa Billboard Causes Backlash

By Gillian Mohney

ht vaping santa kb 131218 16x9 608 Vaping Santa Billboard Causes Backlash
E-cigarette company draws controversy after using “vaping” Santa in billboard. (VaporShark/Facebook)

This might put Santa on the naughty list.
The e-cigarette company Vapor-Shark is facing backlash after putting up a billboard of a “vaping” Santa Claus in Florida. The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids complained the ad was similar to old cigarette ads aimed at children and called it ” a new low.”
Even e-cigarettes fans said the ad was inappropriate.
“Showing Santa vaping, globally recognized as a children’s icon, is irresponsible and is and will be seen as a ploy to appeal to under age customers,” said Aaron Frazier, a self-described “vapor,” on the company’s Facebook Page. 
“We disagree … it’s a difference of opinion” said Vapor Shark CEO Brandon Liedel of their dissenters. “The only type of kid that would be persuaded by Santa Claus is a 5-year-old. I think a gorgeous woman would be more persuasive for a teenager.”
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2013/12/18/vaping-santa-billboard-causes-backlash/

Will your children buy candy, gum or little cigars?

By Dr. Tom Frieden, Special to CNN
Editor’s note: Dr. Tom Frieden is director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
(CNN) — They’re on display at cash registers all across America: Candy bars, packs of gum — and little cigars.
In some cases, those cigars aren’t tucked away behind the counter where only the attendant can get to them but right in front for anyone to pick up.
Traditional fat cigars are a small part of today’s cigar industry. Newer types of cancer sticks include cigarette-sized cigars, or little cigars, designed to look like a typical cigarette but which evade cigarette taxes and regulations.
Flavored little cigars can be sold virtually anywhere, and kids are a prime target of these new products.
Unlike cigarettes, many are sold singly or in small, low-priced packs, at a fraction of the cost of a cigarette in most states.
These little cigars have names like “Da Bomb Blueberry” and “Swagberry.” The flavors themselves — chocolate mint, watermelon, wild cherry and more — can mask the harsh taste of tobacco and are clearly attractive to children.
The Food and Drug Administration banned candy and fruit flavors in cigarettes so young people would not be enticed. But cigars weren’t covered.
The tobacco industry claims that its marketing efforts are solely aimed at adults. It has long argued that its marketing doesn’t increase demand or cause young people to smoke but instead is intended to increase brand appeal and market share among existing adult smokers.
How many grown-ups do you know who smoke grape-flavored cigars?
Little cigars have become more popular in recent years. Flavored brands have almost 80% of the market share.
In 2011, among middle school and high school students who currently smoke cigars, more than one in three reported using flavored little cigars.
Six states — Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Wisconsin — have youth cigar smoking rates the same as or higher than those of youth cigarette smoking.
Despite industry statements to the contrary, the link between marketing and youth tobacco use is clear.
Some legislative and regulatory actions that tackle elements of tax discrepancies, youth appeal and marketing are in place or under consideration.
New York and Providence, Rhode Island, have enacted city-wide ordinances prohibiting the sale of flavored tobacco products, including flavored little cigars. Both ordinances have been challenged and upheld in U.S. District Court.
In April, the Tobacco Tax and Enforcement Reform Act was introduced in the Senate. This bill aims to eliminate tax disparities between different tobacco products, reduce illegal tobacco trade and increase the federal excise tax on tobacco products.
Based on decades of evidence, the 2012 surgeon general’s reporton tobacco use among youth and young adults concluded that tobacco industry marketing causes youths to smoke, and nicotine addiction keeps them smoking.
This sobering fact holds true in spite of bans on advertising and promotions that target children and youths, and restrictions on certain other marketing activities.
Nearly 90% of smokers started before they were 18 years old, and almost no one starts smoking after age 25.
To prevent the needless death, disability and illness caused by smoking, we must stop young people from even starting to smoke.
A key part of prevention efforts must be action that will eliminate loopholes in restrictions on tobacco marketing, pricing and products that encourage children and youth to smoke.
I don’t think it’s too much to expect of our society that we protect our kids so they can reach adulthood without an addiction that can harm or kill them.
– – – –
The opinions expressed are solely those of Dr. Tom Frieden.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/11/health/frieden-little-cigars/

