1.When the good news about smoking is bad news for anti-smoking groups

Advocacy groups could declare victory over teen smoking. Instead, they’re going after vaping.

This month, the government made public the 2021 National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS). The results should be cause for celebration.

They have not been. They have been underplayed.

That does not reflect well on the CDC, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the Truth Initiative, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Parents Against Vaping E-Cigarettes, and the cancer, lung and heart disease associations that make up the anti-tobacco industrial complex.

The good news: Teen smoking continues to decline. Only 1.5 percent of middle school and high school students had smoked a cigarette in the past 30 days. Teen smoking has dropped by a stunning 90 percent in the last decade. Teen use of e-cigarettes is falling sharply, too. Adult cigarette smoking has also declined, to its lowest levels since the 1960s. This should continue, since most smokers take up the habit when they are young.

“This is an amazing success story,” says Robin Mermelstein, director of the Institute for Health Research and Policy at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and a former president of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco (SRNT).

By email, she says: “There should be a lot of cheering for the steep and consistent decline in teen tobacco use — by any metric.”

Instead, the FDA, the CDC and the anti-tobacco advocacy groups accentuate the negative.The CDC headline: Youth E-Cigarette Use Remains Serious Public Health Concern. The Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids said: New Survey Shows that Despite Continued Progress, 2.55 Million Kids Used Tobacco Products in 2021 and 79% Used Flavored Products. Truth Initiative did not issue a news release about the survey.

In search of harm

This is a reminder that the opponents of tobacco share a peculiar addiction of their own: They are addicted to harm.

Good news about declining tobacco use, it turns out, is bad news for Tobacco-Free Kids and Truth Initiative.

By email, Clive Bates, a longtime anti-smoking advocate who formerly directed Action on Smoking and Health, explains:

The paradox of these health groups is that they need harm to justify the punitive and coercive policies that are at the heart of their model of public health. Harm generates the locus for public health intervention, organizations, grants, publications, conferences, treaties etc. Without harm, they lose their reason to exist.

It’s no wonder that, as teen smoking has declined, the anti-tobacco forces have taken on e-cigarettes, even though just about everyone, including the CDC, recognizes that vaping is much less harmful than smoking.

It’s also less harmful than other risky behaviors that are popular with teens. More teens drink alcohol than vape e-cigarettes; underage drinking causes 3,500 deaths a year, the CDC says.

Meantime, the number of teens who are vaping has fallen by about 60 percent from its peak in 2019. This, too, is barely mentioned by the anti-tobacco forces. So much for the so-called teen vaping epidemic.

To put the new smoking data in historical context, consider that public health experts released a report called Healthy People 2020 back in 2010. They set goals for reducing tobacco use over the next decade. About 19.5 percent of high school students then reported smoking cigarettes.

Healthy People 2020 aimed to reduce high school cigarette smoking to 16 percent and to reduce all tobacco use by high school students to 21 percent by 2020. Today, high school cigarette smoking sits at 1.9 percent and use of any kind of tobacco use is 11.3 percent. The numbers aren’t strictly comparable, but the trends are undeniable.

In fairness, Matthew Myers, the president of Tobacco-Free Kids, applauded the decline in teen smoking, calling it “a public health success story that will save lives for generations.” But his comment was tucked into the middle of a longer statement that mostly focused on the dangers of vaping.

A gateway to smoking?

Good work by the CDC, Tobacco-Free Kids and Truth Initiative surely helped drive the decline. They have run national media campaigns and pushed for higher tobacco taxes.

But the rise of vaping surely played a role, too, by diverting young people as well as adults away from combustible cigarettes. They can now satisfy their nicotine cravings with an e-cigarette. Many adult vapers are former smokers.

Ken Warner, the dean emeritus of the public health school at the University of Michigan and another past president of the SNRT, tells me:

The continuing decline in youth cigarette smoking is historic for two reasons: First, the rate of youth smoking is becoming vanishingly small; this is an enormously important public health success story. Second, the continuing decline should put to rest the fear that nicotine vaping will increase smoking. The rate of decline in youth smoking has actually accelerated during the era of vaping’s popularity among kids.

No one should now argue with a straight face that vaping is a gateway to smoking.

Raymond Niaura, a tobacco control expert, NYU professor and another former SNRT president, says about the nonprofits:

The zero tolerance smoking policy has morphed into zero tolerance for nicotine so, even though cigarette smoking has declined, the war continues.

Sure, the NYTS data show some positive trends, but this shouldn’t distract us from our primary mission, which is to thwart the evil tobacco/nicotine industry at every turn. (sarcasm intended).

