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TOBACCO OUTLET BUSINESS
MAY/JUNE 2012
not result in serious negative health
outcomes and “the real harm appears to
stem from the inhalation of thousands
of compounds, several hundred of
them identified as toxic, contained in
burning plant matter,” Lehrer wrote
recently in
The Weekly Standard
.
• At the state level, the Indiana
Legislature
passed
resolutions
urging
its
Legislative
Council
to establish an “interim study
committee” to assist the legislature
in considering the inclusion of
tobacco harm reduction strategies
to
reduce
smoking-attributable
death and disease. If the Indiana
Legislative Council, made up of eight
representatives each from the Senate
and House, approves the interim study
committee, THR discussion “will take
an important and exciting first step in
Indiana,” writes Professor Rodu in his
blog rodutobaccotruth.blogspot.com.
Last year, Indiana became the
second state in the U.S. after Kentucky
to recognize a risk-based tobacco tax
system.
Delving further into the individual
THR sub-categories, more truth and
even some victories are starting to
come out amongst the rhetoric.
E-cigarette Excitement
Professor Michael Siegel of Boston
University’s School of Public Health
with Dr. Ted Wagner of the University
of Oklahoma and Dr. Belinda Borrelli
of Brown University co-authored an
online commentary in the journal
Addiction
urging a “more balanced
consideration” of e-cigarettes. It was
written partially in response to an
article in the
New England Journal of
Medicine
by Cobb and Abrams, which
argued that e-cigs are ineffective for
smoking cessation because they do not
deliver nicotine adequately for that
purpose.
The Siegel et al commentary refuted
the Cobb and Abrams conclusion,
noting that the study used to support
their argument actually showed
that one e-cigarette brand was able
to significantly reduce subjective
cravings for cigarettes. The Siegel
article also cited two other studies not
mentioned by Cobb and Abrams (one
was reported after their article), the
first of which found e-cigarettes not
only deliver nicotine effectively, they
significantly reduce cigarette cravings,
and the second, which found that
e-cigarette use may motivate quitting.
California
Polytechnic
State
University
economics
professor
Michael Marlow said in a
Los Angeles
Daily News
opinion piece that smokers
are trying to reduce their health risks
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly