Tag: smoking

Biden admin working to effectively ban cigarettes in 11th hour proposal a ‘gift’ to cartels, expert says

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is moving forward with a regulatory rule in the final days of the Biden administration that would effectively ban cigarettes currently on the market in favor of products with lower nicotine levels, which could end up boosting business for cartels operating on the black market, an expert tells Fox News Digital.

“Biden’s ban is a gift with a bow and balloons to organized crime cartels with it, whether it’s cartels, Chinese organized crime, or Russian mafia. It’s going to keep America smoking, and it’s going to make the streets more violent,” Rich Marianos, former assistant director of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the current chair of the Tobacco Law Enforcement Network, told Fox News Digital of the proposal. 

The FDA confirmed to Fox Digital on Monday that as of Jan. 3, the Tobacco Product Standard for Nicotine Level of Certain Tobacco Products had completed a regulatory review, but that the proposed rule has not yet been finalized. 

“The proposed rule, ‘Tobacco Product Standard for Nicotine Level of Certain Tobacco Products,’ is displaying in the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) ROCIS system as having completed regulatory review on January 3,” an FDA spokesman told Fox Digital. “As the FDA has previously said, a proposed product standard to establish a maximum nicotine level to reduce the addictiveness of cigarettes and certain other combusted tobacco products, when finalized, is estimated to be among the most impactful population-level actions in the history of U.S. tobacco product regulation. At this time, the FDA cannot provide any further comment until it is published.”

Fox New Digital reached out to the White House regarding concerns over the proposal if it were to take effect but did not receive a response. 

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We Were Wrong To Panic About Secondhand Smoke

In 2003, UCLA epidemiologist James Enstrom and I published a study of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS)—also called “secondhand smoke” or “passive smoking”—in the British Medical Journal (BMJ). Using data from the American Cancer Society’s prospective study of 1 million adults, we concluded that ETS exposure was not associated with increased mortality.

Since that conclusion flew in the face of the conventional wisdom that had long driven state and local bans on smoking in public places, our study understandably sparked a controversy in the public health community. But the intensity of the attack on us in the pages of a medical journal—by critics who were certain that our study had to be wrong but typically failed to provide specific evidence of fatal errors—vividly illustrates what can happen when policy preferences that have taken on the status of doctrine override rational scientific debate.

A recent study by American Cancer Society (ACS) researchers underscores that point by showing that, contrary to what our critics asserted, the cancer risk posed by ETS is likely negligible. The authors present that striking result without remarking on it, which may reflect their reluctance to revisit a debate that anti-smoking activists and public health officials wrongly view as long settled.

Exposure to ETS is known to cause eye and throat irritation and to exacerbate preexisting respiratory conditions. In addition, it is simply disagreeable to many people (including me). But assessing the claim that ETS is potentially deadly requires dispassionate examination of the available scientific evidence.

That is not what Enstrom and I encountered when we published our BMJ paper. Critics were outraged by the article and demanded its retraction. But they were never able to satisfactorily explain why such an extreme step was justified.

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The Sindex: Cigarette Prices Outpacing Inflation

Inflation stressing you out? Making you wish you had just a touch of nicotine in your system? Unfortunately, that’ll cost a lot. While prices economywide have risen 3.1 percent in the last year, cigarette prices have jumped 8 percent. On top of federal and state taxes that often make up half the price of a pack, tobacco companies tend to raise their prices faster than inflation to make up for declining sales volume. These and the rest of the numbers in the Reason Sindex use data from November 2023.

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Youth Smoking Nears Zero

New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show youth smoking at a historic low, with just 1.9 percent of high schoolers lighting up in the past month. Youth vaping is also at its lowest level in a decade at 10 percent, and cigar use is down to 1.8 percent from 2.8 percent the previous year.

That’s good news from a public health standpoint, but the data raise questions regarding the Biden administration’s plan to ban menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars. A key argument for prohibition is that menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars appeal to youth, especially black youth, and banning them is essential to prevent future generations of addiction and outweighs the risks of illicit markets that are certain to follow. But the CDC data show that smoking rates among black high schoolers are so low they can’t be reliably calculated.

A smoke-free society is typically defined as one where cigarette smoking is below 5 percent of the population. Applying this standard to youth, the U.S. has achieved a smoke-free generation. With youth smoking all but eliminated, it’s hard to see menthol prohibition as anything other than an attempt to target adult consumers, particularly black smokers who are more likely to choose a menthol product.

Kids may have ditched cigarettes, but there are millions of adults who still use menthol cigarettes. Experiments in menthol prohibition in the European Union, Canada, and even Massachusetts aren’t promising examples for the United States. A study of the effect of menthol prohibition in Poland, which had the highest menthol consumption in the E.U. at almost a third of the cigarette market, found no statistically significant change in cigarette consumption after the ban. Canada, which had a far smaller share of menthol smokers at 11 percent of the population, did see 21.5 percent of menthol smokers quit after the ban was imposed. However, 19.5 percent of menthol smokers continued to source their preferred cigarettes through other channels, and 59 percent just switched to nonmenthol cigarettes. Massachusetts became the first state to ban all flavored tobacco products. The ban was a boon to neighboring states like New Hampshire and Rhode Island, which enjoyed a surge in cigarette sales. Massachusetts lost $116 million in cigarette tax revenue in the first 12 months of the ban, according to the Tax Foundation.