FDA’s anti-smoking campaign to target teens

By 

Early next year, half a century after the U.S. surgeon general first proclaimed the deadly effects of smoking, the Food and Drug Administration will launch a public health campaign unlike any the federal government has ever attempted.
Slick, data-driven and well-funded, the effort could cost up to $600 million over the next five years, all of it paid for by the tobacco industry under a 2009 law.
It will feature carefully crafted anti-smoking messages targeting specific types of teenagers, from rural kids who watch “Duck Dynasty” and drive pickups to gay and lesbian teens who prefer the nightclub scene.
In contracting with top-flight advertising firms, conducting intense demographic research and micro-targeting subsets of the 12-to-17-year-old crowd, the FDA is hoping to take a page from the marketing playbook of corporate America.
“It’s the federal government going to ad firms of the quality and ability that the tobacco industry has always used,” said Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a national advocacy group. “They’re ensuring that the media designed to educate and reach at-risk young people is of the same quality that the tobacco industry has used to attract them.”
The federal government can scarcely compete with the tobacco industry, whichspent more than $8 billion on advertising and promotions during 2011, according to the most recent data available from the Federal Trade Commission.
But Mitch Zeller, head of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, said he hopes that in undertaking the first federally funded anti-smoking campaign aimed exclusively at young people, the government can put a dent in the number of teenagers who smoke their first cigarette each day — now roughly 3,300, with an estimated 700 to 800 becoming addicted.
“Once they become regular smokers or regular tobacco users, then it’s the progression to addiction, disease and premature death,” Zeller said. “We have a responsibility . . . to reduce the death and disease toll from tobacco use. That includes educating kids about the harms of tobacco use in an effective way, in a way that will reach them.”
Previous government-backed anti-smoking initiatives have not been on this scale. Some individual states have run campaigns designed to discourage youth smoking — efforts largely financed by a 1998 settlement under which tobacco companies paid states billions of dollars to settle Medicaid claims for tobacco-related health-care costs.
Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched the first federally funded national anti-smoking campaign, but that was geared toward getting existing smokers to stop, not toward teen prevention.
For the new campaign, the FDA is turning to people such as Jeff Jordan, 29. The agency has given him $152 million and a mission: Find a way to cut through the cluttered modern media landscape and persuade teenagers to steer clear of tobacco. And not just any teenagers, but those particularly at risk for becoming smokers, such as Hispanics, Asian Americans, African Americans, gays and lesbians.
Jordan’s San Diego-based firm, Rescue Social Change Group, has spent years developing anti-smoking campaigns that target slivers of youth culture, from teens in Northern Virginia’s alternative rock scene to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender teens in Las Vegas. He said he believes that to have any chance of reaching those and other at-risk populations, the government must break free of generic messages aimed at reaching all teens.
“If half the population likes blue, and the other half likes yellow, a government agency will make their campaign green,” Jordan told an audience in Finland in 2012. “But they need to realize that being everything to everyone doesn’t work in marketing. They need to segment their audience and tailor their campaigns to be effective.”
The FDA has committed $300 million to the anti-smoking ad blitz in 2014 and 2015, with the possibility of doubling that in coming years. While a chunk of the money will initially be used to target teens who have never smoked or are intermittent tobacco users, most will be aimed at young people with higher risks of becoming addicted to tobacco.
