Big Tobacco,You Have Been Warned.

[Bobbilly]

TEENAGERS:

Recent trends in tobacco marketing

Heavy marketing and discounting in convenience stores
tobacco companies today spend more than 90 percent of their total marketing budget — nearly $10 billion a year — to advertise and promote their products in convenience stores, gas stations and other retail outlets. tobacco companies pay stores billions to ensure that cigarettes and other tobacco products are advertised heavily, displayed prominently and priced cheaply to appeal to kids and current tobacco users. This marketing is very effective at reaching kids because two-thirds of teenagers visit a convenience store at least once a week. Studies have shown that exposure to tobacco marketing in stores and price discounts increase youth smoking.



Tobacco companies have significantly increased marketing of smokeless tobacco products, and they have introduced an array of colorfully-packaged and sweetly-flavored smokeless products, some of which look, taste and are packaged like candy. Since the 1998 settlement, smokeless tobacco marketing has skyrocketed by 277 percent to $547.9 million in 2008. In addition to marketing traditional chewing tobacco in kid-friendly flavors such as cherry, apple and citrus, tobacco companies have introduced new dissolvable and easily concealed tobacco products, called sticks, strips and orbs, that look like mints, breath strips and toothpicks.




Warning to Parents: How Big Tobacco Targets Kids Today - Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids

Because adults don't like to save money, go to convienence stores or flavours.

Most teenagers get tobacco from peers or other sources.

Personally I would rather have my kids make the conscience decision to not smoke then to be 'at risk' when they see it.

Perhaps we can propose if you are <18 cigarettes are $100/ pk. For adults it is a real price. Win win.


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[Heavyrocker]

Holy cow:....this i didn not know:

"Get 'em Young and Train 'em Right" Tobacco industry targeting of teens. - YouTube

 

[zoiDman]

The original point was advertisements targeting kids. Do you have any examples of this?

I can't think of any product's advertisements that would not appeal to kids. I can understand how some might be more appealing to larger segment of kids than others, though don't believe that means it is targeted. I'm thinking some people don't get how advertising works as a profession or an art.

Say I site Ads that feature Bruno Mars or Justin Beaver.

Does it Matter if I do? Because the Argument is Just Going to be Made that Adults Also are the Target of an Ad. Granted, a lot Less adults than minors.

I am well aware about how you feel about Minors using e-Cigarettes. So there Isn't much reason to keep posting on this Topic.

 

[rothenbj]

Variations on the theme of "We're all adults so let us make our own decisions." are the norm when railing against any form of government regulations regarding vaping.
Or for that matter any other personal pursuit currently threatened by our nanny state culture.

All of us that chose to smoke did so willingly didn't we?
Nobody held a gun to our collective heads and forced us to smoke. Didn't to me at any rate.

Regardless any evidence that may exist of tobacco management knowingly downplaying the effects of smoking you can't honestly think that smokers didn't know that they/we weren't willingly killing ourselves with each puff.

I do not support big tobaccos actions with respect to vaping. Hate em' for the actions they're taking in that regard, silly twits they are.
But I also think applauding punitive actions against big tobacco is completely out of line for folks that want to be considered adult and left alone to make their own decisions.

OTD you just seem to show up out of nowhere. You should stop over on the dark side once in awhile.

 

[olderthandirt]

LOL, I'm around. Ya just haven't looked under the right rocks (-;

 

[aubergine]

Vaping won't be vulnerable to such lawsuits at all for the simple reason that vaping, unless we have all been terribly mistaken, will not kill people.
It's very arguable that anyone who chooses to smoke, given the very clear evidence that smoking is heavily implicated in disabling and fatal diseases, is responsible for the consequences of his own poor decision and has no reasonable grounds to sue. It's really a symbolic gesture. If your kid or spouse dies of a drug overdose you might want to shoot the dealer. Mostly everyone gets that.

I also understand that there's a very vocal (though small) contingent in ECF that feels that tobacco companies have been unfairly maligned, that the dangers of smoking have been trumped up by fanatics in the same way that the dangers of vaping have been, and that somehow the campaign against smoking can be conflated with the campaign against vaping. That some of the players are the same, and that the same tactics and language are used, makes it an easy, facile argument. Add a dollop of generalized anger at regulatory processes per se, and it can be framed as a continuum - The ANTZ who want to destroy harm-reducing ecigs (because THEY in turn conflate vaping with smoking, actually) must have been wrong about smoking, too.

