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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.”

Reynolds expanding e-cigarette production

Washington Post – By Associated Press

RICHMOND, Va. — Reynolds American Inc. is expanding its Tobaccoville, North Carolina, manufacturing complex as it plans national distribution of its Vuse brand electronic cigarette this summer, the company said Friday.

The owner of nation’s second-biggest tobacco company did not disclose the costs related to the ramp-up, which will include a multi-million dollar investment for high-speed manufacturing equipment, for competitive reasons but said the move would create more than 200 jobs over the next four years.

Reynolds, based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, launched Vuse in Colorado last June and plans the initial wave of national distribution next month.

Production is currently done at a contractor facility in Kansas, but the company said more production will be needed for the foreseeable future to meet anticipated market demand. The company will carve out about 70,000 square feet of space in its existing 2 million-square-foot Tobaccoville facility. It does not publicly provide the number of employees that work at the plant that also makes its cigarette brands, including Camel and Pall Mall.

The market for e-cigarettes has grown from the thousands of users in 2006 to several million worldwide and reached nearly $2 billion in sales last year. The battery-powered devices that 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 Food and Drug Administration last month proposed regulating electronic cigarettes.

Reynolds says the rechargeable Vuse e-cigarette has technology that monitors and adjusts heat and power more than 2,000 times per second to deliver the “perfect puff.” 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.

“This is all about smokers getting satisfaction from these alternatives and how many smokers find that an acceptable way to enjoy nicotine instead of smoking tobacco products,” Reynolds CEO Susan Cameron said at a news conference Friday with North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory. “I think we’ll see this evolve and it’s certainly in growth mode, but how big and how fast, we really don’t know yet.”

The nation’s biggest tobacco companies all have entered into the fast-growing electronic cigarette business as part of an industry wide push to diversify beyond the traditional cigarette business, which has become tougher in the face of tax hikes, smoking bans, health concerns and social stigma.

Altria Group Inc., owner of the nation’s biggest cigarette maker, Philip Morris USA, plans to expand its MarkTen electronic cigarette brand nationally during the first half of the year. Lorillard Inc., the nation’s third-biggest tobacco company, acquired e-cigarette maker Blu Ecigs in April 2012. Blu now accounts for almost half of all e-cigarettes sold.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/reynolds-expanding-e-cigarette-production/2014/05/23/aa1b73bc-e283-11e3-9442-54189bf1a809_story.html

E-Cigarette Makers Going After Youth, Report Finds

BY MAGGIE FOX, NBC News

E-cigarette makers may say they welcome regulation and don’t want to sell to teenage nonsmokers, but their advertising dollars paint a very different picture, according to a report released Thursday.

E-cigarette makers spent $39 million on ads from June through November 2013, much of it on programming targeting youth, the anti-tobacco organization Legacy found.

“Overall, these research findings indicate that, despite their publicly stated intentions, some e-cigarette companies are reaching youth with their advertising,” Legacy says in its report.

“Moreover, the only national brand owned by a major tobacco company, blu, is reaching a significant portion of young Americans with its advertising. The effects of this are apparent, with nearly all young people aware of these products and use among young people rising rapidly.”

Health officials from several major U.S. cities say that’s why federal regulators need to act. They can restrict sales and limit where people may smoke or “vape,” but they cannot restrict national ads.

“There are some areas where our hands are tied and that particularly is in marketing,” said New York City health commissioner Dr. Mary Travis Bassett.

“They need to do more to protect kids from the effects of TV,” added Los Angeles County health commissioner Dr. Jonathan Fielding.

The fear is a whole new generation of people will become addicted to nicotine before federal regulations can be written, let alone take hold, the health commissioners told a news conference. New York, Chicago, Boston and Los Angeles County are among the big city areas that have restricted sales and use of e-cigarettes.

Even some public health experts say e-cigarettes may be a useful alternative to burned tobacco cigarettes for smokers. But they also agree that it would be bad to encourage or even allow non-smoking children to become addicted to the nicotine in e-cigarettes.