Kathy Crosby, an FDA official and advertising industry veteran overseeing the campaigns, said the agency hopes to replicate the ways in which corporate America focuses on certain demographic groups, including notoriously hard-to-reach teenagers.
“Brands are masters at understanding the marketplace, understanding the dynamics of the marketplace and carving out a way to reach their target audiences,” Crosby said. “That’s what we’re trying to do.”
Neither the FDA nor the firms it has hired have offered specifics about the campaigns, saying they are a work in progress. But Jordan said the first and most important step is researching which teens to target, then crafting messages that ring true to that group.
“No public health effort before has truly fit into a youth culture, the way they see their culture,” said Jordan, whose small firm has doubled in size to nearly 60 employees and opened a Washington office since starting to work on the FDA project. “The most important part is to be authentic and credible. . . . If we can make a campaign that’s specifically designed for a group, that looks like them, sounds like them, identified with them, we can help them see that people like them are deciding smoking is unhealthy.”
He calls the approach “creating bull’s-eyes” at the fringes of youth culture. “If it actually works,” he said, “we’re talking about reducing [smoking] rates among the groups that are most resistant to a generally targeted message.”
Previous anti-smoking campaigns created by the various firms hired by the FDA offer hints about what to expect. The ads tend to be more edgy than people might expect from a government-backed campaign and often feature young people talking in blunt terms to peers about the consequences of tobacco use.
The firms involved also are adept at getting messages out in ways beyond traditional television and radio advertising, such as creating specialized Web sites and blogs, using Twitter and Facebook, hosting events at bars and staging concerts headlined by bands popular among target audiences.
Better World Advertising, a firm that the FDA has hired to target Native American teens, created a campaign in New York to encourage doctors to talk more with patients about the risks of tobacco, and another in California reminding parents of the dangers of secondhand smoke. The slogan for the latter: “When you smoke, they smoke.”
Another firm working with the FDA, Draftfcb, recently helped the government revamp the image of Smokey Bear.
Zeller, the FDA’s top tobacco official, knows a thing or two about the potential benefits of an aggressive anti-smoking campaign. In the early 2000s, he spent time as an executive at the nonprofit American Legacy Foundation, where he oversaw the “Truth Campaign.”
Funded by a massive tobacco-industry settlement in 1998, the campaign was characterized by in-your-face ads meant to educate teens about the tobacco industry’s misleading marketing practices.
“I know how to do this, and I know what works,” Zeller said in an interview with The Washington Post earlier this year. “And what works is, get really smart people from the outside, do it under contract, do the right research, develop the right messages, have a laser beam focus on who your target is and then buy your media correctly. And then spend money. Because it’s a dose response. Once you’ve done those first three or four things, the more you invest, the more impact you will have.”
Studies have concluded that the “truth” campaign had a tangible effect, discouraging some young people from starting to smoke and prompting others to think twice about their habit.
Another recent study estimated that 1.6 million Americans tried to quit smoking after last year’s CDC campaign, which featured stark images and pleas from adult ex-smokers suffering from a variety of ailments, including amputated limbs and throat cancer.
Whatever shape the FDA’s anti-smoking ads take, Jordan said he’s encouraged to see the government trying to reach teenagers in new and creative ways, in part by taking a chance on firms like his, which aren’t exactly mainstream.
“From the perspective of a federal agency, we’re by no means a quiet company,” he said. “Our work is risque and really in your face, and it’s meant to really cause change. I’m thankful they were willing to take the risk.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/fdas-anti-smoking-campaign-to-target-teens/2013/12/09/5b24030a-4d73-11e3-be6b-d3d28122e6d4_story.html

