Proof That The Tobacco Industry Is Successfully Turning Teens Into New Smokers
by Igor Volsky Posted on August 26, 2014 at 2:03 pm
Public health advocates hope that a new study showing a significant spike in the use of e-cigarettes by teenagers will push the federal government to tighten its proposed regulations of the electronic products. The analysis, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), found that as e-cigarette use among youth has tripled from 2011 to 2013, young people who try the slickly packaged products, and are also more likely to experiment with traditional combustible cigarettes.
“We hope that studies like this will show the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] that they need to act very quickly,” Vince Willmore, a spokesperson for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said. “The FDA has been behind the curve in regulating e-cigarettes and we certainly hope that studies like this show why it’s so urgent that they finish regulations.”
In April, the Food and Drug Administration released proposed rules banning sale of e-cigarettes to minors under the age of 18 and requiring warning labels on packaging. But the office did not restrict the industry’s use of flavors or its advertising practices. Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, along with other public health advocacy groups, is calling on the federal agency to “close the gaps in its proposed rule specifically with regard to marketing and flavor that appeal to kids,” Willmore said.
“The ads for e-cigarettes comes right out of the playbook that has always been used to market regular cigarettes to kids,” he added, noting that several companies are running commercials deeply reminiscent of traditional tobacco ads, relying on actors and celebrities to sell their products.
The campaign seems to be working. CDC researchers analyzed data from the National Youth Tobacco Surveys of students in grades 6 through 12 for 2011, 2012, and 2013. The results showed that more than 263,000 kids who had not used combustable cigarettes used an e-cigarettes in 2013, up from 79,000 in 2011. 43.9 percent of these first-time electronic cigarette users said they planned to try combustible cigarettes.
A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Pediatrics published in March also found that “use of e-cigarettes does not discourage, and may encourage, conventional cigarette use among US adolescents.” The analysis concluded that young e-cigarette users were more likely to have ever smoked regular cigarettes or be current smokers, and also had higher odds of being regular, established smokers.
E-cigarette manufacturers, which also happen to be some of the nation’s largest tobacco companies, claim that the overwhelming majority of customers are existing users and deny allegations that they use flavors like Cherry Crush, Chocolate Treat and Peachy Keen to attract youth smokers. But in a report released in April, senators on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP) pointed out that the industry is promoting its products through sponsorship of youth-oriented events, television ads that are run during programs with high youth viewership and in social media campaigns that target younger audiences.
While major American cities — New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles — have banned smoking of e-cigarettes indoors and in public parks, the product remains largely unregulated on the federal level. On Tuesday, the World Health Organization ruled that e-cigarette use “poses serious threats to adolescents and fetuses” and called on countries to ban their indoor use and prohibit flavors that appeal to children.
A spokesperson for Reynolds American Inc, the second-largest tobacco company in the United States, says that the company would “support legislation and regulation that prohibits the sale and possession of tobacco to youth.” But she disputed claims that e-cigarettes act as a gateway to traditional smokes, pointing to research from a Boston University professor and a public health physician who claim that “virtually all experimentation with c-cigarettes is happening among people who are already smokers” and that the CDC “fails to discriminate between one-time experimentation and continuing use which leaves results open to multiple interpretations.”
This post has been updated with comments from the tobacco industry.
Big Tobacco Goes High-Tech To Convince You That Smoking Is Cool Again
by Igor Volsky Posted on June 13, 2013 at 9:00 am Updated: May 16, 2014 at 12:35 pm
As a growing number of Americans are turning away from smoking, the nation’s largest tobacco companies are ramping up production of high-tech cigarettes that could lead an entirely new generation of Americans to become addicted smokers — and the government is doing nothing to stop them.
Next month, R.J. Reynolds, the second-largest tobacco manufacturer and maker of Camel, Salem and Winston, will start selling Vuse — an electronic cigarette the size of a slick, thin pen. The product is packaged like the latest release from Apple, surrounded by clear plastic and a crisp logo, set against a clean black background. It even comes with a USB charger. When a user inhales, a sensor heats the liquid nicotine solution, emitting an odorless vapor.
“It’s a high-tech product, there are in fact micro chips inside the cartridges that communicates with the processor inside the power unit, so it’s a sophisticated piece of technology,” spokesperson Richard Smith said. “The package design is to compliment the technical forward facing digital nature of this product, same with the design of the product itself.” July’s campaign is “just the first of a major national roll out” that will include the full range of marketing support and advertising, including T.V. commercials.