He’s onto something. To stay relevant, anti-smoking organizations with big budgets — $109m in FY2020 for Truth Initiative, $42m in FY2019 for Tobacco-Free Kids — shifted their focus from smoking to vaping to nicotine, including synthetic nicotine, which is not derived from tobacco. (Never underestimate the ability of a nonprofit to engage in mission creep when it is within reach of its primary goal.) Truth Initiative now stands ready to tackle the opioid epidemic. This is about self-preservation.

But old habits comes into play as well. Tobacco-Free Kids and its allies have always seen themselves as warriors against the forces of evil. (Their favorite scientist, Stanton Glantz, once said: “I’d like to just destroy the tobacco industry.”) When Altria bought a 35 percent stake in JUUL, it confirmed the fears of the anti-smoking crowd that vaping was just another way for the tobacco industry to hook new customers. They may be right, but, if what they care about is public health and if vaping is, in fact, a substitute for smoking, then it shouldn’t matter who owns vape companies.

Further evidence that the CDC and its allies are determined to stop anything that resembles a cigarette can be found in their response to the disease misnamed EVALI. Perversely, the groups blamed e-cigarettes for deaths and illnesses that were, in fact, caused by illegal vaping of THC. It requires a considerable degree of self-righteousness to weaponize a public health tragedy.

Take a step back and all of this, sadly, reflects how little we’ve learned from the failure of the war on drugs. The FDA is moving to ban menthol cigarettes. Five states to ban flavored e-cigarettes. Some localities have banned all vaping. As a black market grows, law enforcement will follow.

It defies good sense that America is preparing to send people to prison for selling menthol smokes and flavored vapes–just as a long-awaited victory over cigarette smoking appears to be within reach

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2.How Vape Moves Forward in a Post-PMTA World

Get the short URL for this article: https://vapemagazine.com/PostPMTA

KELLER AND HECKMAN LLP IS THE PREMIER LAW FIRM GUIDING COMPANIES THROUGH CRITICAL ISSUES FACING THE VAPOR INDUSTRY.

E-VAPOR AND TOBACCO LAW SYMPOSIUM

HOW VAPE MOVES FORWARD IN A POST-PMTA WORLD?

Keller and Heckman LLP will be hosting its 5th Annual E-Vapor and Tobacco Law Symposium February 9-11, 2021. This comprehensive three-day seminar will be held virtually, and will address legal, scientific, and public health issues relevant to the vapor and tobacco industries as we move forward in a post-PMTA world. Attendees will benefit from in-depth discussions on critical issues facing the vapor industry, including the FDA premarket review process, new rules regarding the delivery of vapor products, and state and local flavor bans, among other things.

E-Vapor and Tobacco Law Symposium Classroom 18

Out of respect for COVID-19 concerns, this year?s program will be taking place virtually on a platform that will closely replicate the interaction and dynamics that are experienced at the in-person event, including opportunities to “chat” with the speakers one-on-one, network with colleagues, and participate in discussion forums. The sessions are scheduled over three consecutive days to better facilitate engagement and connections between attendees and presenters.

E-Vapor and Tobacco Law Symposium Classroom 2

This year?s program will feature new, timely topics specifically designed to help vapor and deemed tobacco product manufacturers stay in compliance with rapidly evolving laws and policies. Topics that will be discussed include:

FDA’s new guidance and proposed rule-makings;

Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking (PACT) Act ?Vape Mail Ban? and compliance requirements;

Premarket Tobacco Product Application (PMTA) and Substantial Equivalence (SE) Report strategies for small businesses;

Completing environmental assessments;

New state laws (local flavor bans, licensing requirements, and state enforcement actions);

Product liability considerations;

Regulation and sale of e-cigarettes in the EU, Asia, and beyond;

Updates on CBD and cannabis regulation;

…and many more topics outlined in the seminar agenda here.

This seminar is a must-attend for industry professionals and newcomers alike, to remain up to date on the latest regulatory and legal issues facing the vapor, nicotine, and tobacco industries.

E-Vapor and Tobacco Law Symposium Classroom 3

Keller and Heckman LLP is the premier law firm servicing the global regulatory, public policy and litigation needs for the vapor industry. Our decades of comprehensive and extensive experience dealing with the regulation of food, supplements, drugs and medical devices before regulatory agencies such as the FDA uniquely positions us to guide companies through the myriad of federal and state requirements for vapor and related products. We advise businesses on all levels of the tobacco, vapor, and vaping supply chain, including ingredient and component suppliers, finished product manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, and retailers.

E-Vapor and Tobacco Law Symposium Outdoors Irvine

In addition to Keller and Heckman?s regulatory attorneys and scientists, this year?s program features numerous expert guest speakers, including from Cardno ChemRisk, Labstat International, the American Vaping Association, the Smoke-Free Alternatives Trade Association, FiscalNote Markets, the Tax Foundation, and more.