When Public Health and Big Tobacco Allign: Joe Nocera's back

[Bill Godshall]

Joe Nocera: When Public Health and Big tobacco Allign
When Public Health and Big Tobacco Align

Joe used to be a columnist for the NY Times.
But after Joe wrote several excellent columns advocating vaping for smokers, and criticizing FDA, CTFK, Glantz, etc. for demonizing and campaigning to ban vapes, the NY Times (which demonized vaping and urged FDA to ban vapes) reassigned Joe to write sports stories.
Joe is now working for Bloomberg, where they apparently don't have a problem (so far) with his truth telling about vaping.

 

[Rossum]

But the truth is, if there is ever going to be a serious move from cigarettes to less dangerous products, it will have to come from Big Tobacco. They have the R&D resources, they have the marketing apparatus -- and, it appears, they have the will.

I don't accept the "truth" as expressed in the first of those two sentences at all. Did Snus in Sweden come from BT? Has vaping in the UK come from BT? The only reason the resources mentioned in the second sentence are "required" is due to the giant hurdles that government regulations have put in place.

 

[Who_Dey_1991]

My question is, if PM really IS trying to end smoking deaths and create reduced-risk alternatives, why aren't they fighting the FDA? Why should THEY be the only ones manufacturing and marketing smokeless tobacco products?

I don't believe them. I simply think they've recognized that more and more people are giving up cigarettes for vaping and they just want to be where the cash is headed.

I'm a man, and I can change, if I have to, I guess.

 

[Rossum]

My question is, if PM really IS trying to end smoking deaths and create reduced-risk alternatives, why aren't they fighting the FDA? Why should THEY be the only ones manufacturing and marketing smokeless tobacco products?

It's good to be the only company (or one of a small number of large companies) who are allowed to sell a particular type of product. It's much easier to be profitable that way than if there are lots of upstart competitors, who tend to have lower much overhead and would have much greater agility without the FDA regulations.

 

[Endor]

A very interesting paragraph, which ties into all of our concerns over FDA submissions and especially in terms of using the modified risk classification:

"In the U.S., Philip Morris has done something extraordinary: It has made a submission to the Food and Drug Administration to get the right to market IQOS as a reduced risk product. The expensive submission consumed 2.3 million pages and is backed by a great deal of research, including several clinical trials."

 

[dobroeutro]

I don't care what BT comes up/out with or what narrative they try to sell. I ain't buying...

 

[Rossum]

"In the U.S., Philip Morris has done something extraordinary: It has made a submission to the Food and Drug Administration to get the right to market IQOS as a reduced risk product. The expensive submission consumed 2.3 million pages and is backed by a great deal of research, including several clinical trials."

Yep. Let's say it takes an average of 1 minute to read a page. Then it will take over 38,000 hours to read the whole thing. There are only about ~2000 working hours in a year. Probably fewer if you work for the government.

 

[LaraC]

But it takes only a few seconds to stamp:
"Application denied on the basis of possible risk to the population as a whole."

Ya know... tempting the blessed children to experimentally TRY just one puff.

The imaginary dreaded gateway. Yadda yadda.

The population as a whole, in the eyes of the rabid anti-smoking brigade at the FDA, can consist of just one kid.

To hell with millions of adult smokers who might be looking around to find a pleasurable alternative to striking a match and inhaling smoke.

When the FDA denies Phillip Morris's Modified Risk Product, the FDA won't be doing experimental kids any favor -- the experimental kids who might never become steady smokers of real cigarettes if there were several safer "adult" alternatives to play around with for awhile.

Oh, but then there's always that good old imaginary "normalization of smoking" thing.

And above all, the dreaded imaginary "nicotine addiction" thing.

 

[Bill Godshall]

My question is, if PM really IS trying to end smoking deaths and create reduced-risk alternatives, why aren't they fighting the FDA? Why should THEY be the only ones manufacturing and marketing smokeless tobacco products?

Altria/PM and Reynolds backed the Cole bill last session, and the Cole/Sanford bill this session because it will keep Mark Ten, Green Smoke, IQOS, and Vuse on the market, while still imposing all other disastrous Deeming Regulations (and forthcoming vapor regulations and standards), which are likely to ban/eliminate the vast majority of other vapor products in the future (unless Trump and his successors block them).

 

[Stubby]

Altria/PM and Reynolds backed the Cole bill last session, and the Cole/Sanford bill this session because it will keep Mark Ten, Green Smoke, IQOS, and Vuse on the market, while still imposing all other disastrous Deeming Regulations (and forthcoming vapor regulations and standards), which are likely to ban/eliminate the vast majority of other vapor products in the future (unless Trump and his successors block them).

The only thing in the Cole/Sanford bill that would be of concern is the battery issue, but there is a section in the bill that would have some protection against that.

It is not ideal, but it would be a vast improvement over what we have today.

 

[DC2]

But it takes only a few seconds to stamp:
"Application denied on the basis of possible risk to the population as a whole."

Ya know... tempting the blessed children to experimentally TRY just one puff.

The imaginary dreaded gateway. Yadda yadda.

The population as a whole, in the eyes of the rabid anti-smoking brigade at the FDA, can consist of just one kid.

To hell with millions of adult smokers who might be looking around to find a pleasurable alternative to striking a match and inhaling smoke.

When the FDA denies Phillip Morris's Modified Risk Product, the FDA won't be doing experimental kids any favor -- the experimental kids who might never become steady smokers of real cigarettes if there were several safer "adult" alternatives to play around with for awhile.

Oh, but then there's always that good old imaginary "normalization of smoking" thing.

And above all, the dreaded imaginary "nicotine addiction" thing.

I sure wish you'd post more often.

 

[LaraC]

awww, you're sweet.

 

[Endor]

When the FDA denies Phillip Morris's Modified Risk Product, the FDA won't be doing experimental kids any favor -- the experimental kids who might never become steady smokers of real cigarettes if there were several safer "adult" alternatives to play around with for awhile.

I, too, am growing weary of the whole "gateway" theory.

I'm sure that many of us starting smoking as teenagers; I did, and in my case, that was the mid 1980's when I was around 15 years old. Tobacco control was really starting to ramp up in those days, yet it didn't deter me.

Why didn't it? Simple. Smoking was something adults did, it had age restrictions, and smoking was starting to be demonized. Doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing held appeal to me at that age. It was a mild form of rebellion... I say "mild", because I personally wasn't a seriously rebellious kid and did no more than smoke and drink. I didn't even drink very much, because my parents didn't make a huge deal about it (as long as I didn't drive).

This is the elephant in the room that nobody in tobacco control wants to see. The more you age-restrict vapor products, the more you demonize them, the more kids will WANT to do it. That's a fact of human nature, folks.

SIDE NOTE: I agree with DC2.... you should post more, LaraC!

 

[WorksForMe]

This is the elephant in the room that nobody in tobacco control wants to see. The more you age-restrict vapor products, the more you demonize them, the more kids will WANT to do it. That's a fact of human nature, folks.

I believe a lot of tobacco control people do see this but….. Hardcore ANTZ think ecigs are just another evil tobacco product that needs to be stamped out, or at least taxed very heavily. They know that won’t happen unless the general public also believes ecigs are evil.

For them, age restrictions are a means to an end. If the government says kids can’t buy ecigs, maybe the public will believe they’re dangerous. If a bunch of kids try ecigs now, because of the restrictions, that’s OK. The ends justify means.