And so the vast majority of ex-smokers on this forum, whose enthusiasm for vaping was all about getting out from under the thumb of a deadly habit that was promoted by big tobacco - which lied, deliberately added thousands of toxic substances to make their product both more attractive and addictive, and raked in massive profit while blithely sickening and killing its customers (including my mother, and hundreds of my hospice patients, so I really don't want to hear it), for decades - find that an incongruent argument is being added to their own campaign: "it's the same damned people that attacked big tobacco", and statements like this, above:

"Plus, it isn't just ANTZ as there are prominent people right here on ECF who seemingly have no doubt that "smoking causes thus and so" (or horrible death). It's high time that meme was undone and put into proper perspective. And if not, I feel very confident that same thing will happen with vaping, and are warning signs available to all to see how it could happen sooner than later."

I don't want to argue that further and won't, but really want to note that it's 100% congruent to loathe Big Tobacco, it's smarmy history and it's products, to champion anything and anyone who would like them off the face of the earth, to hope that the vaping industry won't be swallowed by it for a myriad of reasons, and to be thoroughly opposed to the campaign against e-cigs.
To say that in no way makes one an anti-ecig ANTZ.

Because e-cigs are nothing important at all, maybe a frivolous hobby or recreational novelty, unless they save people's lives. And the occasion that gave rise to the need to save people's lives is on Big Tobacco.

(Re choice - what damns the tobacco industry is that they successfully hid what they knew, largely via big payoffs, from their consumers. Choice is severely compromised when people are willfully misled about their choice.)

I can't think of a single stance that would wreck the credibility of our cause from within more effectively than one that would somehow link it with that of the tobacco companies, especially with claims that 'cigarettes are not so bad for you as they're made out to be by those awful ANTZ.'
Yes they are.
Ecigs aren't.

 

[Jman8]

I can't think of a single stance that would wreck the credibility of our cause from within more effectively than one that would somehow link it with that of the tobacco companies, especially with claims that 'cigarettes are not so bad for you as they're made out to be by those awful ANTZ.'
Yes they are.
Ecigs aren't.

There's no way that eCigs will ever be (considered) as bad as combustibles. But to claim combustibles are as bad as ANTZ makes them out to be is hard to fathom both in terms of available science and political assault. Even more challenging to understand acceptance of ANTZ rhetoric, when one sees SAME EXACT tactics being used by ANTZ against eCigs. Just obviously, with much less of a chance for stigmatization. Plus, it helps immensely, for the vaping cause, that combustibles went through the proverbial slaughter house, first.

Obviously, BT made some very significant missteps along the way and has not only paid dearly for those mistakes, but is still paying, without an end in sight. Yet, vaping industry has shown a misstep or two along the way, and could rather easily make a few more. (Not really sure there is a product today that can avoid perception of a public misstep.) Whether or not vape industry pays dearly remains to be seen.

So far, so good. I hope it stays that way.

 

[Kent C]

There is a matter of individual rights. And there is a difference between vices and crimes. Vices are personal actions that an individual may do that could in some way harm themselves. Crimes are actions taken that harm others. Crimes or violation of rights is part of why this gov't was created. It is a legitimate function of gov't to protect rights. From the Constitution and the intent, vices are not under the gov't's range. What one does to oneself is not the gov't's business whether it be smoking, gambling, or other ao-called "victimless crimes" (actually only vices).

There are certain people in gov't (and that hover around it) who want to intervene into these personal choices or vices and these people include those individuals, scientists, activists and others who wanted to stop others from smoking. In that group there were people who were interested in making tobacco companies pay and there were some who were more concerned with actual harm reduction. But before ecigarettes, both groups were part of the same general group. And these were people who were against an individual's right to smoke and the tobacco companies right to sell.

For me, I don't ignore this reality about those who knew what was best for me as a smoker and those who know what's best for me as a vaper. I am not the person who, by their own choices, and with the knowledge of the downside of tobacco combustion, having now quit, blame the tobacco companies, no matter what others think they did to 'entice' me, to now turn around and make the tobacco companies the 'cause' and me the 'victim'. I can't seem to fool myself in that manner, for some reason.

I admire greatly any of those who were anti-tobacco, who have changed their own minds by seeing what has happened with something (ecigarettes) that can actually help people who have chosen to no longer smoke cigarettes, and have rethought their earlier views and have changed them to a more rights oriented view than a public good oriented view. Those who have not changed their views but have only moved more toward the 'harm reduction' view, have my support in that movement only, but I haven't forgot their true collective orientation of 'what's good for public health' rather than what is good for the individual.

