Welcome to CounterTobacco.org’s “News and Research Roundup!” Each month we post a summary of the latest research, reports, and news stories on counteracting tobacco product sales and marketing at the point of sale (POS). Keeping up with what’s happening in the POS movement all across the country can help you choose policies and strategies that work best for your community. New research can help provide support for your work and evidence for the importance of the “War in the Store.” Have a story you don’t want us to miss? E-mail it to us!

New Research

• Single Cigarette Sales: State Differences in FDA  Advertising & Labeling Violations, 2014, USA, Nicotine & Tobacco Research
• Is there a relationship between the concentration of same-sex couples and tobacco retailer density?, Nicotine & Tobacco Research
  • Read more about disparities in tobacco retailer density.
• The Other Combustible Products: Prevalence and Correlates of Little Cigar/Cigarillo Use Among Cigarette Smokers, Nicotine & Tobacco Research
  • Read more about non-cigarette tobacco products and POS policies.
• A tobacco-free world: a call to action to phase out the sale of tobacco products by 2040, The Lancet
  • News Story: Experts call for UN to lead efforts toward tobacco-free world, Medical News Today
• The Collective Impact Model and Its Potential for Health Promotion: Overview and Case Study of a Healthy Retail Initiative in San Francisco, Health Education & Behavior
  • This article applies the collective impact model in a case study analysis of the Tenderloin Healthy Corner Store Coalition in San Francisco, illustrating how Collective Impact strategies are being used, and with what successes or challenges, to help affect community- and policy-level change to reduce tobacco and alcohol advertising and sales, while improving healthy, affordable, and sustainable food access.
  • Read more about recent legislation in San Francisco that limits tobacco retailer density.
• Knowledge and perceptions of tobacco-related media in rural Appalachia, Rural Remote Health
  • While focus group participants in this study did not perceive any media messages, either pro- or anti-tobacco, to have an impact on their current behavior, participants did recognize that media messages influenced their decision to start smoking. The study also suggests the need for tobacco-related media messages to be culturally specific and sensitive to improve their effectiveness.

 E-Cigarettes:

• Effectively Regulating E-Cigarettes and Their Advertising – and the First Amendment, Food and Drug Law Journal
  
  • News Story: Georgetown legal scholar: E-cigarettes can be regulated now without more research, (e)Science News
• Does Vaping in E-Cigarette Advertisements Affect Tobacco Smoking Urge, and Perceptions in Daily, Intermittent, and Former Smokers? Health Communication
  • News Story: Watching E-Cig Ads May Increase the Urge to Smoke, Study Says, TIME
• Electronic Cigarette Sales to Minors via the Internet, JAMA Pediatrics
  • News story: Teens can easily buy e-cigarettes online, study says, USA Today
  • Read more about e-cigarettes at the point of sale.
• Nicotine and the Developing Human:  A Neglected Element in the Electronic Cigarette Debate, American Journal of Preventive Medicine
  • Based on nicotine’s harmful effects on the developing brain, the authors recommend additional regulation and laws to limit marketing and sales of e-cigarettes to youth, require health warnings for vulnerable populations, and require packaging safeguards to prevent accidental poisonings.

Plain Packaging:

• Special open-access edition of Tobacco Control Journal: Implementation and evaluation of the Australian tobacco plain packaging policy
  • News story: Cluster  bomb of new research explodes tobacco industry lies about plain packs, The Conversation
• Has the introduction of plain packaging with larger graphic warnings changed adolescents’ perceptions of cigarette packs and brands? Tobacco Control
  • News Story: Cigarette plain packaging laws reduced smoking’s appeal to teenagers – research, The Guardian
• Short-term changes in quitting-related cognitions and behaviours after the implementation of plain packaging with larger health warnings: findings from a national cohort study with Australian adult smokers, Tobacco Control
  • News Story: Plain cigarette packs with health warnings may encourage quitting, Reuters

New Reports

• Public Health Implications of Raising the  Minimum Age of Legal Access to Tobacco Products, Institute of Medicine
  • News Story: Raise the smoking age? Report predicts big health benefits if we do, CNN
  • Read more about Raising the Minimum Legal Sales Age to 21.

• Running the Numbers: Raising the minimum tobacco sales age to 21 will reduce tobacco use and improve public health in Franklin County, Ohio,  The Ohio State University College of Public Health
• The Tobacco Atlas, 5^th edition, World Lung Foundation & American Cancer Society
  • News Story: New tobacco atlas details scale, harms of tobacco epidemic, Medical Xpress
• FTC Reports on Cigarette and Smokeless Tobacco Sales and Marketing Expenditures
  • Full report: Federal Trade Commission Cigarette Report for 2012
  • Full report: Federal Trade Commission Smokeless Tobacco Report for 2012
  • Read the POS highlights.

Industry News

• Reynolds American Partnering on Nicotine Replacement Products, CSPnet
• CSP Tobacco: A Vaping 101 Glossary, CSP Magazine
• Underage Youth and Social Sources of Cigarettes, Tobacco E-News
• Could Plain Tobacco Packaging Come to U.S.? CSP Daily News
• Industry makes $7,000 for each tobacco death: health campaigners, Reuters
• FTC recommends lawsuit to block $27B cigarette merger, New York Post

POS Policy in the Media

• FDA Must Act on Federal Tobacco Rule, Huffington Post
• “Don’t be a maybe,” urges WHO D-G Margaret Chen, WCTOH
• Youth conference targets tobacco marketing, WCTOH
• 1 in 5 Americans still smoke a half-century after first surgeon general’s report on its dangers, Tribune News Service
• Tobacco ordinance fuels burning questions, Sonoma Index-Tribune
• State bars municipalities from enacting tobacco laws, Lansing State Journal
• Tobacco Firm Seeks Softer Warning for Cigarette Alternative, NPR

Plain Packaging:

• Ireland passes tobacco plain packaging law, The Sydney Morning Herald
• Generic cigarette packs OK’d in Britain, USA Today
• 13 things that shaped our campaign for standardised cigarette packaging, Cancer Research UK
• As Europe adopts Australia’s plain packaging reforms, big tobacco fights back, The Sydney Morning Herald

E-Cigarettes:

• Rutgers researchers investigate e-cigarette policy perceptions, Daily Targum
• Senate Dems urge HHS to give FDA authority to regulate e-cigarettes, The Hill
• Regulations on e-cigarette sales getting tighter as lawmakers hope to discourage sales to minors, The Salt Lake Tribune
• E-cigarettes: Helping smokers quit, or fueling a new addiction? CNN
• California ads highlight vaping dangers, Sacramento Bee
• How Big Vaping is misinforming the public about e-cigarettes, Vox
• E-Cigarette Ban For Minors Approved By NM Legislature, KRWG
• Bill would prevent e-cigs from being marketed to minors, The Hill
• While FDA’s Proposed e-Cigarette Rule is Pending, FTC Mulls Enforcement Action, National Law Review
• CDC anti-smoking ads target e-cigarettes for first time, highlight tobacco’s links to variety of diseases, Washington Post

Tobacco 21:

• Study Supports Raising Tobacco-Purchase Age to 21, Wall Street Journal
• Greenfield raises legal tobacco sale age to 21, joining 51 Massachusetts communities, Mass Live
• Statewide Survey Reveals Broad Support for New Rules to Reduce Youth Exposure to Secondhand Smoke and Youth Access to Tobacco, QuitDoc [Florida]
• Raise the smoking age to 21, Washington Post

Find more stories in last month’s News and Research Roundup.

Know of a story that we missed? Email us, and we’ll be sure to include it in next month’s roundup!