20
TOBACCO BUSINESS
JULY/AUGUST 2013
TMA REPORT
By FARRELL DELMAN
…Livingston, New Jersey-based
e-cigarette maker LOGIC Technology
announced that Dr. Keith Ablow,
a
psychiatrist
who
contributes
commentary and analysis for
Fox News
and is a contributing editor at
Good
Housekeeping
, will conduct an expanded
12-week clinical study
of LOGIC
e-cigarettes at his practice “to determine
their effects on reducing or eliminating
tobacco product usage.”
…A new
Action on Smoking and
Health UK survey
, submitted as evidence
to a European Parliamentary committee
that met on May 7 to discuss electronic
cigarettes, found that e-cigarette use has
risen among current British adult smokers
from 3 percent in 2010 to 11 percent
in 2013. The survey also found that 48
percent of former smokers reported
having used the product to help with a
quitting attempt, while 32 percent used it
to prevent a relapse in smoking, and that
e-cigarette use remained at 0 percent
among non-smokers and its regular use
among children was “extremely rare.”
ASH CEO Deborah Arnott concluded
that e-cigarettes “offer a potentially safer
option for smokers,” but they “should be
brought under the control of medicine’s
regulation to ensure that they are safe to
use and marketed appropriately.”
…The California Senate Judiciary
Committee was scheduled to consider
on April 30 a bill that would
ban the use
of e-cigarettes
in places where smoking
is already prohibited.
…Emerging evidence of the role
that e-cigarettes can play in
helping
smokers quit
is making some Canadian
health advocates view the devices
more favorably and push for legalizing
nicotine-containing e-cigarettes, the sale
of which is currently banned in Canada.
The Lung Association’s vice president
of health promotion, Jennifer Miller, has
said that health groups “owe it to the five
million Canadians who are addicted to
tobacco products” to consider a product
“that may have some merit to bring
down those numbers.” University of
Ottawa Prof. David Sweanor noted that
e-cigs with nicotine are a safer alternative
that Canadian smokers should be able to
access.
…Writing in The Hill’s Congress
Blog, Lorillard Chairman/President/CEO
Murray Kessler said that the FDA’s plan
to issue
draft regulations for e-cigs
calls
for “aligning business interests with
regulatory interests in a true partnership
and in a civil, substantive manner” to
develop a regulatory framework that
makes “less harmful” products available
to smokers as soon as possible. The
blog went on to note that “even a
modest reduction in exposure and risk
for a product that is broadly accepted by
consumersmay, in the final analysis, offer
the greatest benefit to the public health,”
and that Lorillard, which acquired blu
eCigs in 2012, sees e-cigs as “a product
that has the potential to play a critical role
in the national harm reduction discussion
and affords our company a seat at the
table in this debate.”
…During an April 11 hearing before
the Illinois House Consumer Protection
Committee,
Reynolds
American
spokesman John Lowder, Dr. Joel
Nitzkin of the libertarian R Street Institute
in Washington, D.C., and University
of Louisville Prof. Brad Rodu urged
lawmakers to
promote smokeless
tobacco products
as part of a “harm-
reduction” strategy to encourage
smokers to switch to a safer alternative,
while health experts from state and
national health advocacy groups
opposed the idea, saying it manipulates
scientific evidence and is essentially
aimed at perpetuating addiction.
…Prof. Michael Siegel of Boston
University’s School of Public Health
says contrary to many anti-smoking
groups’
claims
that
e-cigarettes
serve to “normalize” smoking, e-cigs
“represent the greatest threat to the
normalization of smoking in many
On harm reductiOn…
Farrell Delman,
President, TMA
Breaking news From the tma
the following are excerpts from harm
reduction, tobacco regulation and other
tobacco-related news.