Legacy was set up in 1999 as part of the Master Settlement Agreement when major tobacco companies agreed to pay more than $200 billion to states and territories. The states wanted some of the money to be used for an organization dedicated to studying and providing public education about the impact of tobacco.

Just last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it would seek to regulate e-cigarettes, because they contain nicotine, the addictive substance in tobacco. Most e-cigarette makers said they’d welcome some regulation.

Legacy did two studies looking at the marketing of e-cigarettes, and asking teens and young adults what they knew about them. It found e-cigarette TV ads reached 29.3 million teens and young adults from January through November 2013, including 58 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds.

Taken together, the two reports show e-cigarette makers using tactics that have long been banned for regular cigarettes, the report says.

E-cigarette makers dispute this. “The products are being advertised to adults,” said Cynthia Cabrera, executive director of the Smoke Free Alternatives Trade Association. “If children are watching during that time, it’s possible, but they are being marketed to adult consumers, to adult smokers.”

Public health experts say 90 percent of smokers start by the age of 20. They worry that e-cigarettes sold in flavors such as bubble gum and Gummi bear are targeted mainly to younger teens.

“While cigarette advertising is prohibited on television, it is currently fair game to use television to promote electronic cigarettes. Using broadcast and online advertising has allowed the e-cigarette industry to promote its products in a way that has broad reach and is largely unregulated,” Legacy says.

“Every day that industry is growing very, very rapidly,” LA’s Fielding said. “And you can be sure that big tobacco is going to wind up in the driver’s seat with respect to marketing. Don’t let them undo decades of efforts to de-glamorize smoking.”

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/kids-health/e-cigarette-makers-going-after-youth-report-finds-n94166

E-Cigarette Sales to Minors: Hooking a New Generation?

Margaret I. Cuomo, M.D., HuffPost Healthy Living Blog
“Vaping” is the term used by many middle and high schoolers to describe the inhalation of vapors from an electronic cigarette. Celebrities have advertised e-cigarettes in advertisements and in the movies, and until now, it has been legal for a teenager to purchase them.
In April, 2014, the FDA issued a document in the Federal Register, which would regulate electronic cigarettes nationally as a tobacco product, including age restrictions similar to those for conventional cigarettes. The proposed rule will be enforceable once it is finalized. The American Medical Association, the American Lung Association, and the American Association for Cancer Research are all in support of the FDA’s announcement.
This proposed regulation will also include cigars, pipe and water pipe tobacco, nicotine gels and some dissolvable tobacco products, and anything else that meets the definition of a “tobacco product” according to the Tobacco Control Act.
At this point, the FDA will not restrict flavored e-cigarettes or advertising on television or print media. Hopefully those restrictions will follow soon, because Gummy bear, Fruit Loop and bubble gum flavors clearly target middle and high school students. Only menthol is permissible as a flavor for conventional cigarettes, as mandated by the Tobacco Control Act.
Originally, e-cigarettes were designed as an aid to quit smoking conventional cigarettes.
Nicotine is a highly addictive substance, and is present in most e-cigarettes.
E-cigarettes also contain cancer-causing nitrosamines and diethylene glycol, a toxic chemical found in anti-freeze. Are they effective in helping people quit smoking? Until large, randomized controlled trials are conducted, no one will know for sure.
We do know that e-cigarette manufacturers have been very clever in marketing to middle- and high-school students with colorful packaging, fun flavors and cool accessories.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported in September, 2013 that the use of electronic cigarettes doubled in young people between 2011 and 2012, increasing to 10 percent for high school students, and 2.7 percent for middle schoolers. In total, 1.78 million United States students have used e-cigarettes as of 2012.
Should we allow manufacturers to entice our youth with a nicotine-delivery device that can lead to addiction to conventional cigarettes?
Some researches warn that e-cigarettes are a gateway device for nicotine addiction among youth. In a study of nearly 40,000 youth around the USA, the authors, Lauren M. Dutra, ScD and Stanton A. Glantz, PhD, of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at UCSF concluded that, “Use of e-cigarettes does not discourage, and may encourage, conventional cigarette use among U.S. adolescents.”
We have come too far, and battled far too long with the tobacco industry, to make the mistake of trusting the e-cigarette manufacturers to do what is right for America’s children. How long was it before the tobacco industry would admit that smoking causes cancer?
Dr. Janie Heath, Associate dean and professor of nursing at the University of Virginia School of Nursing, and an expert on the effects of tobacco on smokers, offers this insight into the problem: “When we look at 95 percent of individuals that smoke cigarettes, they all started that initiation before age 21. So, there’s the likelihood of these younger ones starting on electronic cigarettes, and wanting to have more and more of a hit.”
Dr. Heath also warns that “It’s harder to help an individual quit smoking than it is to get them off crack cocaine, heroin or any of the other drugs.”
Hopefully celebrities will resist the allure of advertising e-cigarettes in magazines, and also in movies, knowing that their endorsement have a powerful effect on teenagers.
Where are the famous athletes. actors and athletes who are willing to say: “There’s nothing cool about smoking or vaping, because there is nothing cool about cancer”?
While we wait for the scientific data to prove the harms of vaping, let’s protect our middle and high schoolers from a lifelong addiction and a high risk of cancer.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/margaret-i-cuomo-md/healthy-living-news_b_5213382.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063