Electronic cigarettes or e-cigarettes have been on the market for several years, raking in just a fraction of the tobacco market, $500 million in 2012. But the recent decision by all three big tobacco companies to develop e-cigarette lines has analysts anticipating up to $1 billion in sales this year, with the possibility that the next generation of smokes could even “surpass consumption of traditional cigarettes in the next decade.” Altria Group, the owner of Philip Morris USA — the largest tobacco company in the country with brands like Marlboro, Virginia Slims, and Parliament — unveiled a new e-cigarette on Tuesday. And Lorillard, the third largest manufacturer of cigarettes in the United States, with brands like Newport and Kent, acquired the e-cigarette company blu in April 2012.
“E-cigarettes are to tobacco what energy drinks were or are to beverages,” Bonnie Herzog, an analyst at Wells Fargo Securities who follows the tobacco industry, told the New York Times last year. “It is a small category that is growing very fast, embraced by retailers and consumers.” Indeed, in 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that “more than 20 percent of adult smokers said they had tried e-cigarettes, double the rate in 2010.”
Phillip Morris and R.J. Reynolds pushed back against claims by health groups that e-cigarettes are designed to appeal to young nonsmokers, insisting that their products are for “consumers looking for alternatives to traditional cigarettes” and are not meant to target those who have quit or haven’t started. “It’s a guiding principle of Reynolds operating companies, including JRVapor, that adults who do not smoke should not start and those who quit should not re-start,” Smith said. “Kids should never have access to tobacco products.”
Tobacco companies have long argued that they are only competing among existing adult smokers, when in reality their products and marketing appealed to children. In the 1990s, R.J. Reynolds claimed that it developed the infamous Joe Camel character in 1988 to lure adult customers from their competitors, even though studies repeatedly indicated that the “character was widely recognized by and popular among children.” The Federal Trade Commission ultimately concluded that Joe Camel attracted underage smokers, noting that teen smoking spiked after he entered the marketplace. The company discontinued use of the character in 1997.
Consumer advocates now fear that tobacco companies are using the same playbook to market e-cigarettes, and are urging the federal government to step in and provide additional regulation. The products are not covered by “the longtime restrictions on using commercials to sell tobacco cigarettes” or overseen by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
In 2009, the FDA classified electronic cigarettes as drug delivery devices, subject to pre-approval. But the industry took the government to court, insisting that they should be regulated as tobacco products. The manufactures won the case, forcing the FDA to drop its ban on importation of electronic cigarettes from China, and quickly moved to market without any federal oversight whatsoever. In January, the FDA announced that it would issue a proposed rule to regulate “additional categories of tobacco products” in April, but as the large tobacco companies have started moving into the marketplace, the agency has yet to publish any guidelines.
“Right now it’s the wild, wild west and we have an industry that has a history of marketing to youth and claim they don’t,” Matthew Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids said, “making implicit and explicit claims about their products that often prove to be false.”
The Campaign and other health groups are demanding that the FDA explain what’s in these products, ensure that the levels of nicotine and the presence of other substances that make them more dangerous are carefully regulated, and prohibit aggressive advertising to children and misleading health statements.
“There has been very limited independent evidence done to find out what the ultimate consequences are either to the individual user, but also to the public health consequences,” Erika Sward, the American Lung Association’s Director of National Advocacy, explained. In 2009, the FDA released an analysis of 18 electronic cigarettes and found that half of the vapor samples “contained carcinogens, and that one contained diethylene glycol, a toxic chemical used in antifreeze.” The agency concluded that “consumers of e-cigarette products currently have no way of knowing whether e-cigarettes are safe for their intended use, how much nicotine or other potentially harmful chemicals are being inhaled during use, or if there are any benefits associated with using these products.” The Canadian health ministry also issued an advisory against electronic cigarettes, warning that the products “may pose risks such as nicotine poisoning and addiction.”
Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds conceded that “there is no safe tobacco product,” but insisted that the e-cigarettes rely on “the highest quality ingredients under strict manufacturing standards.” Neither company would discuss how they plan to advertise the smokes, although several other brands are already running ads deeply reminiscent of traditional tobacco commercials, relying on actors and celebrities to sell their products. The R.J. Reynolds spokesperson told ThinkProgress that the company’s advertisements would be similar in nature. A report from Citibank finds that spending on e-cigarette TV ads increased 17.9 percent from 2011 to 2012, while print ad spending rose 71.9 percent.
