Read articles from United States of America

January 11, 2023 by local10.com

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – The new year started in Miami Beach with a ban on cigarette smoking on the beach and at public parks after most city commissioners voted in support of it.

It’s a measure that Dave Dobler, of the Volunteer Cleanup nonprofit organization, and other local environmental activists advocated for and celebrated.

“Cigarette butts are the number one most littered item on beach cleanups and we find thousands and thousands and thousands of them,” said Dobler, an avid kayaker.

Police officers will be able to arrest repeat offenders at their discretion. The maximum punishment is a $500 fine and 60 days in jail.

January 09, 2023 by filtermag.org

At the end of December, Robert Califf, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Brian King, the director of the agency’s Center for Tobacco Products (CTP), published an op-ed outlining a new framework to maximize smoking cessation.

In the piece, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the authors argue for a so-called smoking cessation “care package.” This includes encouraging health systems to provide social and clinical support, offering medication and nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), and moving forward on plans to ban menthol combustibles and lower the nicotine levels in cigarettes.

January 05, 2023 by thehill.com

When it comes to public health, we should follow the facts and science, as opposed to political posturing. If history has taught us anything, it’s that prohibition is rarely the answer when addressing a public health problem. Outright bans of products tend to produce the opposite result of their intent, spurring more product consumption and fueling unregulated black markets. Unfortunately, this is the approach the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is taking when it comes to adults over 21 consuming tobacco products.

January 03, 2023 by silive.com

E-cigarette users searching for a New Year’s resolution should look no further than kicking the habit, officials said.

The New York State Health Department said e-cigarette use remains stubbornly-high, especially among young adults from ages 18 to 24, even as traditional tobacco use has been declining for decades.

“I encourage New Yorkers who use e-cigarettes to ring in the New Year by making a resolution to quit using e-cigarettes and other vaping devices, which contain highly addictive nicotine, in order to prevent long-term harm to people’s health,” State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary T. Bassett said in a release.

January 03, 2023 by filtermag.org

United States tobacco control did not have an easy 2022. So much turmoil has come and gone this past year that even the most dedicated harm reductionists and critics struggled to keep up at one point or another, as separate events blurred into one big pile of dysfunction.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it’s moving toward a federal menthol cigarette ban, much to the chagrin of social justice advocates. Congress granted the FDA the power to regulate synthetic nicotine, to which many small- and medium-sized vape manufacturers had switched in the hope of keeping their products on the market.

December 22, 2022 by cnn.com

An independent panel of experts says its review of the US Food and Drug Administration’s tobacco program found numerous wide-ranging problems that hinder its ability to regulate the industry and reduce tobacco-related disease and death.

FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf requested the review in July, anticipating the complex issues that will come with an ever-growing number of tobacco products. The experts were asked to take a closer look at the agency’s regulatory process and agency operations, as well as how it handles application reviews, compliance and enforcement actions, and communication with stakeholders and the public. The panel did not review the FDA’s tobacco policy itself.

December 21, 2022 by filtermag.org

On December 19, the Reagan-Udall Foundation, an independent nonprofit tasked by Congress to help modernize the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), released a commissioned report on the agency’s Center for Tobacco Products (CTP). The expert panel—which mainly consisted of former agency higher-ups—concluded that the CTP has to pivot from “a reactive mode to proactive mode.” It identified the lack of a coherent plan at the center charged with authorizing or rejecting vaping products, and called for transparency at an agency long characterized by its absence. [...]

December 19, 2022 by nnalliance.org

As has been widely reported, new data published last week by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reveals that the smoking rate for over 18s in the UK in 2021 declined to a record low of 13.3%. The ONS described the drop in smoking numbers since the previous year’s rate of 14.0% as statistically significant and concluded that vaping had played “a major role” in the reduction. This is great news at the end of a difficult year for many, but also (...)

December 19, 2022 by medicalxpress.com

Despite California's success in reducing tobacco use, a new study published today in JAMA Network Open demonstrates the continued and significant burden tobacco inflicts on people with cancer. "This is almost double what was previously estimated in a study that looked at 2014 data," said California Cancer Registry researcher Frances Maguire, who is the lead author of the study.

December 16, 2022 by reason.com

It has long been clear that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is leery of approving nicotine vaping products in flavors other than tobacco because the agency worries that they appeal to teenagers. Two recently disclosed FDA memos not only confirm that impression; they indicate that the agency is determined to ban all other flavors, no matter how popular they are among former smokers and no matter what evidence a manufacturer presents in favor of a particular product.