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E-cigarettes forging new pathway to addiction, death and disease

By Ross P. Lanzafame and Harold P. Wimmer – Redwood Times
Electronic cigarette use among middle school children has doubled in just one year. Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that e-cigarette use also doubled among high school students in one year, and that one in 10 high school students have used an e-cigarette.
Altogether, 1.78 million middle and high school students nationwide use e-cigarettes. Yet, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) still is not regulating e-cigarettes. The absence of regulatory oversight means the tobacco industry is free to promote Atomic Fireball or cotton candy-flavored e-cigarettes to our children. Clearly, the aggressive marketing and promotion of e-cigarettes is reaching our children with alarming success.
It is well known that nicotine is a highly addictive substance, whether delivered in a conventional cigarette or an e-cigarette. The use of sweet flavors is an old tobacco industry trick to entice and addict young children to tobacco products, and the entrance of the nation’s largest tobacco companies into this market clearly is having an impact.
Why does Big Tobacco care about e-cigarettes? Tobacco use kills more than 400,000 people each year and thousands more successfully quit. To maintain its consumer ranks and enormous profits, the tobacco industry needs to attract and addict thousands of children each day, as well as keep adults dependent. Big Tobacco is happy to hook children with a gummy bear-flavored e-cigarette, a grape flavored cigar or a Marlboro, so long as they become addicted. We share the CDC’s concern that children who begin by using e-cigarettes may be condemned to a lifelong addiction to nicotine and cigarettes.
In addition, the American Lung Association is very concerned about the potential safety and health consequences of electronic cigarettes, as well as claims that they can be used to help smokers quit. With no government oversight of these products, there is no way for the public health and medical community or consumers to know what chemicals are contained in an e-cigarette or what the short and long term health implications might be. That’s why the American Lung Association is calling on the FDA to propose meaningful regulation of these products to protect to the public health.
The FDA has not approved e-cigarettes as a safe or effective method to help smokers quit. When smokers are ready to quit, they should call 1-800-QUIT NOW or talk with their doctors about using one of the seven FDA-approved medications proven to be safe and effective in helping smokers quit.
According to recent estimates, there are 250 different e-cigarette brands for sale in the U.S. today. With that many brands, there is likely to be wide variation in the chemicals that each contain. In initial lab tests conducted by the FDA in 2009, detectable levels of toxic cancer-causing chemicals were found, including an ingredient used in anti-freeze, in two leading brands of e-cigarettes and 18 various e-cigarette cartridges. That is why it is so urgent for FDA to begin its regulatory oversight of e-cigarettes, which must include ingredient disclosure by e-cigarette manufacturers to the FDA.
Also unknown is what the potential harm may be to people exposed to secondhand emissions from e-cigarettes. Two initial studies have found formaldehyde, benzene and tobacco-specific nitrosamines (a well-known carcinogen) coming from those secondhand emissions. While there is a great deal more to learn about these products, it is clear that there is much to be concerned about, especially in the absence of FDA oversight.
Ross P. Lanzafame is the American Lung Association National board chair and Harold P. Wimmer is the American Lung Association national president and CEO. For more information, contact Gregg.Tubbs@lung.org or 202-715-3469.

Big Tobacco Invests in E-Cigarettes. Should You?

