Tuesday, September 16, 2014

E-Cigarettes: Coming Soon to a Theater Near You!

Well, it was just a matter of time before the e-cigarette profiteers started exploiting another strategy from Big Tobacco’s marketing playbook: product placement in major motion pictures.

Reports have surfaced this week that Canadian-based SmokeStik International has paid the producers of Cymbeline to place its drug delivery system in the lips of actress Milla Jovovich throughout the film.  Early word is that signs promoting the brand are also visible in the film.  This is particularly ironic since e-cigarettes are banned in Canada, so this Canadian company has to ram their poison down U.S. throats in order to profit from people’s addiction.

The fact that this type of promotion is making a comeback is partly becasue the FDA has dragged its feet to finalize minimal regulations on the products.  In addition, the ban on tobacco product placement in movies that was contained in the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement does not extend to emerging products.



That doesn’t mean that tobacco use disappeared from movies.  In fact, tobacco use is still incredibly common in youth-rated movies (G, PG, and PG-13), and Big Tobacco continues to find clever ways to get brand names into the hands of celebrities (movie posters, photos supplied with national interviews).  While the practice of making direct payments to studios to include tobacco brand names in movies has been banned, there is no doubt that indirect payments are being made to slide this brand name imagery into this type of collateral media.

Tobacco is displayed in photos provided for marketing materials for the movie "Fight Club", including a film review (left), a national interview with Brad Pitt, and the DVD cover.  Notice the product placement for Marlboro lights included in the photo of Brad Pitt.


In all likelihood, this practice has already started with e-cigarette manufacturers.  Since the original purchase of Blu E-Cigarettes by Lorillard in the spring of 2012, those products have appeared in multiple platforms.  This includes the high-profile use by Julia Louis-Dreyfus during the 2014 Golden Globe Awards, and the use by Kevin Spacey during a scene in House of Cards.



Other characters have used electronic cigarettes in major motion pictures, including Dennis Quaid in Beneath the Darkness, and Johnny Depp in TheTourist.  This type of use helps to normalize an addictive drug.  However, the six-figure contract to promote the SmokeStik brand name within a movie takes the marketing of these drug delivery devices to a new level… a level that was so successful with traditional tobacco products that the activity was banned nearly two decades ago.

 

Those of us that are working on the issue of tobacco use in movies realize that these media depictions of smoking have an incredible impact on youth tobacco initiation. In fact, in January 2014 the United States Surgeon General went so far as to suggest that films depicting smoking deserve an automatic R-Rating:

“Actions that would eliminate depiction of tobacco use in movies that are produced and rated as appropriate for children and adolescents could have a significant benefit in reducing the numbers of youth who become tobacco users. It has been suggested that the movie industry modernize the Motion Picture Association of America voluntary rating system to eliminate smoking from youth-rated films by awarding any film with smoking or other pro-tobacco imagery an R rating (with exceptions for real historical figures who actually smoked or films that actually depict the dangers of smoking or exposure to secondhand smoke). Further, if such a change in the [MPAA] rating system would reduce in-theater exposures from a current median of about 275 annual exposures per adolescent from PG-13 movies down to approximately 10 or less, adolescent smoking would be reduced by an estimated 18%.”



Here’s the thing:  strategies that have been used by Big Tobacco to encourage youth tobacco use are now being employed to encourage youth electronic cigarette use.  Those strategies include use by characters in movies and specific brand product placement.  We know that it worked in the past, otherwise the next generation of nicotine profiteers would not have bothered to recycle them.

“I don’t see a problem with glamorizing something that saves lives,” said Bill Marangos, Smokestik’s Chief Executive Hypocrite. "I think we're, as an industry, trying to show people that there is a different way and it's an acceptable way to smoke."

That's the goal.  Make addiction acceptable, especially among kids.

The long-term morbidity and mortality of electronic cigarettes has not been established, and it will not be for 2-3 decades. Mr. Marangos claims that we should promote his product in movies because they are live-savers are at their best disingenuous; at their worst, his unsubstantiated claims will be responsible for addicting another generation of young people to a dangerous chemical with undetermined consequences.

