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

Price Promotions 

• Receipt of tobacco direct mail/email discount coupons and trajectories of cigarette smoking behaviours in a nationally representative longitudinal cohort of US adults, Tobacco Control
  • Data from Wave 1 (2013-2014) and Wave 2 (2014-2015) of the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health Study show receiving coupons for tobacco is associated with smoking initiation, progression from experimentation to daily smoking, and smoking relapse. At Wave 1, 10.7% of never smokers, 13.9% of experimental smokers, 37.1% of current smokers, and 16.5% of former smokers reported receiving tobacco direct mail/e-mail coupons within the past 6 months. Participants who had lower levels of income or education and were non-Hispanic white current smokers were most likely to have received coupons. Never-smokers who reported receiving coupons at Wave 1 were more than twice as likely to have initiated smoking at Wave 2 compared to those who did not receive coupons. Similarly, experimental smokers who received coupons were 1.62 times as likely to become daily smokers as those who did not receive coupons, and former smokers who received coupons were nearly twice (1.91 times) as likely to relapse than formers smokers who did not receive coupons. Learn how state and local governments can pass policies to prohibit the redemption of coupons and other discounts.

Graphic Warnings and Display Bans

• Do graphic health warning labels on cigarette packages deter purchases at the point-of-sale? An experiment with adult smokers, Health Education Research
  • An experiment conducted in a life-size convenience store replica found that overall, the presence of graphic health warnings on cigarette packs did not affect adult smokers’ purchases of cigarettes. However, for smokers with lower levels of nicotine dependence, the graphic health warning labels did reduce the chances of cigarette purchases.
  • Learn more about point-of-sale health warnings.
• Impact of a ban on the open display of tobacco products in retail outlets on never smoking youth in the UK: findings from a repeat cross-sectional survey before, during and after implementation, Tobacco Control
  • An evaluation of the UK’s ban on the open display of tobacco products found that smoking susceptibility decreased in adolescents from 28% preban to 23% mid-ban and 18% postban. Researchers suggest this decrease may be driven by brand awareness, as the average number of brands adolescents could recall also dropped after the ban was implemented.
  • Learn more about display bans and restricting product placement.
• Adolescents’ perceptions of tobacco accessibility and smoking norms and attitudes in response to the tobacco point-of-sale display ban in Scotland: results from the DISPLAY study, Tobacco Control
  • After Scotland’s ban on the open display on tobacco products, researchers found an increase in perceived accessibility of tobacco, positive smoking norms and positive smoking attitudes. However, after adjusting the results for e-cigarette use, perceived access declined by over 25%, positive smoking attitudes declined by one-third, and there were no changes in positive smoking norms.
  • Learn more about display bans and restricting product placement.

E-cigarettes

• Use and reasons for use of electronic vapour products shaped like USB flash drives among a national sample of adults, Tobacco Control
  • Data from an internet survey of US adults from June-July 2018 found that the primary reasons of use for using electronic vapor products were to deliver nicotine (30.7%) and because a friend or family member used them (30.2%). Overall 7.9% of participants reported use of flash-drive shaped electronic vapor devices (like Juul). Of current cigarette smokers, 25.7% reported use of these type of devices, and 45.9% of current electronic vapor product users reported use of flash-drive shaped devices.
• Interest in Quitting E-Cigarettes Among Adults in the United States, Nicotine & Tobacco Research
  • An analysis of data from the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health study Wave 3 (2015-2016) found that 62.4% of established e-cigarette users reported plans to quit e-cigarettes for good. In addition, 25% reported that they had attempted to quit using e-cigarettes within the past year.
• Learn more about e-cigarettes at the point of sale. 

Industry News 

• Pulling Flavored E-Cigs Hurt Sales in a ‘Very Meaningful’ Way, Juul Founders Say, Time
• SOI 2019: Other Tobacco Products Lead Category Growth, CSP Daily News 
• NACS, SIGMA Defend C-Stores in Flavored E-Cig Debate, CSP Daily News

POS Policy in the Media

• FDA clears Philip Morris’ iQOS, Altria plans to start selling heated tobacco device in the US this summer, CNBC
• Beverly Hills poised to end most tobacco sales, Associated Press
• Tobacco display ban ‘safegaurds young people,’ BBC News
• Inconvenient problem: One in four 7-Eleven stores caught selling tobacco to kids, KGW8
• Tobacco retail licensing efforts continue, Newport News Times
• Teens stand up to big tobacco, Leader Herald
• Fall River shop owners ask for cap on tobacco licenses, Herald News
• Tobacco and e-cigarette sales could be limited in Northampton, WWLP

Menthol and Other Flavored Tobacco Products

• Framingham restricts sale of vaping gear, menthol cigarettes, Metro West Daily
• Massachusetts senator pushes state government to ban flavored nicotine products, Berkeley Beacon
• East Bay city to ban flavored tobacco products, Easy Bay Times
• Sale of flavored tobacco products banned in Hermosa Beach, The Beach Reporter
• San Rafael Council Weighs Restrictions on Sale of Flavored Tobacco Products, KPIX
• NY bill to ban flavored e-cigarettes moving forward, Newsday
• ‘No Menthol Sunday’ Takes Fight Against Tobacco Use to Church, WABE
• California lawmaker withdraws bill banning flavored tobacco products after ‘hostile amendments,’ CNBC

E-Cigarettes

• Tobacco company Reynolds blames teen vaping crisis on Juul in fighting FDA plan to rein in e-cigarettes, CNBC
• As e-cigarette epidemic grew, state inspected fewer retailers, State-Journal
• Teens say they don’t vape, they ‘Juul.’ That makes the activity hard to track, Los Angeles Times
• In Washington, Juul Vows to Curb Youth Vaping. Its Lobbying in States Runs Counter to That Pledge, New York Times
• Juul nicotine hit may be ‘Worst for kids, best for smokers,’ Associated Press
• Morristown to license for vape vendors, Morristown Green
• Big Tobacco Is Morphing Into Big Vape, Bloomberg
• Study suggests e-cigarette flavorings may post heart risk, ABC 10
• Popular e-cigarette products contaminated with bacterial and fungal toxins, study finds, NBC News
• North Carolina sues e-cigarette maker Juul over marketing, CBS News
• Judge orders FDA to speed up review of e-cigarettes, Associated Press

Tobacco 21

• Maryland Gov. Hogan signs bills banning young adults form buying tobacco, nicotine products, Baltimore Sun
• When writing a federal Tobacco 21 law, less is more, The Hill
• Walmart Raises Minimum Age to Buy Tobacco Products to 21, New York Times
• McConnell and Kaine unveil bill to raise tobacco age to 21, Politico
• Campaign to raise minimum smoking age to 21 finds unlikely supporter: Big Tobacco, CNBC
• Raising age to buy tobacco in CT moves forward, Middletown Press
• Texas Set to Raise Legal Smoking Age to 21, S. News & World Report
• Vermont becomes 14^th state to raise tobacco buying age to 21, Vermont Biz
• Why Big Tobacco and JUUL are lobbying to raise the smoking age, USA Today
• Critics say age restriction law doesn’t hold tobacco industry accountable, KHOU 11
• US lawmakers push bipartisan bill to raise the federal minimum buying age for tobacco to 21, CNBC

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!