By 
U.S. sales of electronic cigarettes are expected to jump past $1 billion this year, and where there’s growth like that you can bet someone is making money – whether it’ll be new companies or Big Tobacco remains to be seen.
While still a tiny fraction of total tobacco sales, the market is already a lucrative one for some fledgling e-cigarette firms, though companies that promote and advertise the products are receiving much of the benefits, not manufacturers themselves. Longer term, the burning question is: Who is best positioned when government regulators take control of a market that’s so unfettered it can legally target adolescents with candy-flavored smokes.
Nationwide, e-cigarettes are sold with little restrictions except for one big one – they cannot claim to be a cure for habitual smoking or they risk U.S. Food and Drug Administration sanctions (several states also restrict sales to minors). Instead, sales have grown slowly in a curious niche – a hybrid of traditional smokers and those trying to quit. The battery-operated smokes heat nicotine-infused vapors that can be inhaled like a regular cigarette, making them safer than carcinogenic tobacco, but not necessarily risk-free, according to the FDA. Studies about their safety or effectiveness in quitting tobacco are not conclusive, and health officials say more research is needed.
In economic terms, e-cigarettes hit a classic inflection point last year when, after years of gradual sales growth, they became too big for the $100 billion tobacco business to ignore. Suddenly, celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio are puffing on black-tube, blue-tipped e-cigarettes and touting them on commercials on MTV. E-cigarettes are becoming cool, and marketers have taken notice.
E-cigarette maker NJOY, with about 40 percent of the market, isn’t selling itself based on its hipness factor. It’s positioning itself as the choice of Main Street smokers who just want to quit tobacco, says S&P Capital IQ equity analyst Esther Kwon, who covers the tobacco industry. Targeting “smoke-quitters” makes business sense, she says. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says about 70 percent of smokers want to quit. To reach that group, Kwon says NJOY tries to duplicate the look and feel of a real cigarette.
Still, if its mainstream focus lacks downtown hipness, NJOY has generated buzz with its high-profile investors and anti-smoking “cred.” NJOY’s roster of supporters include billionaire Sean Parker, of Facebook and Napster fame, and former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona, who will head a NJOY research committee that will study the e-cigarettes. The company is positioned for a possible takeover by one of the major tobacco players or a possible initial public offering, analysts say, though that could be some time into the future.
“Some smaller players will be taken over by Big Tobacco, and NJOY could eventually go public,” says Adriana de Lozada, an analyst for private company research firm PrivCo. “NJOY has done a great job of positioning itself, but it’s not ready to do an IPO, not yet. Growth is important, but so is size to be able to go public and to compete in this market.”
Lorillard, the scrappy No. 3 cigarette maker behind giants Altria and Reynolds American, has moved aggressively with its blu brand, says Kwon, adding that the company has “always been an innovator.” It’s trying to bring a touch of Mad Men-style glamour to cigarettes, and bringing smokes back to the tube for the first time in four decades with ads featuring television celebrity Jenny McCarthy puffing up the benefits of e-cigarettes by saying “it’s not sexy” to smell like an ashtray and pointing out she doesn’t have to freeze outside to smoke a cigarette.
Lorillard trades at about the same relative price-to-earnings as the other tobacco makers. Its market cap of $17 billion is far less than Altria’s $70 billion. A successful IPO or acquisition of its startup competitor, NJOY, could boost its valuation further, according to Kwon. “They could get rewarded by the publicity of NJOY’s IPO,” she says. “It might get their value noticed more.”
Lastly, Vapor is the pure play, the lone publicly traded e-cigarette company. Its performances suggest that the economics of e-cigarettes are difficult, as it trades at 85 cents a share and has lost money on flat earnings the past year. But others, like Swisher, have succeeded in building market share with savvy marketing, de Lozada says.
“There is a window with a bit of an opening now, but if they have to compete with big brands that are already established, their profit margins will be squeezed,” Kwon says. “And Big Tobacco has the advantage of huge distribution no one can match.”
More broadly, media firms could be a big winner regardless of which e-cigarettes prevail, because they’re being advertised on television – a venue where traditional cigarettes have been banned for years. It’s a new front for the tobacco industry, which still spends billions of dollars on other media, including magazine ads, promotions and sponsorships. That trend will probably accelerate in an all-out marketing e-cigarette war as Altria and Reynolds enter the market this year. And e-cigarettes already have outspent traditional cigarette makers advertising in major media this year, according to data by Kantar Media.
New frontiers in advertising and social media may win some of that spending. The Internet advertising industry could benefit from e-cigarettes supported by people online via the likes of Google’s recently launched “shared endorsement” service, which sells information about users’ endorsements. (It’s not a coincidence that digital entrepreneurs like Parker have entered the space.)
And what about Big Tobacco’s role? Altria and Reynolds need to compete, but the cost of a massive new marketing push in a sector where regulatory issues are still being sorted out might not make perfect sense, at least for now, analysts say, especially if such new costs mean any trade-off for tobacco company shareholders who purchase the stocks in part for their high dividend yields. “They are in a business that is highly profitable that does not require a whole lot of investment,” says Kwon, while noting a changing market could upend such reluctance. “This could be much different in the future, and this is something they will have to invest in. It’s in its very early stages, but it has potential to become something big, and it could have an impact.”
Analyst Bonnie Herzog of Wells Fargo Securities sparked media attention with a report earlier this year that e-cigarette growth will continue for the next decade and overtake traditional smoking sales for U.S. tobacco companies. A number of analysts declined to comment, citing a pending earnings period for tobacco companies, and Herzog was not available for comment. However, big brokers have generally been recommending the stocks for their dividends and steady earnings, and analysts have expressed skepticism that e-cigarettes, with less than 1 percent of the total market, will make much impact anytime soon.
Meanwhile, the regulatory and legal issues surrounding their marketing has been slowed by Washington’s budget stalemate that led to government shutdown. A number of decisions are due soon that could bring clarity and more regulation.
“All of these big gains [for e-cigarettes] are coming at a time of zero regulation, no taxes and a lot of hype,” says one analyst who requested U.S. News to not use his name. “The bottom line is that only a limited number of people will switch once the playing field is leveled. Our research shows that it won’t happen because e-cigarettes are just not as satisfying.”
http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/mutual-funds/articles/2013/10/17/big-tobacco-invests-in-e-cigarettes-should-you?page=2