Proposal would ban e-cigarette sales to minors, allow advertising

By: Reuters, INFORUM
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration proposed rules on Thursday that would ban the sale of e-cigarettes to anyone under 18, but would not restrict flavored products, online sales or advertising, which public health advocates say attract children.
The long-awaited proposal, which would subject the $2 billion industry to federal regulation for the first time, is not as restrictive as some companies had feared and will likely take years to become fully effective.
Bonnie Herzog, an analyst at Wells Fargo, said the proposal is “positive for industry.”
But public health advocates lamented the fact that the proposal does not take aim at e-cigarette advertising or sweetly-flavored products, which they say risk introducing a new generation of young people to conventional cigarettes when little is known about the long-term health impact of the electronic devices.
“It’s very disappointing because they don’t do anything to rein in the wild-west marketing that is targeting kids,” said Stanton Glantz, a professor at the Center of Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco.
FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said at a briefing on Wednesday that the proposal represented the first “foundational” step toward broader restrictions if scientific evidence shows they are needed to protect public health.
That declaration worries some companies.
“The window is still open for a more draconian approach,” said Jason Healy, president of Lorillard Inc’s blu eCigs unit, which holds roughly 48 percent of the market. “I think the proposal shows a good science-based reaction here from the FDA, but there is a lot we have to go through during the public comment period.”
Lorillard, together with privately-held NJOY and Logic Technology account for an estimated 80 percent of the market. Other big tobacco companies, including Altria Group Inc and Reynolds American Inc, are also entering the market.
E-cigarette advocates welcomed the FDA’s light touch.
Dr. Michael Siegel, a professor of community health sciences at Boston University, said a ban on flavorings would have “devastated the industry, as the flavors are a key aspect of what makes these products competitive with tobacco cigarettes.”
Similarly, a ban on all e-cigarette advertising “would have given tobacco cigarettes an unfair advantage in the marketplace,” he said.
NO FREE SAMPLES
A law passed in 2009 gave the FDA authority to regulate cigarettes, smokeless tobacco and roll-your-own tobacco and stipulated the agency could extend its jurisdiction to other nicotine products after issuing a rule to that effect. E-cigarettes use battery-powered cartridges to produce a nicotine-laced inhalable vapor.
In the short term, the new rules would prohibit companies from distributing free e-cigarette samples, forbid vending machine sales except in adult-only venues and prohibit sales to minors.
Companies would also be required to warn consumers that nicotine is addictive, but no other health warnings would be required. The addiction warning would have to be added no later than two years after the rule is set and the e-cigarette companies would not be allowed to make health claims in any advertising.
The proposal is subject to a public-comment period of 75 days.
Vince Willmore, a spokesman for the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, said the proposal “by no means does everything we think needs to be done, but it starts the process. What is critical now is that they finalize this rule and then move quickly to fill the gaps.”
He said the FDA should aim to establish the rule within a year, but many are skeptical the agency will act that quickly.
“The reality of these things is that every step takes years,” said UCSF’s Glantz. “By not addressing the youth-directed marketing it means it won’t be addressed for a very long time.”
