Read articles from United States of America

October 07, 2022 by filtermag.org

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) doubled down on what’s still being touted as a youth vaping “epidemic” when releasing new data on October 6. Its annual National Youth Tobacco Survey found that youth vaping rates have modestly increased since 2021, but are still substantially down from a few years ago.

In 2022, according to the agency, 14.1 percent of high school students and 3.3 percent of middle school students reported “current e-cigarette use”—which can mean vaping just once in the past 30 days. [...]

October 06, 2022 by law360.com

A group of companies that make liquids used in e-cigarettes has sued the U.S. Food and Drug Administration over a marketing and recordkeeping rule the companies say is overly difficult and would limit what they can market.

The companies — along with the trade group the United States Vaping Association — filed a complaint in Texas federal court Tuesday challenging the FDA's premarket tobacco product applications and recordkeeping requirements rule issued a year ago.

The rule should not be enforced, the plaintiffs say, arguing the FDA incorrectly said it wouldn't harm small businesses. [...]

October 05, 2022 by journalnow.com

The chief growth officer for British American Tobacco Plc made his case Thursday for how the manufacturer is advancing its “A Better Tomorrow” smokefree initiative. [...] BAT is the parent company of Reynolds American Inc., which has its U.S. headquarters and largest manufacturing plant in Forsyth County. A Better Tomorrow debuted in September 2019. The strategy emphasizes gaining market share in smokeless and smokefree products, such as top-selling Vuse electronic-cigarettes, glo heat-not-burn cigarettes and oral products, such as Camel Snus.

October 03, 2022 by spokesman.com

Altria Group has ended a deal that barred it from competing with Juul Labs Inc., opening the door for the Marlboro maker to buy an e-cigarette company or develop its own vaping products.

As part of ending the agreement, Altria reduced its rights to designate Juul board members. The tobacco giant’s shares in Juul are now converted to single-vote common stock, significantly reducing its voting power. “Our decision to terminate our noncompete maximizes our flexibility to compete in e-vapor as it allows us to maintain our economic investment in Juul, to compete organically and through M&A,” Steve Callahan, an Altria spokesperson, said via email.

September 30, 2022 by reason.com

In May, Brian King was appointed head of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products. King is not known for championing e-cigarettes or reduced-risk alternatives to cigarettes. But after a few months on the job, he's out on the media and conference circuit giving a clearer idea of how he envisions the future of nicotine regulation.

In an interview [...] King was asked about surveys showing most people think e-cigarettes are just as dangerous as traditional cigarettes and whether that was a problem. "I'm fully aware of the misperceptions that are out there and aren't consistent with the known science," King replied.

September 28, 2022 by townhall.com

In late August, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) quietly unveiled a new “Overdose Prevention Framework” to address the decades-long opioid epidemic. Interestingly, the agency outlined policies that support innovation and promote harm reduction. Alarmingly, this is the same agency that houses the Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) that is actively blocking access to tobacco harm reduction. This hypocrisy in approaching harm reduction must change.

September 27, 2022 by filtermag.org

A new paper published in the Journal of Health Economics suggests that burdensome taxes on vaping products lead to an increase in cigarette sales.

The co-authors of the peer-reviewed article—including Michael Pesko, a leading tobacco economist in the United States—used the NielsenIQ Retail Scanner Dataset (NRSD) over the years 2013 to 2019, which tracks weekly sales of many national retailers and a large percentage of total sales among drug stores, food stores, dollar stores, club stores and mass merchandisers. [...]

September 23, 2022 by upi.com

Fewer U.S. teenagers are drinking and smoking these days, but marijuana and vaping have gained in popularity -- particularly among kids with lots of unsupervised free time. Those are among the findings of a new study tracking substance use trends among American teens over the past 30 years. The researchers found that while substance use has generally declined over time, there were two notable exceptions: marijuana use, which has been inching up for many years; and vaping of nicotine and marijuana, which has surged in the past several years.

September 22, 2022 by filtermag.org

On September 20, Juul Labs filed a federal lawsuit in the US District Court of the District of Columbia, stating that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is withholding documents crucial to the agency’s new review of the company’s vaping products. Like other vapor manufacturers, Juul had to file premarket tobacco product applications (PMTAs) by September 2020, showing that its products were “appropriate for protection of public health”—a threshold that has come to be understood as helping adults switch from cigarettes to a safer alternative while not introducing a new generation to nicotine. [...]

September 21, 2022 by eurekalert.org

Substance abuse among U.S. adolescents is diminishing, except for an uptake in cannabis and vaping use, according to a new study at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. The findings show that low social engagement and participation in structured activities seemed to be the overall best predictors of substance abuse avoidance. [...]

Examining data from​ 536,291 adolescents between 1991–2019, a team of researchers suggest that while the reasons for this phenomenon are not entirely clear they appear to correlate to a number of other social factors. These include increased parental monitoring and decreased partying and dating notable among them.