15 Years Later, Where Did All The Cigarette Money Go?

by NPR STAFF
Fifteen years after tobacco companies agreed to pay billions of dollars in fines in what is still the largest civil litigation settlement in U.S. history, it’s unclear how state governments are using much of that money.
So far tobacco companies have paid more than $100 billion to state governments as part of the 25-year, $246 billion settlement.
Among many state governments receiving money, Orange County, Calif., is an outlier. Voters mandated that 80 percent of money from tobacco companies be spent on smoking-related programs, like a cessation class taught in the basement of Anaheim Regional Medical Center.
“So go ahead and take a minute or two to write down reasons why you want to quit and we’ll talk about them in just a bit,” Luisa Santa says at the start of a recent session.
Every year since 1998, this program has been funded by money from the tobacco settlement. The five-part class is free for anyone living or working in Orange County. When they sign up, participants get a “quit kit” full of things like toothpicks and gum. And, if they come for at least three of the five sessions, they get a free two-week supply of nicotine patches.
Making Big Tobacco Pay
In the mid-1990s, Mississippi was the undisputed leader on the tobacco issue. In 1994, Mike Moore, the state attorney general, filed the first state lawsuit against big tobacco.
Individual lawsuits by smokers failed because courts held people responsible for their decision to smoke, but Moore argued that Mississippi shouldn’t be forced to pay the costs of treating smoking-related diseases.
“Things such as lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, low-birth-weight babies and others, we have to pay,” Moore told NPR in a 1994 interview. “The state is obligated to pay for those for our citizens that are not covered in other ways, and we feel like they’re caused by the tobacco products.”
Moore argued that tobacco companies should pay for medical bills, and eventually the courts agreed. That agreement said no ads and no targeting youth. Popular advertising characters like Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man were killed off as a result.
The settlement left the tobacco industry immune from future state and federal suits, but the agreement said nothing about how states had to spend the money. Looking back on it, Moore remembers it was a long slog.
“It was not an easy task,” Moore tells NPR’s Arun Rath. “When we filed our case here in 1994, my governor actually sued me to try to stop the tobacco case.”
The tobacco companies sued Moore as well, he says, and it went all the way to the Supreme Court. “It took me two years before I even had five states who would agree to join the efforts.”
Moore now serves on the board of directors of the American Legacy Foundation, a group created by the tobacco settlement. The organization’s mission is to create national anti-smoking campaigns, like the famous Truth ads.
The tobacco settlement included money specifically to fund public service announcements, but Moore says most of the settlement money came with no strings attached, and that has made it impossible to hold states accountable.
In Mississippi, where the settlement money was put into a trust fund, a lot of it was spent on things other than smoking prevention and health care, Moore says.
“What happened as the years went by, legislators come and go, and governors come and go … so we got a new governor and he had a new opinion about the tobacco trust fund,” he says. “So a trust fund that should have $2.5 billion in it now doesn’t have much at all, and unfortunately that’s one of my biggest disappointments.
And it’s not just Mississippi; Moore says that all across the country hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to states, and the states have made choices not to spend the money on public health and tobacco prevention.
It’s not all bad news in Mississippi, however; Moore says money that was spent on tobacco prevention has helped reduce teen smoking by more than 50 percent in just five years. Adult smoking has been reduced by about 25 percent, and he says it is that way around much of the U.S. as well.
“We need to continue the vigilance,” he says. “We have new products coming out — e-cigarettes and the like — we just need to talk the states into spending the money to do something about it.”
The Settlement Aftermath
Myron Levin covered the tobacco industry for the Los Angeles Times for many years and is also the founder of the health and safety news site Fair Warning. He says talking states into spending settlement money on tobacco prevention is a tough sell.
To show the settlement was not just a big money grab, Levin says, there was definitely a feeling that states had a moral obligation to spend at least a sizeable chunk of money on programs to help people quit smoking and to prevent kids from starting.
“So it was understood without being codified into the agreement that states would make a big investment in this,” he says. “They haven’t.”
To help guide state governments, in 2007 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that states reinvest 14 percent of the money from the settlement and tobacco taxes in anti-smoking programs. But most state governments have decided to prioritize other things: Colorado has spent tens of millions of its share to support a literacy program, while Kentucky has invested half of its money in agricultural programs.
“What states have actually done has fluctuated year by year … but it’s never come close to 14 percent,” Levin says. “There are some fairly notorious cases of money being used for fixing potholes, for tax relief [and] for financial assistance for tobacco farmers.”
Levin says some states don’t have any money coming in anymore because they securitized their future payments with an investor in order to receive a lump sum. That lump sum often went into their state’s general fund.