 

[Uma]

There are so many great comments in this thread!
IMO, kids are NOT targeted & never really were, except for the fact that everyone smoked back then. Even so, I never ever, not ever! Watched or heard an advertisement where kids were tempting kids. The distinctions were pretty clear. Kids tempted kids in kiddie adverts. Adults tempted adults. . Uncle Tim playing with a Barbie doll to entice kids to buy Barbie dolls is as absurb as all get out. Even though kids grew up knowing the slogan "Calgon! Take me away!" Kids didn't grow up becoming Calgon addicts. Mr. Bubbles maybe, but not Calgon. I still love Mr. Bubbles. Sigh.
Had kids been smoking in adverts, enticing other kids to join them, that would definitely have been advertising to kids.
Had adults been smoking and handing baby Alice a smoke to "try this flavor, you'll love it!", THAT would have been advertising to kids.
Common sense dictates that. We all know this. Yet we didn't argue with lawyers, in case there really were adverts like mentioned, somewhere across the states. We didn't have google back then.
Today, there is a huge attack on personal freedoms like never before. The TCI tries so hard, in every way, to ban the freedom of speech, now that they've banned the freedom of choice. All the bill of rights are under attack. There's even a push to change the constitution, under false pretenses A simple law would fix.
On the other hand....
If it weren't for the Credit Card companies advertising "get it now, pay later", people would not be shopping addicts.
If it weren't for the senseless commercials persuading anybody to buy anything, consumers would not be shopaholic cancer filled depressed can't get a good nights rest hungry for a whopper need energy from a Mountain Dew and calling their docs for a new prescription for the latest advertised pill that will fix all their problems. We've been brainwashed from the cradle to the grave to become shopaholic, CC indebted, pain reliever, Hostess twinkles addicts. . It's high time these advertisements be held accountable!
Me and my RC agree.

There wasn't a parent alive who didn't despise all those kiddie commercials. The screams and tantrums for the worthless toys, the sugar Rush's from cereal, ... wait... I think I see a connection.

 

[aubergine]

Your point is well taken, Kent, and of course represents one side of a tension between individual rights and public health that's been raging since the early 19th century (and more generally well before public health became much of a government issue).
As a psychotherapist I ran up against it all the time, and went against the thinking of the majority of my peers by refusing to see mandated clients or support coercive medication and involuntary institutionalization (because the mental health system is a quasi-legal system that has been granted extra-legal judiciary powers to confine and coerce that belong to the criminal justice system); during the AIDS epidemic I found myself somewhat philosophically hamstrung between the absolute right-to-privacy camp and those who would casually trample that right in order to absolutely protect the public. In the latter instance I think a somewhat messy compromise was struck, and that that's often the best outcome, though purists on both ends of the political spectrum are often disappointed.
I'm only mentioning all of that because I think that whenever two goods (individual rights and public health) find themselves in tension extreme positions arise, and it's assumed that one must triumph at the expense of the other.
Those extreme positions need to be articulated (and currently I think that we all - and I pointedly include democrats, liberals and progressives, but also the right and many self-styled libertarians, who tend to promote their own authoritarianism - need to pay hard attention to intrusive, paternalistic trends in government) and are an important part of the dialogue. But in the end those positions represent only the farthest poles in a system of checks and balances that, when functioning properly, refuses to destroy one good for the sake of another.

Thus, cigarettes aren't criminalized (and as much as I care about public health, I'd not argue that they should be), but are heavily restricted, penalized for every misstep at the corporate level (whether corporations are people is of course at issue here - our founding fathers could not have anticipated the overarching power of corporate plutocracy - an argument for another venue) and are the subject of massive public campaigns to dissuade the public from using them. As uncomfortable as that might be for those at either extreme, I think that's the best we can do by way of protecting both individual liberty and the public health without eliminating the importance of either.

As for ecigs, the analogy falls apart unless and if they become a threat to public health. It's tacitly absurd to pretend that they are with absolutely no evidence that that's the case. In fact, of course, their significance is in their specific contribution to harm reduction.
We can fight this one, as you note, on both fronts, and should.

For anyone interested, there's what I think is a balanced, non-partisan, little context article here - it's particularly helpful in placing the tobacco wars within that long history of checks and balances and in reminding us that absolutism on either side is deeply flawed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2267241/

 

[Bobbilly]

The best way to immunize kids against making a bad choice is allowing exposure and having them make the right choice


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[Jman8]

As for ecigs, the analogy falls apart unless and if they become a threat to public health. It's tacitly absurd to pretend that they are with absolutely no evidence that that's the case. In fact, of course, their significance is in their specific contribution to harm reduction.
We can fight this one, as you note, on both fronts, and should.

