Tobacco Harm Reduction: News & Opinions

Over at ep-ology is a posting of some new research re the candy-tobacco issue. It’s called Demonstrating that children believe that deadly tobacco products are harmless candy, an experimental study. Excerpt: There has recently been an explosion of organized concern about the risk of accidental poisoning of children who mistake dissolvable smokeless tobacco products for [...]

reprinted from Epology My testimony at today’s FDA tobacco center meeting Today I departed from my usual practice of fiercely avoiding any “science by committee” setting or engaging with government overlord-types, and gave some testimony at the Center for Tobacco Products TPSAC meeting. Greg Conley and Bill Godshall talked me into make the trip as [...]

Two items this week once again make me think twice about self-identifying as Canadian. I suppose I can take solace in the fact that one’s country and one’s identity is something quite different from what occurs in the corridors of power, or whenever prohibitionism rears its mishapen head. The first item, brought to my attention [...]

This week, I chanced upon the opportunity to try this new product from Swedish Match North America and learn that it is on its way to the largest chain convenience stores in my area. [Request to one of my readers from SM:  Could you put me in touch with your local (Philadelphia area) rep to [...]

Last week I (CVP) was at the TabExpo conference in Prague.  It was an interesting experience, though not so much in good ways, unfortunately.  The networking was great, and I had fun and worked out some plans for some very promising projects.  Beyond that, well….  Here are a random collection of thoughts and observations. I [...]

Must Reads Bergen comments on how e-cig researchers ignore what is already known (see also the link in the comments to Kristin Noll Marsh’s similar post from earlier this year) http://www.ecigarettedirect.co.uk/ashtray-blog/2011/11/ecig-research-floundering-to-understand-what-vapers-already-know.html RJR petitions US FDA to eliminate misinformation in mandatory ST warning labels Read Brad Rodu’s excellent summary and analysis. No summary we could write [...]

Though the show has been on for some time, I just saw this a couple of days ago and it fit neatly in with what had been tumbling about in my head in regards to nicotine and the times we live in. Nicotine has been seen as a good fit for the industrial age in [...]

Must Reads Triangulating on anti-tobacco extremism Why is an article about cigarette litter a must read? Well, we often argue that anti-THR is primarily motivated by anti-tobacco extremist who recognize that if low-risk tobacco products become popular, then there is no way their extreme goal — eliminating all tobacco use — will ever happen. Thus, [...]

Must Reads Kevin Libin sums up hypocrisy of medics who are pro-HR for heroin, but anti-THR The National Post’s Libin is probably the strongest voice for THR at a major newspaper. (It includes comments from an interview with Phillips, though he apparently declined to include the observation from that interview: That it is a limousine-liberal [...]

Forgive the proliferation of other life forms in this title (and post) but it seems that whenever nicotine or tobacco are discussed, we end up wading knee deep through a bog of misinformation and ANTZ (thank you again Kristin Noll-Marsh for this most appropriate acronym for anti-nicotine and tobacco zealots). So we end up talking [...]