For its part, the tobacco industry has managed to weather the settlement fairly well. New products like smokeless tobacco and electronic cigarettes have put many companies on the road to big sales, Levin says.
“When you are supplying the most widely used addictive product in the world, you have certain advantages,” he says. “Their cash flows remain enormous.”
One indirect effect of the settlement, Levin says, is legislation that gave the Federal Drug Administration control over tobacco products. President Obama signed the law in 2009.
“Something that could happen, although I wouldn’t put a lot of money on it, is they could ratchet down the allowable levels of nicotine in cigarettes to a level that is essentially nonaddictive,” he says. “That would be a total game changer.”
Nonaddictive cigarettes would indeed be a game changer for people like Susan Hallock, an attendee at the class in Orange County, who says she desperately wants to quit.
“I feel ashamed,” she says. “I feel like I have to hide my hand with the cigarette in it.”
But the nicotine keeps her coming back, over and over. “I’ll smoke like six to eight months and quit. Or a month and quit. It’s just different every time.”
She’s hoping that this time, with the help of the free class, she’ll be successful. And she has a real chance: The program has a 50 percent success rate for adults like her.
http://www.npr.org/2013/10/13/233449505/15-years-later-where-did-all-the-cigarette-money-go

State To Receive $2.6 Million – Tobacco Arbitration Unanimously Finds North Dakota Enforced Its Tobacco Laws

Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem announced today that an arbitration panel unanimously determined that North Dakota complied with its obligations under the 1998 tobacco settlement. At stake for North Dakota was a potential loss of up to $23 million withheld by the tobacco companies from their 2003 annual payment due under the settlement agreement. The arbitration panel unanimously concluded that North Dakota had complied with its obligations and diligently enforced its laws, as required by the settlement agreement, rejecting claims by tobacco companies to the contrary.
The decision is a significant legal victory for the state in a years-long dispute with major tobacco companies that have withheld a significant portion of their 2003 settlement payments to the states, including North Dakota. The tobacco manufacturers pay billions annually to settling states.
Stenehjem noted that this arbitration focused on the 2003 sales year, and that tobacco companies could launch further legal challenges for subsequent years. “The panel’s decision validates North Dakota’s long-held position that for the last ten years, the tobacco companies have tried to avoid their financial responsibility to the state. The tobacco companies were wrong to shortchange North Dakota in the amounts due, and we will continue to challenge them to make good on the promises they made and to pay us what they owe,” stated Stenehjem. Those manufacturers include R.J. Reynolds, Phillip Morris Inc., Lorillard and 16 smaller companies.
North Dakota’s arbitration trial was held in Chicago last October. If the three-member arbitration panel, comprised of retired federal judges, had ruled that a state failed to “diligently enforce” its tobacco laws, the tobacco settlement agreement allows participating manufacturers to withhold all or part of their annual scheduled payments to that state. North Dakota was one of 31 states whose tobacco enforcement efforts were challenged by the tobacco companies. Of the 31 states challenged, 16 states settled their cases, 6 states received unfavorable arbitration decisions, and 9 states, including North Dakota, received favorable arbitration decisions.
“The panel’s decision represents an important step in North Dakota’s enforcement of its tobacco laws and it likely will affect many more years of tobacco enforcement for the state,” said Stenehjem.
North Dakota’s share of the money wrongly withheld by the tobacco companies from the 2003 payment is approximately $2.6 million. Since 1999, when tobacco companies sent their first settlement payments to the states, North Dakota has received $338,963,752.
Stenehjem commended Assistant Attorneys General Matthew Sagsveen and Janilyn Murtha, who represented North Dakota during the arbitration hearings, and Solicitor General Doug Bahr and John Quinlan (ND Tax Department), who were noted for praise by the arbitration panel for their “diligent and efficient” enforcement efforts on behalf of the state.

