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 haveContinue reading “Heated tobacco products keep people smoking, too”
Category Archives: smoking cessation
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 theContinue reading “Snus doesn’t help smokers quit, either”
UCSF Tobacco Center Billion Lives Symposium available for online viewing
As in past years, the symposium is archived and available to watch for free here. This is the program: Keynote Panel: 20 Years of the Industry Documents: Past, Present and Future: Presentations by Faculty and Postdoctoral Scholars: Closing Remarks, Chris Shaffer, MS, UCSF Assistant Vice Chancellor and University Librarian The last several years’ symposia areContinue reading “UCSF Tobacco Center Billion Lives Symposium available for online viewing”
Kids who use ecigs to quit quit less
The discussion of whether or not e-cigarettes help smokers quit has been focused on adults. All the discussion of e-cigarettes and kids has focused on the massive success of e-cigarettes in expanding the nicotine epidemic by attracting kids. There has also been some focus on the well-documented “gateway effect” in which kids who start nicotineContinue reading “Kids who use ecigs to quit quit less”
Cochrane Collaborative concludes e-cigs as medical interventions help smokers quit (again) while continuing to ignoring stronger more relevant real world evidence that they don’t
The Cochrane Collaborative, an organization that does systematic reviews generally to guide clinical practice, released a “Electronic cigarettes for smoking cessation (Review).” Like earlier Cochrane reviews, this review focused on randomized clinical trials that are designed to study effectiveness of medicines delivered under clinical supervision, not e-cigarettes as consumer products used in the real worldContinue reading “Cochrane Collaborative concludes e-cigs as medical interventions help smokers quit (again) while continuing to ignoring stronger more relevant real world evidence that they don’t”
FDA’s proposed ban on menthol cigarettes explains why FDA needs to reverse its de facto approvals of menthol e-cigarettes
The FDA’s decisions to act on premarket tobacco product applications (PMTAs) for e-cigarettes has been explicit about two points: (1) it is authorizing tobacco flavors because kids don’t seem to use tobacco flavored e-cigs and (2) it is blocking flavored e-cigs – except menthol – because kids like flavors. Because they can’t justify allowing mentholContinue reading “FDA’s proposed ban on menthol cigarettes explains why FDA needs to reverse its de facto approvals of menthol e-cigarettes”
Ending the sale of flavored tobacco products is the real harm reduction
Yesterday (May 9, 2022) I testified before the Colorado Senate Finance Committee supporting a proposed statewide ban on the sale of all flavored tobacco products. As usual, opponents claimed that flavored products were needed for “harm reduction.” In listening to their testimony, I realized that for e-cigs and other tobacco products to actually reduce harm,Continue reading “Ending the sale of flavored tobacco products is the real harm reduction”
FDA proposed menthol ban in cigarettes is well done, except for the exceptions
On April 28, 2022, FDA released its proposed tobacco product standard prohibiting menthol cigarettes. The justification for prohibiting menthol as a characterizing flavor includes a comprehensive review of the effects of menthol on smoking, including why menthol promotes cigarette initiation and how it makes it harder to quit smoking. In addition to summarizing the behavioralContinue reading “FDA proposed menthol ban in cigarettes is well done, except for the exceptions”
Ecigs roll back the clock on kid quitting, too
E-cigarettes have reversed the long-term trend of declining nicotine addiction among kids. Now Richard Miech and his colleagues at USC have used the Monitoring the Future survey data on tobacco use behavior among 8th to 12th graders to study the prevalence of failed quit attempts for cigarettes (from 1997 through 2020) and e-cigarettes (for 2020,Continue reading “Ecigs roll back the clock on kid quitting, too”
E-cigarettes more likely to lead to ongoing nicotine addiction than NRT
E-cigarette advocates and, more important, the FDA, takes it as given that e-cigarettes were developed as a harm reduction tool to help smokers quit cigarettes by “switching completely.” This assumption is, however, inconsistent with the tobacco companies’ actual reasons for developing e-cigarettes and other non-combustible products, including tobacco company products approved as NRT: To deterContinue reading “E-cigarettes more likely to lead to ongoing nicotine addiction than NRT”
Stanton Glantz blog 