E-cigarettes: Do benefits outweigh risks?

by Natalie Brand / KTVK
More and more tobacco companies are jumping into the “e-cigarette” market, considered the “wild, wild west,” since it’s without FDA regulations.
From celebrity commercials to candy flavors, some health officials worry who e-cigarette manufacturers may be targeting.
“You see all the commercials that cigarettes are so bad, which is true, then they say, it’s a new, safe alternative,” said Matt Majd who admitted e-cigarettes were popular at his high school.
“People think it’s cool to do it in class and try not to let teachers see,” said Majd who has also tried e-cigarettes himself.  “Just gives you somewhat of a buzz, somewhat of a head rush, kinda similar to the effect of cigarettes.”
“It’s still troubling to see some actors in the industry real actively trying to recruit kids to their product,” said Arizona Department of Health Services Director Will Humble.
Humble says the jury’s still out as to whether e-cigarettes will serve their purpose as a safer alternative for smokers, or inadvertently get a new generation hooked.
“What I don’t know yet is where electronic cigarettes lie on the scale; are there more benefits than risks?”
A recent CDC study found e-cigarette experimentation and use among middle and high school students doubled last year.  It’s too early to know if that will eventually lead them to smoking tobacco cigarettes.
“Once you’ve got a kid addicted to nicotine, now you’ve got an active potential smoker for the rest of their lives, because their brains get hardwired when they start smoking,” said Humble.
Craig Weiss, President and CEO of Scottsdale based NJOY says his company goes out of its way to play by the rules from verifying age to advertising to smokers and smokers only.
Former Surgeon General Richard Carmona of Tucson sits on NJOY’s Board of Directors.
“We’re not interested in people who are underage,” said Weiss.  He said his target is the public health epidemic of smoking.
“We feel we’re helping people,” said Weiss.  “Smokers are already addicted to nicotine, and that’s the only customer I’m interested in.”
Weiss said his end game is a place with no tobacco.
“We want there to be reasonable regulation by the FDA, so everyone is playing by the same rules,” said Weiss.
When asked if he fears e-cigarette commercials are glamorizing smokers:
“I think of it as advertising,” said Weiss.  “It’s important for us to communicate to our smokers that they have an alternative.”
But health leaders worry what could happen if this now billion dollar business is left unregulated.
“The potential is there for these products to really do a lot of good, I honestly believe that,” said Will Humble.  “But not if they’re going to go after kids, not if they’re going to go after people who don’t smoke.”
http://www.kvue.com/news/232829891.html

CDC: More teens smoking e-cigarettes, hookah

By RYAN JASLOW / CBS NEWS
More middle and high school students are smoking electronic cigarettes, hookahs and cigars, according to a new government report form the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
While rates for those tobacco products have increased, overall youth smoking rates haven’t declined at all, a concerning figure for health officials.
“We need effective action to protect our kids from addiction to nicotine,” Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC, said in an agency press release.
For the new report, researchers combed data from the 2012 National Youth Tobacco Survey, a nationally-representative poll of about 25,000 students in grades six through 12 on their tobacco use habits and attitudes towards smoking.
They found recent e-cigarette use among high school students rose to 2.8 percent in 2012, up from 1.5 percent the year before. About 1.1 percent of middle school students reported using the products, up from 0.6 percent in 2011.

E-cigarette use among youths surges

In September, the CDC released a report that found the number of middle and high school students who ever used an e-cigarette doubled, from 1.4 percent and 4.7 percent of surveyed students in 2011 to 2.7 percent and 10 percent by 2012, respectively.
Hookah use was also looked at in the new report. The CDC finding smoking rates increased from 4.1 percent of high schoolers in 2011 to 5.4 percent by 2012.
Cigar use rose “dramatically” among black high school students, with 16.7 percent reporting using them, up from 11.7 percent in 2011 and a doubling of rates since 2009.
Included in cigars were flavored little cigars or cigarillos, which contain fruit or candy flavorings and tend to look similar to cigarettes. They are often cheaper because they are taxed at lower rates and can be sold individually.
Last month, the CDC also released a report on youth smoking rates for flavored little cigars, finding six percent of surveyed middle and high students said they had tried them.
E-cigarettes, hookahs, cigars and other “new” tobacco products are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, the CDC points out. Increases in the marketing and availability of these products — along with a misconception they’re safer than cigarettes — may be fueling these increases in kids.
“This report raises a red flag about newer tobacco products,” said Frieden. “Cigars and hookah tobacco are smoked tobacco — addictive and deadly.”
Overall, about 7 percent of middle school students reported smoking any tobacco product along with 23 percent of high school students, rates unchanged from 2011.
The new report was published Nov. 14 in the CDC’s journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
The FDA intends to propose a rule to tighten regulation of non-cigarette nicotine products like e-cigarettes. The authors also called for more tobacco-control measures implemented to these newer products, including increasing the price of them, using media campaigns aimed at curbing smoking, increasing access to services that help people quit and enforcing restrictions on advertising and promotion.
Under the Affordable Care Act, more Americans will qualify to coverage for tobacco cessation services, the CDC added.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-204_162-57612410/cdc-more-teens-smoking-e-cigarettes-hookah/