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Panel sides with ND in tobacco money dispute

By: JAMES MacPHERSON , The Associated Press
BISMARCK — An arbitration panel has sided with North Dakota in a dispute over payments from a 1998 multistate settlement with tobacco companies, ending a decade-long legal fight, Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said Thursday.
Tobacco companies had withheld $2.6 million from North Dakota’s 2003 annual payment, saying the state did not “diligently enforce” provisions of the 1998 deal. The settlement requires states to collect escrow payments on cigarette sales by tobacco companies that did not join the agreement.
The three-member arbitration panel ruled Wednesday that North Dakota enforced the provision as required.
Thirty other states have been involved in similar disputes. Stenehjem said 16 have settled, eight have received favorable arbitration decisions and six unfavorable decisions.
The state Supreme Court in 2007 ruled that the dispute should be handled by an arbitration panel, not the courts. Stenehjem said attorneys from his office have been working on the case for 10 years.
“This is a big victory for us,” Stenehjem said. “It’s been a very time-consuming process.”
The 1998 settlement resolved state legal claims over tobacco marketing and the cost of treating tobacco-related health problems. The tobacco companies that took part agreed to pay more than $200 billion to the states over 25 years.
North Dakota has received nearly $339 million in payments since 1999, Stenehjem said. North Dakota divides the money among funds that benefit education, water projects and state and local health initiatives.
The panel’s decision means North Dakota’s 2003 payment of $23 million is no longer in question, though tobacco companies can still launch challenges for other years, Stenehjem said.
“With the solid victory we received from the panel, it’s far less likely for tobacco companies to claim that we weren’t diligently enforcing provisions of the agreement for other years,” Stenehjem said.
North Dakota’s arbitration trial was held in Chicago last October. The decision by the panel, comprised of retired federal judges, cannot be appealed.
Stenehjem said he expects the $2.6 million withheld by tobacco companies to be sent to North Dakota immediately.
“I’m hoping the check is already in the mail,” Stenehjem said.
http://www.thedickinsonpress.com/event/article/id/71999/group/News/

Tobacco Companies Target Youth, Mislead Public About Smokeless Products In Order To Maintain Profits

By 
British American Tobacco (BAT), the maker of Lucky Strike, Dunhill, and Pall Mall cigarettes, has recently spent some time promoting its smokeless tobacco brands, saying that snus, a moist tobacco that’s typically placed under the upper lip, is “at least 90 percent less harmful than smoking cigarettes.” But new research, meant to serve as information for tobacco policy in the European Union (EU), finds that BAT and other tobacco companies aren’t really concerned about the public’s health and, rather, are more concerned about maintaining profits should cigarette sales decline.
Snus, one of the many forms of smokeless tobacco, is currently banned in every country in the EU except for Sweden. Researchers with the UK Center for Tobacco Control Studies were tasked with finding information regarding transnational tobacco companies’ interests in smokeless tobacco from the 1970s to the present, to better inform policymakers in their decision, according to a statement.

It’s All For The Profits

By comparing the tobacco industry’s internal documents to its campaigns to help reduce public harm with smokeless tobacco, the researchers found that “there is clear evidence that [British American Tobacco’s] early interest in introducing [smokeless tobacco] in Europe was based on the potential for creating an alternative form of tobacco use in light of declining cigarette sales and social restrictions on smoking, with young people a key target,” they wrote.
BAT’s internal documents note cigarettes’ declining popularity, saying, “We have no wish to aid or hasten any decline in cigarette smoking. Deeper involvement in smokeless is strategically defensible. There are fewer people in sophisticated markets starting to smoke. There are increasing numbers of people giving up. There are increasing restrictions on smoking, particularly in public, whether by law or by society.”
An estimated 10 million people currently smoke cigarettes in the UK, and 29 percent ofall citizens of the EU smoke. Numerous campaigns to help people quit — 31 percent of EU smokers have tried to quit in the last year — have been implemented, even including an iPhone app that analyzes smoking habits and provides daily, customized advice. With such campaigns, smoking rates have gone down across the continent.
Although there may be lower levels of the carcinogenic tobacco-specific nitrosamines in smokeless tobacco, the National Cancer Institute says that there are still at least 28 chemicals that have been found to cause cancer. Smokeless tobacco has been found to cause oral, esophageal, and pancreatic cancers.