And remember:  by the time all of this is sorted out, Mr. Marangos will have cashed the checks.

For more information on the issue of movie smoking and its impact on youth tobacco initiation, visit SmokeScreeners, Smoke-Free Movies, and Scene Smoking.

Monday, September 15, 2014

When Big Tobacco Lies


Sustainability.  Crop to consumer.  Supporting farmers.  Innovation.  Fighting tobacco trafficking.

You may think the above statements come from a farmer’s market, or community supported agriculture group, but you would be wrong.  All of these phrases appear on a Big Tobacco company’s website.  If that doesn’t outrage you…wait…there’s more!

Harm reduction.  Yep, that’s right!  Harm reduction.  So, they’re admitting their products cause harm.  Isn’t it sweet of them to be concerned about their customers?  Tobacco kills 500,000 people each year in the United States, so ask yourself how this could possibly be a sustainable business unless they are actively recruiting new smokers?

It looks like the makers of Pall Mall, Kent, and Lucky Strike think their current and future customers are pretty stupid.  Why else would they use phrases like “crop to consumer” or “sustainability” to describe a product that is known to kill the user?  Don’t worry.  When they say sustainable, they mean sustainable PROFITS.  Oh yeah, it’s all about the profit for the shareholders as they say:

Sustainability underpins our business, and for us it’s all about shared value – creating value for our shareholders, as well as being in the best interests of our stakeholders.

One way Big Tobacco is trying to achieve this “value” for shareholders is by claiming “harm reduction” is good for customers.  That means, sure, the products can still harm you, but they just harm you a little less.  Really?  To pursue this “harm reduction policy” most Big Tobacco companies have invested in e-cigarettes which they apparently see as the wave of the future which they hope to ride to higher profits for their shareholders, no doubt.



Let’s not be fooled here.  The latest CDC report on teen e-cigarette use shows us that over 250,000 young people who have never smoked a traditional cigarette have tried an e-cigarette.  Of the youth surveyed who have used an e-cigarette, 43.9% of them said they intend to smoke a traditional cigarette within the next year1.  According to a recent study published in Tobacco Control, tobacco companies in Europe which promoted “low risk smokeless tobacco” products were actually more concerned about continuing sales of new tobacco products “without cannibalizing existing profits from cigarettes”2.   

The bottom line is that Big Tobacco will use words, phrases, and images that seem wholesome and safe while continuing to produce and sell their dangerous, addictive products.  Why?  Because #TobaccoLies.

References:
  1. http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2014/p0825-e-cigarettes.html
  2. Peeters, S. & Gilmore, A. (2014). Understanding the emergence of the tobacco industry’s use of the term tobacco harm reduction in order to inform public health policy. Tobacco Control, (0)1-7.  doi: 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2013-051502

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Backwood Vapors opens its doors in Trenton, Florida.


By Barry Hummel, Jr., MD FAAP

There is a new business on Main Street in Trenton, Florida, and I think the citizens of Gilchrist County should take a careful look inside.  They may not like what they find.

A few weeks back Backwood Vapors quietly opened its doors.  Initially, the store modestly advertised “E-cigs” scribbled in marker on a cardboard sign.  In fact, the only other sign in the window advertised a local circus… an odd choice for a store that should only be catering to adults.





However, this is clearly not intended to be a modest store dealing in electronic drug delivery devices like e-cigarettes.  The owner has big plans.  The store is going to be a combination vaping lounge and electronic gaming hall.  By the owner’s own admission, he does not plan on restricting the age of his patrons.  In fact, he doesn’t even have the age-restriction signs in his store mandated by Florida’s new e-cigarette law.

This is the owner’s eleventh shop in North Florida.  As a Lake City resident, my guess is that he doesn’t really have the best interests of Gilchrist County’s youth at heart.  In fact, pictures from his own Backwood Vapors Facebook should make every parent in town question his intent.





