Stanton Glantz blog
Commentary on tobacco, cannabis and public health

UC publishes oral history of Stan Glantz’ career
Today the Oral History Center at the UC Bancroft Library published an oral history of my career. Here is the Center’s announcement, together with a link to the history, which is freely available to all: New Oral History – Stanton Glantz: Putting Cardiovascular, Epidemiological, Economic, Political, and Policy Research into Action at UC San Francisco…

Secondhand smoke increases bladder cancer risk
We have known since the 1980s that secondhand tobacco smoke causes lung cancer, but there has not been much attention to whether secondhand smoke causes other cancers that active smoking causes. I recently became aware of a well-done meta-analysis of the association between secondhand smoke and bladder cancer. (Bladder cancer is right behind lung cancer…

FDA inches ahead by denying marketing order for RJR Vuse Solo menthol
FDA has continued to deny marketing authorization for menthol e-cigarettes with its March 17, 2023 announcement that it had denied marketing authorization for two RJR Vuse Solo menthol cartridges. This action follows FDA denials for RJR Vuse Ciro menthol and JTI Logic menthol e-cigarettes. While FDA does not make its detailed analysis public for marketing…

State anti-smoking program has saved Californians over a trillion dollars in healthcare costs alone
Tobacco companies oppose tobacco control policies by arguing that anything that reduces tobacco use hurts the economy. The new paper Jim Lightwood, Steve Anderson and I just published “Smoking and healthcare expenditure reductions associated with the California Tobacco Control Program, 1989 to 2019: A predictive validation,” shows that, quite the contrary, reducing smoking saves a…

Youth E-cig use much lower in countries that prohibit e-cigs
A new paper, Electronic cigarettes use and ‘dual use’ among the youth in 75 countries: estimates from Global Youth Tobacco Surveys (2014–2019) shows that countries that prohibit the sale of e-cigarettes, like Thailand and Brazil, have much lower levels of youth cigarette use than countries that allow them and have laws to restrict sales to…

Heated tobacco products keep people smoking, too
Heated tobacco products (HTP) are promoted as a way to “switch completely” (i.e., quit) smoking cigarettes. While these products have not yet been widely used in the US, the tobacco companies, beginning with PMI’s IQOS, have built significant markets for them in Japan. Now Satomi Odani and colleagues at the Osaka International Cancer Institute have…

Snus doesn’t help smokers quit, either
Snus — small pouches of tobacco inserted under the lip — has been promoted for a long time as a less harmful way to consume tobacco than smoking and as a smoking cessation aid. The argument that snus helps people quit smoking is based on the fact that the prevalence of smoking dropped at the…

“Non-menthol” is a characterizing flavor, so illegal to sell in California
California law (SB793, upheld against an RJ Reynolds’ referendum) prohibits the sale of flavored tobacco products. In response, RJ Reynolds and ITG Brands introduced “non-menthol” cigarettes to try and evade the law. While most discussion has concentrated on the fact that these products are marketed just like menthol brands (which, by itself, is enough to…

Camel Crush Non-menthol Oasis Blue “sweet with a vanilla undertone”
An online review of Camel Crush Non-menthol Oasis Blue (posted Feb 17, 2023) describes it as “sweet with a vanilla undertone” adds to the evidence that RJ Reynolds’ “non-menthol” cigarettes introduced in California violate the state’s ban on the sale of flavored tobacco products. As discussed in detail before, here is what the California law…

YouTube videos from smokers on RJR “non-menthol” cigarettes say they are still flavored: Direct evidence they violate California law
Customer reviews posted to YouTube provide evidence that RJ Reynolds’ new “non-menthol” cigarettes are still flavored and violate California’s (and local) bans on the sale of flavored tobacco products. The most extensive example is a detailed product review: In a second video, at around :45, the woman says the Newport non-menthols “still have a hint…
Loading…
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
Follow My Blog
Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.