There is evidence that eCigs, as they are currently being manufactured, pose a known risk to public health. I believe many in this thread know what I am alluding to, and it deals with inhalation of flavors that were otherwise intended for eating, but not for inhaling. A known issue has surfaced, and while it stands decent chance of being corrected, it isn't the first time that we've been down this road. Plus, it could take another couple years or longer to correct this with idea that many people have differing perceptions of the severity of the perceived problem. Vendors vary on that as well, and thus the collective 'we' may not show up as even seeing need to correct a problem that is downplayed or ignored. Your commentary is what I observe to be the norm. Ongoing claims by consumers that there is zero evidence of harm, and that no researcher has ever found any thing harmful in eCigs which simply include 4 ingredients, all believed to be GRAS.

This is the misstep I spoke to earlier. It cuts to a core issue with vaping, namely flavors. We now have advocacy going on that says, 'really do we need to vape flavors?' If ANTZ says this, it is resisted, but if one of our prominent advocates says it, suddenly there is something to that position to be considered. "Maybe I don't need flavors to enjoy vaping. John Doe says he enjoys vaping, even more, without flavors. Maybe I would to. Maybe this will be a great thing for vaping." The misstep is that industry, as a whole, could rather easily, show up as not having high desire to get rid of this perceived problem, while working in paradigm where ANTZ exercise great influence and can exploit this problem even years and years after it is addressed. But if part of industry isn't on board, then that will be seen as giving ammunition to ANTZ, and how dare you not get on board with us who see this as problem that needs to be corrected. How dare you continue to justify flavors as necessary when many of us have shown it is not necessary and may even be better (tasting) without flavors. Do you want to be seen as the vendor that was adding known hazard to your eLiquid just so you could realize greater profit? What? You're okay with that? How dare you!

 

[Kent C]

There's no such thing as the 'public health'. It's a made up concept by those who would intervene on individual rights for their own political and/or financial benefit. Health is an individual responsibility. The only way it becomes a government interest is when actions by an individual violate the rights of others. There's no 'right to health' to be provided by the government in the Constitution. There is a right for individuals to pursue their freedom to act for their own health or not to, again, as long as neither harm others in the process.

There are certain actions that people take that are not harmful - they - as Jefferson said - neither break my leg or pick my pocket, that still 'offend' certain sensibilities of those puritanical or basic do-gooder personalities who think that because they wouldn't want to engage in such activities, that they think others shouldn't either. They would discourage and IF POSSIBLE would use the force of gov't to stop people from engaging in what they consider to be vices. *

And while according to our gov't as written, they should not be able to violate individual rights in that manner, but when they get a large enough group they can put representatives in place to make laws that violate the Constitution and put in place Judges of the same mind who misinterpret original intent and change the interpretation of the Constitution to fit their laws rather than nature's laws. And this is how a Democratic Republic which protects minority rights, becomes a tyrannical and absolute Democracy that violates the rights of minorities, and eventually the rights of even the puritan do-gooders when the target becomes their ox, not just the ox of those with whom they disagree. The smallest minority is the individual - the, if you will, 'little guy' of which the gov't was created to protect. When the focus of the gov't goes from the individual to the collective, you no longer have a Democratic Republic - you have a fascist or socialist system that, by history's proof, is bound to collapse into the ash heap of history, leaving a wake of murder and mayhem in it's path. And it was always done with the "public good" in mind - which is where, when it was allowed and supported by sometimes decent people, it went wrong.

*VicesAreNotCrimes

 

[aubergine]

You're arguing against an extreme that I don't represent, Kent (from an opposite extreme). That's easy, but facile.

I'd be interested in your response to the article that I linked, which I think points out the problems with extremist thinking on both sides.

And now I'm going to have a walk in the good sunshine, and, with you, hope that the damned overarching nanny state can be kept at bay. Which is not to say that 'public health' is nothing but an insidious construction of would-be despots. Simplistic.

 

[aubergine]

(Jman, NO one in that thread is arguing that their preferred response to the real or perceived risk of toxins in e-cig liquid should become government mandate. And cross-posting, even if not of identical comments, is confusing.)

edit: Crossposting is the wrong term.

 

[Kent C]

You're arguing against an extreme that I don't represent, Kent (from an opposite extreme). That's easy, but facile.

I'd be interested in your response to the article that I linked, which I think points out the problems with extremist thinking on both sides.