More U.S. Teens Try E-Cigarettes, Hookahs: Report

By Steven Reinberg, HealthDay Reporter – US News
(HealthDay News) — The rapidly growing use of electronic cigarettes, hookahs and other smoking alternatives by middle school and high school students concerns U.S. health officials.
While use of these devices nearly doubled in some cases between 2011 and 2012, no corresponding decline has been seen in cigarette smoking, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday.
“We have seen, between 2011 and 2012, a big increase in the percentage of middle- and high-school students who are using non-conventional tobacco products, particularly electronic cigarettes and hookahs,” said Brian King, a senior scientific adviser in CDC’s office on smoking and health.
These products are marketed in innovative ways on TV and through social media, he said. “So, it’s not surprising that we are seeing this increase among youth,” he added.
E-cigarettes and hookah tobacco come in flavors, which appeals to kids. And since hookahs are often used in groups, they also provide a social experience, which may be adding to their popularity, King said.
Teens may also believe that e-cigarettes are safer than tobacco, said Stanton Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco. However, nicotine is addictive and can hamper the developing brains of teens.
“This paper shows that the return of nicotine advertising to TV and radio, combined with an aggressive social media presence and use of flavors is promoting rapid uptake of electronic cigarettes by youth,” said Glantz.
The report, based on data from the 2012 National Youth Tobacco Survey, was published in the Nov. 15 issue of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
King said efforts are needed to curb use of these tobacco products and prevent other teens from ever trying them. “We know that 90 percent of smokers start in their teens, so if we can stop them from using tobacco at this point, we could potentially prevent another generation from being addicted to tobacco,” King noted.
Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death and disease in the United States, killing more than 1,200 people every day.
E-cigarettes simulate the experience of smoking without delivering smoke. They are shaped like cigarettes but users inhale a vaporized, nicotine-based liquid.
“Nicotine is an addictive drug that affects brain development, especially in adolescents, whose brains are still developing,” he said.
According to the report, from 2011 to 2012 use of e-cigarettes among middle-school students rose from 0.6 percent to 1.1 percent. Their use by high school students jumped from 1.5 percent to 2.8 percent.
Over the same period, hookah use among high schoolers jumped from 4.1 percent to 5.4 percent, the researchers found.
Currently, electronic cigarettes, hookah tobacco, cigars and certain other new tobacco products are not regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The FDA has said it intends to classify these products as tobacco products, putting them under the agency’s control.
The popularity of these new products hurts ongoing tobacco-prevention efforts, experts say. “This proliferation of novel tobacco products that are priced and marketed to appeal to kids are slowing our progress in reducing tobacco use among kids,” said Danny McGoldrick, research director for Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
“You have the marketing of electronic cigarettes that are using all the themes and tactics that have been used by cigarette companies for decades to market to kids, like flavors, the use of celebrities, the use of sports and entertainment, as well as glamour, sex and rebellion,” he said.
This is why the FDA needs to assert jurisdiction over all tobacco products, McGoldrick said.
Cigar use is also rising among adolescents. Their use by black high school students rose from about 12 percent to nearly 17 percent from 2011 to 2012, and since 2009 has more than doubled, according to the report.
Cigars and cigarettes were smoked by about the same number of boys in 2012 — more than 16 percent.
Cigars include so-called “little cigars,” which are similar in size, shape and filter to cigarettes, King said. But since they are taxed at lower rates than cigarettes, they are more affordable. “You can buy a single, flavored little cigar for mere pocket change, which could increase their appeal among youth,” he said.
Fruit and candy flavors, which are banned from cigarettes, are added to some of these little cigars, King said.
According to the CDC, about one in three middle- and high-school students who smoke cigars use flavored little cigars.
Every day, more than 2,000 teens and young adults start smoking. Smoking-related diseases cost $96 billion a year in direct health care expenses, according to the CDC.
More information
For more information on stopping smoking, visit the American Cancer Society.
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2013/11/14/more-us-teens-try-e-cigarettes-hookahs-report