Smokeless Tobacco, Cigarettes, and the Youth

BAT and other tobacco companies specifically target young people in their smokeless tobacco campaigns, the authors said. Portioning snus made it easier to use for young people, and the companies chose which markets to test throughout Europe based on youth and student populations. When certain brands of snus were launched in the UK, “students were both the target and the means of promotion.”
“The fact that smokeless tobacco investments in Europe coincided with the implementation of smoke-free policies, combined with evidence of the industry’s promotion of dual cigarette and snus use in the U.S., add weight to the concern that transnational tobacco companies may hope to exploit snus as a way to reduce the impact of regulations aimed at reducing smoking rates,” the authors wrote. Last month, a study from the Harvard School of Public Health found that rather than replacing cigarettes with smokeless tobacco, one in 20 middle and high school students were using both.
The authors concluded that the “Swedish experience” with snus could not be generalized to other countries in which snus is not as popular. They say that evidence pointed directly to the industry’s interest in snus “because it could be used in smoke-free environments and could be promoted to young, non-tobacco users to create a new form of tobacco use. This last finding lends support to concerns that smokeless tobacco may lead to, rather than from, smoking.”
Source: Peeters S, Gilmore A. Transnational Tobacco Company Interests in Smokeless Tobacco in Europe: Analysis of Internal Industry Documents and Contemporary Industry Materials. PLOS Medicine. 2013.

A look at e-cigarettes by M. D. Anderson

HOUSTON – With the third and largest of the U.S. tobacco companies planning an e-cigarette product launch this fall, this next frontier for “Big Tobacco” provides renewed presence in a declining marketplace.
It’s also a potential gateway to new smokers, particularly among teens and in emerging/foreign markets, according to behavioral scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that provide inhaled doses of nicotine vapors and flavorings. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about 6 percent of adults have tried e-cigarettes, a number that has nearly doubled since 2010. Absent of tobacco, e-cigarettes have been promoted as a possible aid in getting people to stop smoking and thereby reducing their lung cancer risk.
However, MD Anderson cancer prevention experts Paul Cinciripini, Ph.D., director of the Tobacco Treatment Program, and Alexander Prokhorov, M.D., Ph.D., head of the Tobacco Outreach Education Program, caution that more research is needed to understand the potential role of e-cigarettes in smoking cessation.
“Independent studies must rigorously investigate e-cigarettes, as there’s considerable potential benefit in these products if they’re regulated and their safety is ensured,” says Cinciripini. “But promoting the e-cigarettes already on the shelves as ‘safe’ is misleading and, if looked at as a harmless alternative to cigarettes, could potentially lead to a new generation of smokers more likely to become tobacco dependent.”
E-cigarettes are unregulated and there’s little research on their safety or efficacy as smoking cessation tools. “These products are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration and this is concerning because it’s impossible to know what you’re really getting or if it’s safe. In one analysis nicotine levels have been shown to vary widely among e-cigarette products,” says Prokhorov. For now, he recommends that those looking to quit stick with approved devices, such as nicotine inhalers.
Switching from tobacco to e-cigarettes could help smokers avoid approximately 6,000 chemicals, some of which are human carcinogens. “Reduced exposure to harmful chemicals warrants research of these products as a smoking cessation vehicle,” says Cinciripini. “Unbiased studies, free from the ethical and legal challenges of ‘Big Tobacco’-sponsored trials, are needed.”
Branded as “safer,” available in a variety of colors and flavors and promoted by celebrities, e-cigarettes could be a hook for future smokers. “E-cigarettes are a novel way to introduce tobacco smoking to young people, and their potential ‘gateway’ role should be a concern for parents and health officials alike,” adds Prokhorov.
With the impending introduction of another e-cigarette, Prokhorov and Cinciripini urge consumers to know the following information.
“Once a young person gets acquainted with nicotine, it’s more likely that they’ll try other tobacco products. E-cigarettes are a promising growth area for the tobacco companies, allowing them to diversify their addictive and lethal products with a so-called “safe cigarette,” says Prokhorov. “Unfortunately, there’s no proof that e-cigarettes are risk-free.”
Cinciripini has more than 30 years’ experience conducting basic and clinical research in smoking cessation and nicotine psychopharmacology. Prokhorov is the principal architect of MD Anderson’s ASPIRE program, a teen-focused website and, Tobacco Free Teens, a smartphone app – both are new approaches to keeping young people free from the grips of nicotine addiction.
MD Anderson is home to one of the largest tobacco research programs in the nation, part of the cancer center’s Cancer Prevention division. The Tobacco Treatment Program, funded by State of Texas Tobacco Settlement Funds, offers in-person behavioral counseling and tobacco-cessation medication treatments free to MD Anderson patients who are current tobacco users or recent quitters. The program also works with patient families and the general public.
http://www.thevindicator.com/news/article_142fa44c-17cf-11e3-bc86-0019bb2963f4.html