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Rishi Sunak unveils crackdown on ‘worrying’ child vaping epidemic and announces kids aged 14 and under will NEVER be able to buy cigarettes under new ban

Rishi Sunak today unveiled bold plans to stamp out the child vaping epidemic and ban kids aged 14 and under from ever legally being able to buy cigarettes. 

The proposed law will annually raise the age of legal purchase of tobacco from the current 18 by one additional year every 12 months.

It will see England follow in the footsteps of New Zealand, which last year adopted the same policy for everyone born after 2009. Under the Prime Minister’s proposed plan, the Government will stick to the same age threshold.

Thinktanks and smoking rights groups reacted with anger to the ban, labelling it as ‘hideously illiberal and unconservative’.

However, health groups and cancer charities lauded the announcement and said it would save thousands of lives from cancer.  

The PM also announced a crackdown on vaping amongst children promising to look at banning child-friendly flavours and packaging that encourage kids to pick up the habit. Disposable devices are also in the firing line.

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Let’s Dispel The Myth That Cannabis And Tobacco Smoke Are Equally Hazardous To Health

A growing percentage of Americans perceive smoking cannabis to be less dangerous than smoking tobacco cigarettes. They’re correct, but you wouldn’t know it from reading the recent slew of media headlines.

“Many Americans wrongly believe exposure to marijuana smoke is safer than tobacco,” screamed CNN. Coverage of the survey data in Everyday Health warned, “People Underestimate the Health Risks of Smoking Marijuana.” Syndicated coverage of the study by US News and World Report similarly lamented, “More Americans Than Ever Believe Marijuana Smoke is Safer Than Cigarette Smoke. They’re Wrong.”

In fact, it’s the news media that’s in error.

Numerous studies assessing the long-term health impacts of cannabis smoke exposure belie the myth that marijuana is associated with the same sort of well established, adverse respiratory hazards as tobacco.

For example, federally funded research performed by scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles compared the lifetime risk of lung cancer among more than 2,000 long-term marijuana smokers, tobacco smokers, and non-smokers. Investigators determined that those who regularly smoked cigarettes possessed a 20-fold higher lung cancer risk than did non-smokers. By contrast, those who only smoked marijuana possessed no such elevated risk.

“We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use,” the study’s lead author explained. “What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect.”

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Cigarettes in Canada to be individually labeled with health warnings

Cigarettes will be individually labeled in Canada. The messages, in English and French, include warnings such as “poison in every puff” and “cigarettes cause cancer.”

By July 2024 manufacturers will have to ensure the warnings are on all king-size cigarettes sold, and by April 2025 all regular-size cigarettes and little cigars with tipping paper and tubes must include the warnings. …In May, Health Canada said the new regulations “will make it virtually impossible to avoid health warnings” on tobacco products. …The move is part of Canada’s effort to reduce tobacco use to less than 5% by 2035 and follows a 75-day public consultation period that was launched last year.

Though the prevalence of smoking is vastly reduced since the middle of the 20th Century, about 10% of teens regularly smoke cigarettes, according to the American Lung Association. Canadian cigarette packets already have spectacularly unpleasant warnings featuring photos of diseases caused by smoking.

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Gretchen Whitmer Requires Masks in Michigan Smoking Lounges ‘at All Times’

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s (D) administration issued a new order Monday requiring masks in smoking lounges.

The Center Square reported the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services issued the surprise edict:

Michigan cigar and vaping lounges were caught off guard Monday afternoon by a Michigan Department of Health and Human Services memo effectively prohibiting smoking in their facilities.

The enforcement, according to the memo, was prompted by MDHHS efforts to curtail the spread of COVID-19. All smoking lounges in the state must require face masks be worn at all times. …

The memo, signed by MDHHS Departmental Analyst Jason Osoff, Policy Enforcement & Monitoring/Tobacco Section, states the department’s emergency powers grants it the authority to implement and enforce measures designed to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

As of Wednesday morning, the order was not listed on the MDHHS website.

According to the news site, violations of Whitmer’s order are considered a misdemeanor, carry a $200 fine, and could include a $1,000 fine per day.

Whitmer’s agency is also targeting businesses for violations.

“Businesses that permit smoking on their premises may also be cited for violations of the order,” it said.

Whitmer allows the removal of a mask for eating or drinking, according to a February 4 edict, but participants in “in gatherings for any exercise activities, group fitness, or organized sports” must wear one.

The latest order pointed out smoking is not included in the exemptions.

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San Francisco bans smoking tobacco inside your apartment, marijuana is totally fine though.

Officials in San Francisco have banned all tobacco smoking inside apartments, citing concerns about secondhand smoke. Don’t worry though the ban only includes tobacco products, smoking pot in your home is still allowed.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the Board of Supervisors voted 10-1 Tuesday to approve the ordinance making San Francisco the largest city in the country to ban tobacco smoking inside apartments.

Apparently, the reason marijuana smoking isn’t banned is that such a ban would not provide any space for people to actually legally smoke pot, as it’s still illegal under state law to smoke pot in public places.

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