Tobacco Marketing Costs Exceed Those of Prevention Efforts

By Marisa DeCandido – email
There’s been a statewide effort over the past several years to cut down on tobacco use in North Dakota. And state lawmakers now know exactly how much those prevention programs are costing.
It’s not easy for smokers in North Dakota to find a place to light up, and state lawmakers now know just how much it costs to keep it that way.
The Center for Tobacco Prevention and Control Policy says it spends about fifty-five dollars on each North Dakota Tobacco user. That money goes towards programs that help users break the habit.
“A great portion of the program is focused on preventing young people, youth and young adults, from ever using tobacco so we don’t have to spend as much on cessation, or getting them to quit later in life,” says Prom
And Prom says youth smoking rates have gone down in the last year. Even though the tobacco industry spends about one-hundred and ninety five dollars a year marketing to North Dakotans.
“It’s odd that we have a situation today where we have an industry, the tobacco industry, who promote a product that when used as intended kills. There’s really nothing normal about that. So we want to change that to where not using tobacco is the norm,” says Jeanne Prom, North Dakota Tobacco Prevention.
Prom presented these numbers on the same day that New York City proposed a law that would change the tobacco buying age from eighteen to twenty-one. But North Dakotans don’t thing that will happen here.
“North Dakota, at this time, we need to focus on our taxes and raising that, and that is going to make the biggest impact for stopping our youth from starting and helping others to quit,” says Kim Schneider, American Lung Association.
That’s because the tobacco tax here is only forty-four cents, one of the lowest in the country.
“We’ve spent a lot of time in the past year just educating again on the smoke-free law and on the tobacco tax. It’s a big issue in North Dakota,” says Schneider.
Tobacco prevention groups in the state say raising the tax is the next step towards fighting tobacco use.
For more information on how much smoking costs North Dakotans, visit breathend.com.
http://www.kumv.com/story/23842127/tobacco-marketing-costs-exceed-those-of-prevention-efforts

Lawmakers updated on efforts to fight tobacco use

By Nick Smith
BISMARCK, N.D. _ A statewide effort to fight tobacco use is spending about $55.60 on each North Dakota adult who uses tobacco products, the director of the agency behind that effort says.
State lawmakers got an update Wednesday from Jeanne Prom, the executive director of the North Dakota Center for Prevention and Control Policy, on how much her agency spends.
With an average annual budget of about $10.7 million, it amounts to $55.59 spent on each adult tobacco user in the state, or $14.57 per capita, Prom told lawmakers. But she said that is much less than the tobacco industry spends on marketing.
“It takes a lot more to market it (tobacco),” Prom said.
In North Dakota, it cost approximately $40 per capita in 2009-11 — the most recent available estimate — for the tobacco industry to market its products, Prom said. She called it a positive sign that combating tobacco use is cheaper than marketing it.
The tobacco prevention center, using an annual state Health Department survey, estimated the state’s adult tobacco-using population at 192,105.
Krista Fremming, Tobacco Prevention and Control Program director for the state Health Department, said the department had expanded its advertising efforts for the NDQuits program this past June and July, something that had not been done in years past. The advertising campaign cost approximately $467,000.
The NDQuits program pushes to keep people from starting to smoke and helping people quit, using online sources, counselors and other services.
Fremming said the program served 341 people in July, up from 255 in June. But she said the program has not seen an increase in the number of people who use or want to quit e-cigarettes, possibly because people mistakenly think they are safe.
“There has been a lot of activity over the past couple of years … regarding e-cigarettes being used as a cessation aid,” Fremming said. “The truth is, we just don’t know if they’re safe.”
Fremming added that e-cigarettes are not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for that purpose. She said a large number of NDQuits members who reported e-cigarette use also smoke traditional cigarettes.
“A large portion of the upcoming NDQuits media campaign will focus on reaching smokeless and dual tobacco users,” Fremming said.
http://bismarcktribune.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/lawmakers-updated-on-efforts-to-fight-tobacco-use/article_7275a6e4-41ac-11e3-b615-0019bb2963f4.html