9 Terribly Disturbing Things About Electronic Cigarettes

By now, you’ve probably seen them being smoked on the subway or in a bar — those shiny, futuristic, battery-operated nicotine inhalers better know as electronic cigarettes that are apparently all the rage these days. Big Tobacco companies have taken notice, too, and are determined to cash in on the industry, which is expected to bring in $1.7 billion in U.S. sales this year alone, according to The New York Times.
While much is still unknown about the health risks of e-cigarettes, here’s what we do know: E-cigarettes are addicting. And while they may not be as harmful as tobacco cigarettes, critics like the British Medical Association and the World Health Organisation are wary of the trend and warn of the dangers that may be associated with the smoking devices.
Here’s what we do know about e-cigarettes:
1. E-cigarettes contain toxic chemicals.
A 2009 FDA analysis of e-cigarettes from two leading brands found that the samples contained carcinogens and other hazardous chemicals, including diethylene glycol, which is found in antifreeze. Last year, a report from Greek researchers found that using e-cigarettes increased breathing difficulty in both smokers and non-smokers, according to Medical News Today.
2. Kids and teens can buy them.
Unlike other tobacco products, e-cigarettes can be sold to minors in many places throughout the country. The smoking devices can also be bought legally online, according to the Wall Street Journal.
3. While cigarette companies say they don’t market to kids, e-cigarettes come in flavors like cherry, strawberry, vanilla and cookies and cream milkshake.
4. Laws regulating cigarette ads don’t yet apply to e-cigarettes.
TV commercials for cigarettes may be banned, but ones for e-cigarettes sure aren’t, Adage points out. (The above ad for Blu eCigs features Jenny McCarthy.)
5. And e-cigarette companies are spending a TON on advertising.
Industry advertising spending increased to $20.8 million in 2012 from just $2.7 million in 2010, according to The New York Times.
6. E-cigarettes can be used in many places where smoking is banned.
Even though some studies suggest that secondhand vapor poses health risks, many lawmakers have yet to determine whether smoking rules apply to e-cigarettes, according to USA Today.
7. People think e-cigarettes can help them quit smoking.
Research published in the American Journal of Public Health indicates that 53 percent of young adults in the U.S. who have heard of e-cigarettes believe they are healthier than traditional cigarettes and 45 percent believe they could help them quit smoking — though there is little evidence to support either of these claims.
8. E-cigarettes aren’t taxed like traditional tobacco products.
Even though cigarette consumption fell significantly as taxes went up.
9. Despite unknown health consequences, e-cigarettes are poised to make inroads with a new generation of young people.
Half of young adults say they would try e-cigarettes if a friend offered them one, according a study cited by USA Today.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/03/electronic-cigarettes_n_3818941.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

