Smoking in United States of America
In the United States of America, smoking is allowed but tobacco products should follow some regulations. Under these regulations, health warnings on tobacco packaging including cigarettes are mandatory, the minimum legal age for their sales is 21 years, and there are no federal legal restrictions on smoking in public places. While tobacco advertising is regulated, not all forms of their advertising are banned. An excise tax of 32.16% with a total taxation rate of 37.36% is applied on cigarettes. Cigarettes can legally be sold with authorised documents. They may also be purchased through vending machines as well as through online channels. Importing cigarettes for trade is allowed with an appropriate import license. Despite these control measures, prevalence data show that smoking remains an important public health issue in the United States. There were 39.8 million current smokers in the country in 2024. This represents an overall adult smoking prevalence of 14.1%, with higher prevalence among men (17.1%) than among women (11.1%). In comparison, the overall current smoking prevalence was 12.3% in 2022. The adult daily smoking prevalence was recorded to be 10.01% in 2020. Smoking-related mortality also remains significant in the country. In 2021, smoking resulted in 360,370 deaths, including 216,986 male deaths and 143,383 female deaths. This shows that smoking accounted for 10.38% of all deaths in the United States in 2021, with a higher rate among men (11.9%) than among women (8.7%).
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May 19, 2021 by filtermag.org
Teens Who Vape Would Be Smoking If Vapes Weren’t Invented, Study Suggests
A new study suggests that teens who vape would probably be smoking cigarettes instead if vapes had never become available.
The academic article, published in Nicotine & Tobacco Research, set out to determine whether youth who vaped between 2014 and 2018 would, in the absence of e-cigarettes, likely have become smokers. In other words, the social epidemiologists who co-authored the study—Dr. Natasha Sokol, [...] wanted to question the so-called “gateway” theory: the idea that vaping, for teenagers, is a path toward smoking.
May 16, 2021 by thehill.com
Fanning the flames: Feds may adopt problematic tobacco policies
In recent weeks, federal officials have announced policies that are very likely to increase cigarette smuggling into the United States and bring other unintended consequences.
The Tobacco Tax Equity Act of 2021, introduced in Congress on April 22, would both raise federal excise taxes (FET) on each pack of cigarettes and adjust the tax each year for inflation to ensure automatic tax hikes. In addition, the Food and Drug Administration has moved to ban menthol-flavored cigarettes, a popular type of smoke. [...]
May 14, 2021 by alreporter.com
Alabama public health groups urge Ivey to veto vaping bill
The American Lung Association and five other groups are asking Gov. Kay Ivey to veto a bill the group says has caveats that favor the tobacco and vaping industries.
House Bill 273 raises the age of buying tobacco and vaping products from 19 to 21, and establishes a registry that vaping manufacturers would have to submit to, but there’s concern that aspects of the bill are unworkable, and favor the industries. The bill passed both the House and Senate and awaits Ivey’s signature.
May 13, 2021 by usatoday.com
Ban all cigarettes, not just menthols, and urge adult smokers to try less harmful options
The Food and Drug Administration announced late last month that it wants to ban menthol cigarettes, which are the overwhelming preference of African American smokers. But if a smoking prohibition is good for Black people, who comprise only about 1 in 7 U.S. cigarette smokers, why isn’t it good for whites and other Americans as well?
A smarter policy would be to phase in an FDA ban on all products that burn tobacco and aggressively urge adult smokers who can’t quit to transition to alternative devices that deliver nicotine in a far less dangerous way.
May 11, 2021 by umich.edu
FDA to ban menthol cigarettes: U-M experts available
The FDA has announced that it will ban menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars within the next year, a move the tobacco industry has pushed against for the last decade. University of Michigan experts can comment. “Successful implementation of the FDA’s proposed ban on menthol cigarettes has the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives over a short period and reduce health inequalities, particularly for African Americans,” Mendez said. [...]
May 11, 2021 by filtermag.org
“END ENDS” Bill Would Cap Nicotine Levels in Vapes, Encourage Smoking
On May 7, Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois reintroduced his END ENDS Act—a federal bill that would cap e-cigarette nicotine levels at 20 milligrams per milliliter.
The intention was clear: The Ending Nicotine Dependence from Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems Act—“END ENDS”—seeks to decrease the nicotine concentrations in vapes in order to make them less “addictive” and appealing to teenagers.
May 10, 2021 by regulatorwatch.com
Death & Taxes | U.S. Approach to Vaping
For everyone, there’s nothing in life more certain than death and taxes. Yet if you are a smoker the risk of death and pain of taxation increases by orders of magnitude, often thanks to ill-conceived government action. Joining us today to talk about the U.S. approach to vaping and its macabre commitment to death and taxes is the writer, researcher and vape activist Lindsey Stroud, from the Taxpayers Protection Alliance.
May 10, 2021 by filtermag.org
New Evidence Links “EVALI” Vaping Misinformation With Increased Cigarette Smoking
As kids went back to school in the fall of 2019, parents, educators, public health experts and lawmakers were growing more concerned by the day. A string of “e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injuries,” or EVALI, was appearing across the United States, and no one—not even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—had a handle on what was happening.
Eventually, in November, the CDC belatedly identified a “very strong culprit”: vitamin E acetate, a compound that had been found as an adulterant in illicitly manufactured THC cartridges. That is, not nicotine vaping products. [...]
May 07, 2021 by chicagotribune.com
Aurora looks at moratorium on new vaping stores
Aurora officials are considering a six-month moratorium on any new stores that sell alternative tobacco products, including vaping materials.
The moratorium ordinance would “hit the pause button” on any new such facilities until the city can find how to best regulate the products, said Ald. Edward Bugg, 9th Ward.
Bugg asked the city’s law department to look at the situation after three new stores featuring alternative tobacco products, including vaping materials, opened in the 9th Ward, within one-third of a mile of each other.
May 06, 2021 by biomedcentral.com
Effect of Massachusetts House Bill No. 4196 on electronic cigarette use: a mixed-methods study
Electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, are devices that deliver nicotine-containing aerosol and were used by 2.8% of American adults in 2017. Many people who smoke cigarettes have used e-cigarettes for smoking cessation, and the general consensus among health providers is that while vaping is not harmless, it is less harmful than smoking. To try to reduce youth e-cigarette use, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts imposed a 75% excise tax on nicotine-containing vaping products and banned the sale of all flavored tobacco products, including combustible tobacco, effective June 1, 2020. [...]