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%).
Read articles from United States of America
October 03, 2022 by spokesman.com
Altria can sell its own e-cigarettes after ending deal with Juul
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
FDA Admits Vaping Is Safer Than Smoking But Refuses To Correct the Record
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
The FDA’s Harm Reduction Hypocrisy
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
Vape Taxes a Great Way to Encourage Smoking, Researchers Show
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
Drinking, smoking drop among U.S. teens while vaping, pot use rise
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
Juul Lawsuit Accuses FDA of Hiding Documents Key to Denial Decision
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
Adolescent substance abuse in the U.S. declines with exception of cannabis and vaping
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.
September 21, 2022 by reuters.com
Juul sues FDA for documents said to justify e-cigarette ban
Juul Labs has sued the U.S. Food and Drug Administration over the agency's refusal to disclose documents supporting its order banning the company, which has been blamed for fueling a teenage vaping crisis, from selling e-cigarettes on the U.S. market.
In a complaint filed on Tuesday with a federal court in Washington, D.C., Juul accused the FDA of invoking the "widely abused" deliberative process privilege to improperly withhold scientific materials that are "central" to understanding the basis for the June 23 sales ban.
September 19, 2022 by forbes.com
Biden Clearing Out The Menthol Cigarette Smoke With New Ban
President Biden’s administration is clearing out the smoke when it comes to the sale of menthol flavored cigarettes. This nicotine product accounts for more than one-third of all cigarettes sold in the U.S. each year. Menthol cigarettes have been historically heavily marketed toward Black Americans, and the FDA specifically noted that the move to ban them would save the lives of 92,000 to 238,000 African Americans.
September 14, 2022 by filtermag.org
Extracting Juul Settlement Is About the Money, Not the Truth
Juul is back in the news, this time for tentatively agreeing to pay a whopping $438.5 million in a multistate agreement to settle numerous allegations (without admitting wrongdoing) related to youth vaping. The money is to be paid out over a period of six to 10 years.
In a September 6 press release, Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, who led the investigation and negotiations, stated, “They relentlessly marketed vaping products to underage youth, manipulated their chemical composition to be palatable to inexperienced users… misled consumers about the nicotine content and addictiveness of its products.” [...]