And now I'm going to have a walk in the good sunshine, and, with you, hope that the damned overarching nanny state can be kept at bay. Which is not to say that 'public health' is nothing but an insidious construction of would-be despots. Simplistic.

“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." Goldwater

It may be a good tactic to characterize and insult my position as being 'extreme' when it serve your purpose. Doesn't make it right in reality or for a civil discussion either. But I don't expect that from certain individuals here. There is nothing 'extreme' about individuals wanting to live their lives with out the intervention of gov't when they are doing no harm.

Despotism doesn't come about in an instant. It takes decades of propaganda, small steps in the name of "public good" - whether it be public health, 'concerns for children', the 'poor', the whole line up of 'victims' promoted and created by mainly one party here, to the detriment of those they are purporting to 'help' and to those who they demonize as being uncaring. Those, who they have no idea of what they do in their personal lives, btw. But that doesn't matter - only the demonization matters, because they are the ones who pose the biggest threat to their ends.

 

[aubergine]

Kent (edit: not Kurt, typo, apologies), I don't mean to insult you personally or to demonize champions of civil liberties in any way - I'm an old soldier on that front, in fact. An argument is not a "tactic" or a personal attack.

I agree that those who would in most or all cases subordinate individual liberty to a perceived common good are potentially despotic. I've already emphasized that. I tend toward (but am not entirely in accord with) classical liberalism, which as you know is the original libertarian position. Not everyone falls into those easy partisan compartments that the media favors. I certainly don't.

If you actually examine the history of public health legislation in this country, though, it becomes apparent - to me at least - that however one might agree or disagree on particular applications, to frame it as no more than a subterfuge in the interests of despots is inaccurate and extreme. The costs of any freedom that also entails severe and widespread morbidity affect us all - which is not at all to argue for criminalization of individual choice. When issues fall outside of easy black and white formulation, so must our response to them, seems to me.

(And Goldwater picked his preferred liberties at the expense of others, as is almost always the case; he was no libertarian.)

And jeez, now I really am going to have my walk. Apologies to anyone who's bored stiff with or offended by all this.

 

[aikanae1]

Obviously, BT made some very significant missteps along the way and has not only paid dearly for those mistakes, but is still paying, without an end in sight. Yet, vaping industry has shown a misstep or two along the way, and could rather easily make a few more. (Not really sure there is a product today that can avoid perception of a public misstep.)

No tobacco companies aren't paying for it, SMOKERS pay for it. The burdens placed on smoking is a bit overwhelming. I think we cover the costs of our healthcare two or three times over (there are actual figures on this) and then they want to penalize smokers again, for healthcare. The healthcare system would be in dire straights if smokers quit. One of the dumbest moves was to attach kids care to cigarette taxes.

 

[Kent C]

Kurt, [it's Kent, don't bring Kurt into this, he's busy in the lab ] I don't mean to insult you personally or to demonize champions of civil liberties in any way - I'm an old soldier on that front, in fact. An argument is not a "tactic" or a personal attack.

I agree that those who would in most or all cases subordinate individual liberty to a perceived common good are potentially despotic. I've already emphasized that. I tend toward (but am not entirely in accord with) classical liberalism, which as you know is the original libertarian position. Not everyone falls into those easy partisan compartments that the media favors. I certainly don't.

If you actually examine the history of public health legislation in this country, though, it becomes apparent - to me at least - that however one might agree or disagree on particular applications, to frame it as no more than a subterfuge in the interests of despots is inaccurate and extreme. The costs of any freedom that also entails severe and widespread morbidity affect us all - which is not at all to argue for criminalization of individual choice. When issues fall outside of easy black and white formulation, so must our response to them, seems to me.

(And Goldwater picked his preferred liberties at the expense of others, as is almost always the case; he was no libertarian.)

And jeez, now I really am going to have my walk. Apologies to anyone who's bored stiff with or offended by all this.

No one is a perfect candidate and that includes Goldwater but what he stated there was true. Same is true of Jefferson Although Jefferson would fit well into the charge of being a libertarian.

What has made certain vices into "crimes" is from the socialization of health care, where certain individuals 'rob' others but only because of this socialization. The only true solution is to "de-socialize" health care. I didn't read your Bayer link because I include him and Fairchild and Colgrove in the same ANTZ (against cigarette) groups as Glantz and others. They're big on not 'renormalizing' - which would wipe out "years of their efforts" to suppress smokers rights. While they have made some rather good points for ecigarettes, Bill G and Clive have noted where they go astray and when they do, it is toward Glantz not from him. But their basic positions are still anti-individualist and in other areas are more pro-socialist/communist. I prefer Szasz, of course, and again, not everything he says, just his orientation.