Some e-cigarette companies that sell primarily through convenience stores were surprised at the lack of restrictions on online sales, since it can be difficult to verify a customer’s age over the Internet.
“The Internet thing is very surprising to me,” said Miguel Martin, president of Logic Technology. “It reduces the visibility of the sales of the products and the type of products that the government has awareness of.”
The new rules would also require companies to submit new and existing products to the FDA for approval. They would have two years to submit applications from the time the rule goes into effect. Companies may continue selling their products and introducing new products pending the FDA’s review.
In the meantime, e-cigarette companies would be required to register with the FDA and list the ingredients in their products. They would not be required to adhere immediately to specific product or quality control standards. That could come later, Hamburg said.
THE “VAPING” INDUSTRY
E-cigarettes and other “vaping” devices generate roughly $2 billion a year in the United States, and some industry analysts expect their sales to outpace the $85 billion conventional-cigarette industry within a decade.
Advocates of e-cigarettes claim they are a safer alternative to conventional cigarettes, since they do not produce lung-destroying tar, though long-term safety data is thin.
The FDA’s proposal leaves many questions unanswered about how new products would be regulated over the long run. One key question relates to how products are approved.
Under current law, new tobacco products can be approved if they are “substantially equivalent” to a product that was on the market before Feb. 15, 2007. It is unclear whether any e-cigarettes were on sale before then, to be used as a benchmark.
Mitch Zeller, head of the FDA’s tobacco division, said at a briefing that the agency would be seeking more information during the public-comment period on whether the “substantial equivalence” pathway is even valid for e-cigarettes.
If it is not, e-cigarette companies would have to use a different process, which would require them to prove their products are appropriate for public health, a higher hurdle to clear.
Also up in the air is the regulatory fate of some cigars. The current proposal would include e-vaping products and other tobacco products, but premium cigars may be excluded.
The FDA said it would seek public comment on whether all cigars should be regulated equally. One option proposed by the agency is to regulate them all. The other is to define a category of premium cigars that would not be subject to the FDA’s authority.
Physicians said the possible exemption of premium cigars from regulation was troubling.
“Any exemption for any kind of tobacco product proven to cause lung and heart disease and cancer is unacceptable,” said Harold Wimmer, chief executive of the American Lung Association.
Cigar companies, backed by some members of Congress, had lobbied heavily for a regulatory carve-out for premium cigars. In a December 2013 letter to Hamburg and Sylvia Mathews Burwell, director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, 24 Republican lawmakers asked that premium cigars be exempt.
“As you know,” they wrote, “premium cigars are a niche product with an adult consumer base, much like fine wines. The majority of people who enjoy a cigar do so occasionally, often in social or celebratory settings.”
Under the proposed rule, premium cigars are considered those wrapped in whole tobacco leaf, made manually by combining the wrapper, filler and binder, have no characterizing flavor, have no filter, tip or non-tobacco mouthpiece and are relatively expensive.
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/432967/group/homepage/