“The highly stylized TV advertising we’re now seeing reintroduces smoking in a very glamourous way on our nation’s airwaves,” Myers warned. “The electronic cigarette industry has used the lack of consumer regulation to aggressively market their product.”
“We have done and failed at the experiment of this country of having tobacco products being on the market until they are proven to be dangerous. We’ve seen the consequences of that,” Sward said, adding that the future of e-cigarettes “is going to depend on what FDA ultimately does.”
E-Cigarettes Want Your Attention Now (Before the FDA Steps In)
By Justin Bachman June 10, 2013
The electronic cigarette is about to have its turn in the spotlight. The battery-powered gadgets transform nicotine and other substances into an inhaled vapor and have been marketed as a safer alternative to tobacco smoke, which is drawn into the lungs and increases cancer risks. The rapidly growing e-cigarette business—expected to top $1 billion in annual sales in the next few years—is racing to command a bigger share of spending among smokers and potential smokers ahead of possible regulations from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
NJOY, a Phoenix-area company with the largest share of the market (about 36 percent), announced a $75 million investment today. Its newest backers include Napster founder and former Facebook (FB) President Sean Parker and Homewood Capital, an investment fund run by Douglas Teitelbaum, who’s joining the board of NJOY, which was founded seven years ago by tobacco-industry veterans. “I’m optimistic that the clever application of technology might someday obsolete the combustion cigarette and all the harm it causes,” Parker said in a statement. His philanthropic foundation also donates money toward cancer research.
Altria Group (MO), the parent of Philip Morris, the largest U.S. tobacco company, is expected to announce its entry into the increasingly crowded market during an investor event on Tuesday. Last week, R.J. Reynolds (RAI) rolled out its Vuse Digital Vapor cigarette in metro Denver with plans to expand the product nationally. The current No. 2 brand, Blu eCigs, which Lorillard (LO) acquired last year for $135 million, today announced its sponsorship of the 2013 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival this coming weekend, where it will have an air-conditioned Vapor Lounge “activation space” for those over 18. (IDs will be checked at the door, the company and Bonnaroo officials said in a news release.)
The FDA doesn’t regulate e-cigarettes—at least for now—but the potential of future marketing curbs has the nascent industry angling for smokers’ attention, whether at a huge music festival like Bonnaroo or with a commercial showing a baby doing the Gangnam Style dance to promote a U.K. brand. “Although e-cigarette companies may not have the marketing budget of a big tobacco company, they are somewhat less encumbered (for now) in communicating to consumers,” Wells Fargo Securities (WFC) tobacco analyst Bonnie Herzog wrote in an August 2012 note, predicting sales could top traditional cigarettes in the next decade and urging big tobacco firms “to wake up” to the market’s potential. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published today, Mitch Zeller, director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, described the e-cigarette market as “the wild, wild West” regarding the lack of government oversight but did not say when regulations would be proposed. It’s already clear the agency isn’t exactly thrilled with the public health attributes of e-cigarettes, based on the language used on its website:
“As the safety and efficacy of e-cigarettes have not been fully studied, consumers of e-cigarette products currently have no way of knowing whether e-cigarettes are safe for their intended use, how much nicotine or other potentially harmful chemicals are being inhaled during use, or if there are any benefits associated with using these products. Additionally, it is not known if e-cigarettes may lead young people to try other tobacco products, including conventional cigarettes, which are known to cause disease and lead to premature death.” Story: Overweight? Smoke? Pay Up for Health Insurance
Beyond the nicotine, one of the major ingredients in most electronic cigarettes is propylene glycol, which isn’t considered toxic for humans but is also found in antifreeze and de-icing fluid. (Blu eCigs notes on its home page that its products don’t contain the chemical.) Former smokers can be found online trading comments on the relative merits of one brand over another, with taste and the ability to replicate smoking as paramount priorities for their selections.
“The most amazing thing about this cigarette? It isn’t one,” NJOY says in promotional language on its website. At the FDA, that distinction may not be enough to ward off the kinds of regulations that could restrict e-cigarette advertising to the limited precincts its traditional tobacco-made cousins now inhabit. Story: Designers Imagine Ways to Hide Cigarettes in NYC Stores
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