Companies spend huge sums on TV ads, sponsorships to boost e-cigarette sales

By: Stuart Elliott
NEW YORK: Electronic cigarettes may be a creation of the early 21st century, but critics of the devices say manufacturers are increasingly borrowing marketing tactics that are more reminiscent of the heady days of tobacco in the mid-1900s.
With US smokers buying e-cigarettes at a record pace – annual sales are expected to reach $1.7 billion by year’s end – e-cigarette makers are opening their wallets wide, spending growing sums on TV commercials with celebrities, catchy slogans and sports sponsorships.
Those tactics can no longer be used to sell tobacco cigarettes, but are readily available to the ecigarette industry because it is not covered by the laws or regulations that affect the tobacco cigarette industry. The e-cigarette industry is also spending lavishly on marketing methods that are also still available to their tobacco brethren, including promotions, events, sample giveaways and print ads.
The Blu eCigs brand, which recently added actress Jenny McCarthy to its roster of star endorsers, joining actor Stephen Dorff, spent $12.4 million on ads in major media for the first quarter of this year compared with $992,000 in the same period a year ago, according to the Kantar Media unit of WPP. And ad spending in a category that Kantar Media calls smoking materials and accessories, which includes products like pipes and lighters in addition to e-cigarettes, has skyrocketed from $2.7 million in 2010 to $7.2 million in 2011 to $20.8 million in 2012.
In the first quarter of 2013, Kantar Media reported, category ad spending soared again, reaching $15.7 million compared with $2 million in the same period a year ago. In fact, that $15.7 million total exceeded the spending for ads in major media for tobacco cigarettes, at $13.9 million, according to Kantar Media.
“It is beyond troubling that e-cigarettes are using the exact same marketing tactics we saw the tobacco industry use in the 50s, 60s and 70s, which made it so effective for tobacco products to reach youth,” said Matthew L Myers, president of an organization in Washington, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, that has fought for decades against aiming cigarette ads at minors.
“The real threat,” he added, “is whether, with this marketing, e-cigarette makers will undo 40 years of efforts to deglamorize smoking.” Makers of e-cigarettes counter that their marketing efforts are legal and intended to reach adults – particularly, they say, adults who smoke tobacco cigarettes.
“Our company is being built on branding,” said Elliot B Maisel, chairman and chief executive at the Fin Branding Group in Atlanta, which last month began running TV commercials for its Fin e-cigarette to accompany other initiatives like print and online ads. The company plans to spend more than $8 million this year to take advantage of “the opportunity to build a great American iconic brand,” he added.
Joana Martins, vice-president for marketing at Fin Branding, described the Fin ads as aimed at “adult smokers, 25 to 44, who are tired of being ostracized” and would be receptive to a pitch that “it’s OK to smoke again.” That is reflected in the campaign theme, “Rewrite the rules.”
There is another reason that e-cigarette makers are appropriating the marketing playbook of tobacco cigarettes beyond the proven effectiveness of tactics like advertising on TV and sponsoring race cars: Giant tobacco companies like Lorillard and Reynolds American, which sell traditional smokes like Newport and Camel, are entering the e-cigarette category alongside smaller, entrepreneurial outfits like Fin Branding. Big Tobacco’s arrival is coming through acquisitions (eg Lorillard bought Blu eCigs in 2012) and startups (eg Reynolds American is introducing an e-cigarette named Vuse).
A selling point in a campaign for Vuse that began this week in Colorado is that it is “designed by tobacco experts” to deliver “a perfect puff every time,” said Stephanie Cordisco, president of the RJ Reynolds Vapor division of Reynolds American in Winston-Salem, NC.

The Real Reason Big Tobacco Loves E-Cigs

By Kyle Stock
Apparently, the nicotine business never changes—with smoke or without. Big Tobacco fought government overseers for decades, but eventually traditional cigarettes became heavily regulated products. Now the Food and Drug Administration is working on a package of regulations for e-cigarettes devices, which vaporize liquid nicotine with heat, rather than burning it via tobacco leaves. Among other things, the FDA is considering a ban on online sales of e-cigarettes to cut down on sales to minors, and discussing whether to curtail advertising. A roster of proposed rules is expected in October.
The regulatory chatter comes as the e-cigarette market is finally expected to top $1 billion this year. Tobacco giant Altria Group (MO) is just this month rolling out its e-cigarette, dubbed “MarkTen.” Reynolds American (RAI) is also rushing to ship its VUSE product. Meanwhile, Lorillard (LO) booked $57 million in e-cigarette revenue in the first three months of the year.
Bloomberg Industries estimates that at their current pace, e-cigarette sales will top that of traditional smokes by 2047. The estimate comes with a big caveat: the assumption that politicians won’t heap a bunch of new taxes on e-cigarettes—levies that have served as a sort of emphysema to the body of the cigarette business.
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Currently, e-cigarettes are subject to ordinary sales taxes—just like, say, pencils. Big Tobacco loves that. Here’s why: In the average state, 11 percent of cigarettes are smuggled, according to a recent report by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a Michigan think tank. “Smuggled” in this case has a few meanings. It includes smokes that are illegally ferried from states and countries with lower taxes, as well as counterfeit cigarettes.
“Once a tax gets too high, it acts in the same way that Prohibition did: You get substantial black-market activity,” says Scott Drenkard, an economist at the Tax Foundation.
Meanwhile, the preponderance of smuggled cigarettes is alarming and the Mackinac Center says counterfeits—often stuffed full of sawdust and “human excrement”—are a growing problem. Here’s a look at the share of cigarettes that are smuggled in the top five states:
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• New York 61 percent ($4.35 taxes per pack)
• Arizona 54 percent ($2.00)
• New Mexico 53 percent ($1.66)
• Washington 49 percent ($3.03)
• Rhode Island 40 percent ($3.46)
As tobacco giants roll out their e-cigarette offerings, the new smokeless devices are where they’ll focus their efforts. And as long as the government doesn’t burn them with a bunch of new taxes, they will probably be happy to keep e-cigarettes off billboards or Web stores or whatever requirements regulators throw their way.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-08-26/the-real-reason-big-tobacco-loves-e-cigs