Higher taxes on cigarettes make good sense

Washington Post Editorial Board
Maryland has one of the highest state-imposed cigarette tax rates in the nation ($2 per pack) and, unsurprisingly, one of the lowest smoking rates. Virginia has one of the lowest cigarette tax rates in the nation (30 cents per pack); its smoking rate is almost 20 percent higher than Maryland’s.
America is well past the debate about the health effects of smoking, but tobacco taxes in many states remain low, thanks largely to the influence of tobacco companies. Yet it is clear that higher cigarette taxes have a direct effect on smoking rates, and they are particularly effective in dissuading young people from taking up the habit.
In Maryland, where the tax on a pack of cigarettes was raised in 1999 (to 36 cents), 2002 (to $1) and 2008 (to the current rate of $2), smoking rates have fallen by about a third, much faster than the national average. At the time of the last increase, Maryland’s tobacco tax was 6th-highest in the nation; since then it has slipped to 12th as other states have leapfrogged each other in an effort to further discourage smoking — and raise revenue in the process.
In Annapolis, public health advocates and other groups are now pushing for another $1 increase, which would bump the state tax in Maryland to $3 per pack. Depending on how much of the increase tobacco companies decide to absorb, that could raise the average retail price of cigarettes above $7; it’s currently around $6.40.
The projected benefits of a $1 increase in Maryland make a persuasive case. They include $95 million in additional revenue (which health advocates would like to use to extend Medicaid health coverage to the poor); a 10 percent decrease in the rate of youth smoking; thousands of adults who would be persuaded to quit; and the prevention of thousands of premature deaths, which in turn would produce considerable economic benefits.
It’s true that raising the tax would cause more Marylanders to cross the border to buy cigarettes in Virginia or North Carolina. But cigarette sales fell much more dramatically in 2008 in Maryland, the District and Delaware, all of which raised their tobacco taxes that year, than they rose in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Virginia, which did not. And while cigarette smuggling remains an unquantifiable challenge, declining smoking rates and the associated public health payoffs are real.
Legislation to raise the tax went nowhere in Annapolis this year, possibly because the state has raised so many other taxes in the last few years. Advocates are mounting a push to gather pledges of support from lawmakers to enact the increase next year.
Meanwhile, in Virginia, where the tobacco lobby remains virtually unchallenged, the average price of a pack of cigarettes, about $4.60, is among the lowest in the nation. If Virginia lawmakers want to encourage children to take up the habit, they’re doing a great job.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/higher-taxes-on-cigarettes-make-good-sense/2014/04/20/aa90bd08-c716-11e3-9f37-7ce307c56815_story.html

Other Views: E-cigarette sellers take page from Big Tobacco’s book

— USA Today
Just when smoking has finally lost its glamour, along come electronic cigarettes and an avalanche of sexy new ads that promote “vaping.”
In one, actor Stephen Dorff, shirtless, talks about taking “back your freedom” while inhaling vapor on Lorillard’s blu eCig. (Can anyone say Marlboro Man?) In another ad for blu, former Playboy centerfold Jenny McCarthy leans forward seductively into the camera before saying: “I feel free to have one almost anywhere.”
For a product whose main appeal is supposed to be that it’s not a traditional cigarette, e-cigarette makers have sure taken a lot of pages from Big Tobacco’s playbook. Which is not surprising. Many of the sellers are the same companies that made billions of dollars addicting people to a product that kills 480,000 a year.
The marketing push is enough to trouble anyone who believed that, after a half-century battle, the nation finally had smoking on the run and that fewer teenagers would get hooked and die prematurely.
E-cigarettes — battery-operated nicotine inhalers that contain no tobacco — have the potential to help some smokers quit. But the jury is still out on whether and how well they may work. In the meantime, the potential for nicotine addiction is high, and there’s no good reason to use e-cigarettes other than trying to quit smoking.
Federal law prohibits cigarette makers from sponsoring sports and entertainment events, handing out free samples and selling certain flavored cigarettes. TV ads were banned in 1970.
But for e-cigarettes, it’s open season. Makers have sponsored music festivals, fashion shows and IndyCar racing. You can buy e-cigarettes or liquid refills in everything from Cherry Blast to Gummy Bear. Is the public really supposed to believe that e-cigarettes are not being marketed to minors?
The dangers of e-cigarettes may not be as obvious as those of traditional smokes, but new problems are emerging.
For example, the nicotine-laced liquid the devices use, which comes in small vials and large containers, can be toxic if touched or consumed. Calls to poison control centers about misuse, mostly by children, have risen to 217 a month this year, almost 10 times the number in 2011.
Also troubling is that more teenagers are experimenting with e-cigarettes. In 2012, 1.8 million middle-school and high-school students tried them, double the number the year before. One in five of the middle-schoolers who experimented said they’d never smoked before. It doesn’t help that about 20 states allow sales of e-cigarettes to minors.
So what’s the right response? At least until more studies are done, all states should treat the new devices as they treat cigarettes, with bans on youth sales and indoor use. And the Food and Drug Administration, which has been slow to assert its authority to regulate e-cigarettes, ought to get on with it.
More independent research would determine if e-cigarettes really can help smokers quit. Or if they carry other health risks. For now, the nation ought to ensure that a new generation doesn’t get hooked on a different and potentially dangerous product.
http://www.theadvertiser.com/story/opinion/2014/04/20/other-views-e-cigarette-sellers-take-page-from-big-tobaccos-book/7951623/

