28
TOBACCO BUSINESS INTERNATIONAL
MAY/JUNE 2014
TMA REPORT
By FARRELL DELMAN
…The current tobacco-use landscape
presents an opportunity in the “
diverse
alternative nicotine-delivery vehicles
available to smokers,” including nicotine-
replacement
therapies,
smokeless
tobacco, and e-cigarettes, says a
“Perspective” article in the
New England
Journal of Medicine
by Michael C. Fiore,
Steven A. Schroeder and Timothy B.
Baker, noting that up to 98 percent of
tobacco-related deaths are attributable
to combustible products. The article
proposes
targeting
the
“known,
overwhelming risks” of combustibles with
a “progressive public health approach”
that includes a focus by clinicians on
reducing their patients’ combustible
tobacco use if total tobacco-use cessation
cannot be achieved; population-wide
policies including excise tax increases,
clean indoor air rules, and public service
campaigns aimed at lowering combustible
tobacco use; a reduction by the FDA in
allowed nicotine content of combustible
tobacco products to near zero; a ban on
sales of all products containing tobacco
or nicotine, both combustible and non-
combustible, to anyone under 21;
restrictions on the sale of combustible
tobacco products, such as requiring
licenses to sell—or even buy—them, or
banning point-of-sale advertising and
visible displays of combustible products;
and communication about harmreduction
since “not all nicotine-containing products
are equal, and the public health focus
should be on eliminating combustible
tobacco products,” according to the
authors.
…Dr. Gilbert Ross, executive and
medical director of the American Council
on Science and Health, said that the
“Perspective” article represents “a
landmark in the discussion of e-cigarettes
and tobacco harm reduction,” adding his
belief that the entire “tobacco control
industry” will eventually acknowledge
that “the current approach to
helping
smokers quit
is not, and has not, been
working, and the new approach of
encouraging non-combustible sources
of nicotine will likely be much more
effective.”
…In a January 18 Louisville
Courier-
Journal
op-ed,
Professor
Brad
Rodu, endowed chair of Tobacco
Harm Reduction Research at the
University of Louisville, calls on state
officials to “
endorse tobacco harm
reduction
, offering adult smokers
truthful information about—and even
encouraging them to switch to—vastly
safer smoke-free tobacco products,”
and says that the medical groups and
government agencies “obsessed with
[the] pursuit of a tobacco-free society
[and] deny[ing] smokers the facts about
harm reduction…should recognize that
tobacco prohibition is as unachievable as
was the prohibition of alcohol.”
…Gerry Stimson and Paddy Costall,
coordinators of the Nicotine Science
and Policy website (nicotinepolicy.net),
write that they “struggle to understand
why so many public health colleagues
are
antipathetic to electronic cigarettes
”
when the product’s uptake has been “a
consumer-led public health revolution”
and is a “classic harm-reduction
approach,” and note that the “reticence
to embrace” e-cigs is likely driven by
1) a suspicion behind working with any
for-profit industry; 2) the longstanding
anti-tobacco mentality and the difficulty
in switching to a positive mode from
being “anti” something; 3) a reluctance
or inability to engage with smokers
and vapers; 4) some suspicion and/or
jealousy that the e-cig movement did not
emanate from medicine or public health;
and 5) the tendency to adopt “narratives”
from public health “thought leaders.”
…During a joint legislative panel
hearing in Oklahoma on January 22 on
the pros and cons of promoting e-cigs as
ameans to reduce smokingwith a specific
focus on taxation and regulation, e-cig
supporters including Oklahoma Vapor
Advocacy League Chairman Sean Gore
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.