POV: Seven reasons the FDA should regulate e-cigarettes

By Kevin Keenan
In a recent online blog post by Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, it was clearly explained why e-cigarettes should soon be regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The CDC recently reported that rates of electronic cigarette use among U.S. youths more than doubled from 2011 to 2012, when 10 percent of high school students reported ever having used e-cigarettes.
These numbers are troubling but not surprising. There has been an explosion in e-cigarette marketing in recent years, and e-cigarette manufacturers are using the same slick tactics long used to market regular cigarettes to kids. The following are seven ways in which makers of the e-cigarette are using the same marketing strategies as the tobacco industry used back in the 1950s through the early ’70s:
1. They have celebrity spokespeople.
Like cigarette ads of old, television, online and print ads for e-cigarettes feature catchy slogans and celebrity endorsers, including actor Stephen Dorff and rock musician Courtney Love for NJOY. Their message: Using these products is trendy and cool.
2. Their magazine ads feature rugged men … and glamorous women.
These ads feature today’s equivalents of the Marlboro Man and the Virginia Slims woman, depicting e-cigarette use as masculine, sexy or rebellious. E-cigarette ads have appeared in magazines that reach millions of teens, including Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated, InStyle and Us Weekly.
3. They know sex sells.
Like cigarette companies have long done, e-cigarette makers portray use of their products as sexually attractive. The allure for young people to start using is just as real; particularly in the Internet age we live in.
4. They sponsor sports … and music festivals.
For decades tobacco companies used sponsorships of sports and entertainment events, especially auto racing and music festivals, to promote cigarettes to huge audiences, including kids. Cigarette sponsorships are now banned, however today e-cigarette brands have auto racing sponsorships of their own. The Blu Cig company is one of them.
5. Their products come in sweet flavors.
A 2009 federal law banned fruit- and candy-flavored cigarettes, but many e-cigarette companies gleefully pitch similar flavors. Apollo Vapors, for example, offers Almond Joyee (“the candy bar taste without the calories!”), French Vanilla (“like biting into a deliciously sweet vanilla cupcake”) and Banana Cream (“yummy ambrosia of bananas and whipped cream”).
6. They use cartoons.
The website for blu eCigs has featured a cartoon pitchman named “Mr. Cool.” It was reminiscent of the Joe Camel cartoon character that so effectively marketed cigarettes to kids in the 1990s.
7. Their ads say, “Switch, Don’t Quit.”
Tobacco companies have long tried to discourage smokers from quitting by marketing cigarette changes as reducing health risk. Some e-cigarette ads carry a similar message. No wonder youth e-cigarette use is on the rise. These developments underscore the need for the FDA to quickly regulate e-cigarettes and take steps to prevent their marketing and sale to kids.
Kevin Keenan is project director for Smoke-Free NOW, a program of Genesee/Orleans Council on Alcoholism and Substance Abuse.
http://thedailynewsonline.com/opinion/article_84e8a47a-32f7-11e3-a8fc-001a4bcf887a.html

Mourning the Death of Terrie Hall, Who Dedicated Her Life to Helping Others Live Longer

Statement of Matthew L. Myers
President, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids
WASHINGTON, DC – Tobacco took away Terrie Hall’s natural ability to speak. But it could not stop her from being heard around the world with a powerful message about the deadly consequences of smoking.
All of us at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids are deeply saddened by the death of Ms. Hall, who was the unforgettable face and voice of the federal government’s first-ever national media campaign aimed at reducing smoking. Ms. Hall died yesterday after a long battle with cancer.
Ms. Hall started smoking as a teenage cheerleader and was smoking up to two packs a day when, in 2001, she was diagnosed with oral cancer and throat cancer at age 40.  She had her larynx removed and had to speak with the aid of an artificial voice box.  Her voice and story were featured in the Tips from Former Smokers ad campaign launched in 2012 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and again in a second round of ads this year.
Even as she battled cancer, Ms. Hall courageously and unflinchingly told her story to the nation and the world.   She worked tirelessly to prevent kids from starting to smoke and encourage smokers to quit, first in her home state of North Carolina and then around the nation.
Because of Ms. Hall and the other former smokers in the Tips campaign, more than 1.6 million smokers tried to quit in the first year of the campaign and at least 100,000 succeeded in doing so, according to the CDC.  Terrie Hall is a heroine who saved lives. 
For more, Terrie Hall’s story is on the website of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC).  http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/campaign/tips/stories/terrie.html