Lawmakers say e-cigarette makers target kids

BY SEAN LENGELL, Washington Examiner
A group of congressional Democrats released a report Monday accusing the electronic cigarette industry of pushing their products on children and teens.
The report shows a significant increase in recent years in the marketing of e-cigarettes to minors through social media, radio and televisions advertisements, and sponsoring events with young audiences.
“From candy flavors to rock concert sponsorships, every single company surveyed in this report has employed a marketing strategy that appears to target youth,” said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, who helped spearhead the report.
“For years, federal regulations prohibiting tobacco companies from targeting young people have helped to protect a new generation of smokers from getting hooked on nicotine. Now, we must close this new gateway to addiction to protect our children.”

The lawmakers, who say their report is the first comprehensive investigation of e-cigarette marketing tactics, was compiled using responses from eight e-cigarette manufacturers and other publicly available information.
The report found that six of the companies that responded to the lawmakers’ survey market their products in flavors that can appeal to children, like cherry, chocolate, peach and grape mint.
It also showed that e-cigarette manufacturers have more than doubled spending on marketing between 2012 and 2013. Last year, six leading e-cigarette companies spent a total of $59.3 million on marketing alone.
“E-cigarette makers are starting to prey on kids, just like the big tobacco companies,” said Rep. Henry Waxman of California, a co-sponsor of the report. “With over a million youth now using e-cigarettes, [the Food and Drug Administration] needs to act without further delay to stop the companies from marketing their addictive products to children.”
Federal law prohibits the sale of tobacco cigarettes to anyone under 18, but there is no such restriction for e-cigarettes. The limited federal oversight has led to a boom in the e-cigarette industry, with sales doubling annually since 2008 and 2013 revenue expected to reach at least $1.5 billion.
The lawmakers called on e-cigarette companies to “take immediate action” to prevent the sale of their products to children and teenagers, including product promotion through social media and event sponsorships intended for youth audiences.
They also asked the companies to stop all radio and TV advertisements.
Six of the eight companies said they support some form of regulation, including restrictions on the marketing and sale of e-cigarettes to children and teens, the lawmakers said.
The legislators also have asked the FDA to ban the sale of e-cigarettes to minors and to implement rules to prohibit misleading product claims on e-cigarettes.
The other lawmakers who sponsored the report are Sens. Tom Harkin of Iowa, John Rockefeller of West Virginia, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Edward Markey of Massachusetts, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Barbara Boxer of California and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, as well as Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/lawmakers-say-e-cigarette-makers-target-kids/article/2547210

Forum editorial: The ‘no’ applies to e-cigs

Forum editorials represent the opinion of Forum management and the newspaper’s Editorial Board.