Leaders in Gilchrist County should take a strong stand on regulating this type of business before another generation of teenagers is needlessly addicted.  He can choose to experiment on his own kids, but you cannot turn a blind eye when he tries to experiment on your kids.

Saturday, August 30, 2014

The Juice Box: Chiefland, Florida's Premier, One-Stop Vape & Juice Shop

By Barry Hummel, Jr., MD, FAAP

Recently, I spent quite a bit of time working on public comments regarding the FDA's proposed regulation of electronic cigarettes.

One of my primary concerns is that the FDA is not currently looking at the issue of flavored products, and the impact that these products have on the use of these drug delivery devices by youth.  A report just this week revealed that the number of young non-smokers who tried e-cigarettes tripled in just two years.  There is no doubt that this is due to the explosion of kid-friendly flavors by e-cigarette profiteers.

Now, those same profiteers will tell us, with a straight face, that the flavors are for adults trying to quit.  They also tell us that those same adults would be unable (or unwilling) to quit without these flavored products.  I don't want to get into a long discussion about the fact that users of electronic cigarettes haven't actually "quit" anything.  I want to focus on the argument that these flavors are for adults.

Which brings me to The Juice Box, described on its web page as "Chiefland, Florida's Premier, One-Stop Vape & Juice Shop".  Premier implies that this is an elite establishment.  So, you can imagine my dismay as a Pediatrician when I was directed to the Facebook page of this "premier" establishment.  Here are just a few of the posts that I lifted from that page, revealing how the marketing of electronic cigarettes has less to do with helping adults "quit" than it does with the recruitment of new users from middle and high school classrooms.


The use of these images is nothing short of shameful.  Juice boxes are beverages that are exclusively consumed by young children.  There is absolutely no need to use such images.  What's the argument for using them?  That adults like juice boxes too?

One image more than any other gives away the strategy:



In this post, the store reminds us that the are "new flavs to sample"... that's right, kids, free samples!  Samples that are currently banned for traditional tobacco products such as cigarettes and spit tobacco.  But at The Juice Box, you can "get hooked again".  So stop in!

When people ask me why we should regulate the e-cigarette industry, I remind them that the industry is not doing a good job of policing itself.  Anyone selling an addictive substance for profit, has no interest in helping their customers "quit".  There is not profit in helping someone to quit using their product.  While stores like The Juice Box are the bottom feeders in the industry, an industry that tolerates these bottom feeders is equally guilty.  That is why we need strong regulations on this predatory industry.

You can help.  You can contact your representatives at every level of government, and ask them to reign in these predators before it is your kids that "get hooked again".

Friday, August 29, 2014

Up to Their Old Tricks: Big Tobacco Advertising

Here we go again!  Big Tobacco’s marketing tactics are extremely devious to say the least. Every year, they spend billions of dollars on marketing alone just to get a “fresh crop,” per-say, of new smokers. In my experience with tobacco prevention, I’ve seen just about everything the tobacco industry has thrown at society, and I can honestly say there is one thing that is the lowest of the low; even for big tobacco. That’s blatant marketing towards children.

It’s no secret that kids are especially susceptible to tobacco products. It didn’t just happen that way, though. The tobacco industry makes it as easy as possible for kids to fall into their traps. I went to the dollar store today to buy a few things and noticed something new. Right out front, facing the parking lot, were two tobacco ads on the concrete posts. What’s worse was that they were right in front of a display of kids' toys.



If nothing else, Big Tobacco is predictable.

Welcome to the new Alternative Tobacco Awareness Blog.

Our goal is to highlight alternative forms of tobacco that are designed to attract underage minors and entice them to impulsively try tobacco.

Typically the blogs will be short and too the point, showing a particular product that we have come across, and explaining the risks to youth.

The blogs may also include a call to action, such as alerting local, state, or federal officials to the products and suggesting policy changes to help change these marketing tactics.

If you are not outraged by what you see, then we are not doing our job!

For more information on how you can help, visit the Tobacco Prevention Network of Florida at www.tpnf.net.

You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter (@TPNFlorida).