I'm done making the case, and those who haven't been bored to death yet .... can decide one way or the other or something in between I know I'll never convince you. Nor you, me.

 

[aikanae1]

There is evidence that eCigs, as they are currently being manufactured, pose a known risk to public health. I believe many in this thread know what I am alluding to, and it deals with inhalation of flavors that were otherwise intended for eating, but not for inhaling. A known issue has surfaced, and while it stands decent chance of being corrected, it isn't the first time that we've been down this road. Plus, it could take another couple years or longer to correct this with idea that many people have differing perceptions of the severity of the perceived problem. Vendors vary on that as well, and thus the collective 'we' may not show up as even seeing need to correct a problem that is downplayed or ignored. Your commentary is what I observe to be the norm. Ongoing claims by consumers that there is zero evidence of harm, and that no researcher has ever found any thing harmful in eCigs which simply include 4 ingredients, all believed to be GRAS.

This is the misstep I spoke to earlier. It cuts to a core issue with vaping, namely flavors. We now have advocacy going on that says, 'really do we need to vape flavors?' If ANTZ says this, it is resisted, but if one of our prominent advocates says it, suddenly there is something to that position to be considered. "Maybe I don't need flavors to enjoy vaping. John Doe says he enjoys vaping, even more, without flavors. Maybe I would to. Maybe this will be a great thing for vaping." The misstep is that industry, as a whole, could rather easily, show up as not having high desire to get rid of this perceived problem, while working in paradigm where ANTZ exercise great influence and can exploit this problem even years and years after it is addressed. But if part of industry isn't on board, then that will be seen as giving ammunition to ANTZ, and how dare you not get on board with us who see this as problem that needs to be corrected. How dare you continue to justify flavors as necessary when many of us have shown it is not necessary and may even be better (tasting) without flavors. Do you want to be seen as the vendor that was adding known hazard to your eLiquid just so you could realize greater profit? What? You're okay with that? How dare you!

Flavors are necessary for me to prefer to vape over smoking. Dr. F has studied this, but he tends to agree with tobacco companies that something needs to be added to eliquid and make it more addicting for smokers to choose to vape. I've argued with him on this on Facebook because it is one of my worst fears if the vaping industry ends up in the hands of either tobacco or pharmacetical industries. We loose more control over the quality of eliquid.

Do you really think diacetyl is on the agenda anywhere in the FDA? It's probably already present in cigarettes. Anyway, getting into this topic here is not what's being discussed. I do feel I'm on solid ground in my belief that no one associated with deeming has any interest in the health of a smoker - I might point to Chantix as an example; "A dead smoker is a non-smoker" seems to be the theme there. Yet we are talking about 1/5th to 1/10th of the population. Kids who experiment with vaping? About 1% and the truth is that a certain segment of the population are vunerable to addictions. It might be wiser to address that vunerability instead. There might be a number of ways to address the issue, but no is looking nor do they intend to look. Overall it appears that nicotine as a substance leaves a lot of room for discovery - but again, they have marching orders so that it's highly doubtful very much will be learned in a closed enviroment. I think ECF has advanced information on nicotine addiction and withdrawl further than science on it's own has in the last 30 years. That lack of knowledge also makes it very, very unlikely that either pharma, tobacco or public health agencies will ever discover anything of value to help a smoker quit. They only discover what makes them feel good and they aren't smokers.

So tell me, if it became widely know that FDA / public health agencies / certain industries hide the truth from the public about non-combustionable products for another 30 years, lied to Congress and the medical industry about what they had known, and intentionally mislead media and public relations to keep the truth hidden such that millions of people continued smoking, causing needless illness and death - would you blame them? Find them guilty? Or blame smokers for their choice even if they weren't aware of alternatives?

You might want to look at some old cigarette ads from the 40's - 60's. Even into the 70's and 80's that appear to be promoting better health, weight loss, more energy if people smoked. Earlier than the 40's, cigarettes were promoted for children. Christmas cards with children smoking around the tree. This lawsuit didn't happen yesterday, but has been winding it's way through the legal system for over 20 years. The plaintiffs grew up during the years that tobacco companies knew better - and the ironic thing is the fact they squashed efforts of 'safer ciguarettes' (THR) was a piece of evidence against them. That may have gotten lost in lieu of bigger bombshells, but I vaguely recall hearing about it.