Under the smoke-free law approved by North Dakota voters in 2012 the use of
so-called electronic cigarettes is prohibited in all places where smoking tobacco is not allowed. It’s that simple. The law, which won voter support in every county in the state, is unequivocal. No spinning by the tobacco lobby and its lackeys can make North Dakota’s e-cig prohibition less clear.
One argument for treating e-cigs differently than tobacco cigarettes is the devices do not generate secondhand smoke, and that they help smokers who want to quit tobacco. Therefore, e-cig advocates contend they should not be in the same banned-nearly-everywhere classification as other tobacco-based smoking products.
It’s all smoke and mirrors promulgated by Big Tobacco and others who know e-cigs can be (and early research shows they are) gateways for young people to start smoking tobacco.
First, the claim the vapors produced by e-cigs are harmless has no good science behind it. Rather, the substances generated include humectants used in fog and smoke machines, and vaporized nicotine and artificial flavors. Manufacturers have been cited for contaminants, including nickel, arsenic and chromium. There is no FDA oversight, no product-specific taxes and no restrictions on age of buyers.
No matter how dressed up they are, e-cigs are simply a nicotine-delivery device. The dangers of nicotine, a poisonous water-soluble alkaloid, are known. Furthermore, e-cigs are being marketed by emphasizing their candy-like flavors and seemingly benign brand names. Young people are responding as expected. A recent Youth Tobacco Survey showed a spike in e-cig use by youth, doubling to 10 percent in one year.
Also, the claim that e-cigs help cigarette smokers quit, and therefore should be unregulated, is a phony argument. There is nothing in law that prevents smokers from using e-cigs, as long as used in compliance with North Dakota’s smoke-free laws.
E-cigarettes represent the latest attempt by tobacco companies and their allies to hook more young smokers, and thus ensure a nicotine-addicted customer base into the future. The effort to characterize the devices as a way to help smokers quit is cynical and predicated on a falsehood. That effort has wormed its way into legislatures, including the North Dakota Legislature, where a handful of lawmakers have bought into the lie.
Voters overwhelming said “no” to cigarettes in 2012. That “no” included e-cigarettes. Legislators who don’t get it might want to find other work.
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/432045/group/Opinion/

Study: Tobacco use declines on prime-time TV dramas

By Saba Hamedy, Los Angeles Times
Prime-time television dramas are less smoke friendly than they were in the 1950s.

According to a study published online in the journal Tobacco Control on Thursday, there has been a dramatic decline in visibility of tobacco products on prime-time U.S. broadcast television.
Researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania determined this drop in portrayals of smoking and tobacco use in prime-time dramas mirrored the national decline in consumption.
The study examined 1,838 hours of popular U.S. prime-time dramas — everything from “Gunsmoke” (in the 1950s) to “House M.D.” (in the 2000s) — shown on television over 56 years.
Research suggested that from 1955 to 2010, tobacco use on television declined from a high of 4.96 instances per hour of programming in 1961 to 0.29 instances per hour in 2010.
The research also noted a decline in consumption and suggested that less prime-time smoking may have led to less smoking by the general population.
“TV characters who smoke are likely to trigger the urge to smoke in cigarette users, making it harder for them to quit,” said Patrick E. Jamieson, the study’s lead author, in a release.
“We now have further evidence that screen-based media are an important factor to consider in continued efforts to reduce the burden of smoking related illness in the U.S. and around the world,” said Dan Romer, the study co-author and APPC associate director.
However, the study, the largest ever of tobacco use on television, looked only at broadcast television shows. Cable programs, such as AMC’s “Mad Men” — where characters frequently smoke cigarettes on screen — were not part of the study.
“Despite the decline since 1961, tobacco use on TV remains a cause for concern,” Jamieson said. “The decline in prime-time TV tobacco use is welcome news, but we need to learn more about tobacco portrayal on cable TV, YouTube, and other popular Internet-based sources.”

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-tobacco-use-primetime-tv-dramas-20140403,0,5751556.story#ixzz2yJOrzdCI