From Action on Smoking and Health <[email protected]>
Subject ASH Daily News for 7 April 2021
Date April 7, 2021 10:38 AM
  Links have been removed from this email. Learn more in the FAQ.
  Links have been removed from this email. Learn more in the FAQ.
View this email in your browser ([link removed])


** 7 April 2021
------------------------------------------------------------


** UK
------------------------------------------------------------


** Opinion: Why is a mandatory levy on the UK’s gambling industry still a roll of the dice? (#1)
------------------------------------------------------------


** International
------------------------------------------------------------


** US: Addiction is the supervillain in Marvel’s vaping prevention comic (#2)
------------------------------------------------------------


** Study: Canada-wide ban on menthol cigarettes leads to significant increases in quitting among smokers (#3)
------------------------------------------------------------


** Opinion: Vape sellers are using popular music videos to promote e-cigarettes to young people in the US (#4)
------------------------------------------------------------


** UK
------------------------------------------------------------


**
------------------------------------------------------------


** Nils Pratley writes in The Guardian on renewed calls for a mandatory levy on the gambling industry and why we've yet to see one implemented. Pratley writes "hat betting firms should contribute to funding treatment for gambling addiction is beyond dispute these days. Even the companies agree. Their trade body, the Betting and Gaming Council, often boasts about how its leading members volunteered to boost their joint funding of education and treatment services to £100m during the 2019-2023 period."
------------------------------------------------------------


**
Pratley says the issue with this arrangement is their voluntary nature and the fact that the £100m sum appears to be "plucked out of the air", certainly not an amount that would be capable of covering "the cost to the public purse of providing even the current patchy level of treatment for addiction." Pratley says this "is the context of the call by Claire Murdoch, national mental health director for NHS England, for a mandatory industry levy. She says the NHS is being left 'to pick up the pieces' as the number of people seeking help to stop gambling has soared."

Pratley notes Murdoch is not alone in lobbying for a mandatory levy: "The Gambling Commission, the government’s own regulator, is in favour. So is BeGambleAware, the charity that receives much of the funding from the industry. And MPs from all main parties support the mandatory route." Pratley goes on to say that the government’s review of gambling laws, launched last December, is free to adopt the measure – indeed, it is in the terms of reference for consideration. It is just that restrictions on advertising and marketing, and the spin-speeds of online roulette games, tend to grab most of the attention. The risk is that a mandatory levy, which could have been introduced years ago, continues to fall between the cracks."
------------------------------------------------------------


**
Source: The Guardian, 7 April 2021
------------------------------------------------------------



** See also: Smokefree Action Coalition - Roadmap to a Smokefree 2030 ([link removed]) (includes calls for a mandatory levy on the tobacco industry)
------------------------------------------------------------
Read Article ([link removed])


** International
------------------------------------------------------------


**
------------------------------------------------------------


** FCB New York, a marketing company, and the US Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Center for Tobacco Products have collaborated with Marvel Comics to create 'The Mind Control Menace,' a 16-page comic book in which the supervillain is addiction, in an attempt to connect with teenagers and dissuade them from using e-cigarettes.

This marks the latest phase of FDA’s “The Real Cost” initiative, which began in 2014, aiming to prevent the use of tobacco among young people. According to campaign evaluation, The Real Cost initiative has successfully prevented nearly 587,000 youth ages 11 to 19 from smoking cigarettes in its first two years. The campaign has also won multiple marketing awards. In 2018, the campaign expanded its focus following concerns around use of e-cigarettes among teenagers in the US.

“The Mind Control Menace” is a hero vs. villain story about the control that addiction can have over a person's life. According to Marvel and FCB New York, the story’s concept is rooted in the insight that vape users can quickly become subservient to nicotine and associated cravings. The villain, addiction, is represented in the comic through vaporous green tentacles wrapping themselves around victims.

The campaign unfolds in three forms: a digital static comic on Marvel.com, an animated comic in five chapters on Marvel.com and YouTube, and a printed comic book. Extensions of the campaign will include online videos, social posts, custom display banners, digital assets and a landing page on TheRealCost.gov.

Source: Little Black Book, 6 April 2021
------------------------------------------------------------
Read Article ([link removed])


**
------------------------------------------------------------


** Bans on menthol cigarettes across Canada from 2016 to 2017 led to a significant increase in the number of smokers who attempted to quit, smokers who quit successfully, and lower rates of relapse among former smokers, according to a new research study from the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project (the ITC Project) at the University of Waterloo.

The study examined the impact of menthol bans across seven Canadian provinces, covering 83% of the Canadian population, which saw menthol cigarettes banned between August 2016 and October 2017. Canada was the one of the first countries to implement a ban on menthol cigarettes, and the first country where a menthol ban has been evaluated.

The study shows that menthol smokers were significantly more likely than non-menthol smokers to attempt to quit after the menthol ban (58.7% vs. 49%). In particular, daily menthol smokers were almost twice as likely than daily non-menthol smokers to quit after the menthol ban (21% vs. 11.6%). Further, menthol smokers who had quit smoking before the menthol ban were significantly less likely than non-menthol smokers who had quit smoking to relapse back to smoking after the ban.

Geoffrey T. Fong, Professor of Psychology and Public Health and Health Systems at Waterloo, and principal investigator of the ITC Project, said: "The enormous success of the Canadian menthol ban makes it even clearer now that the US should finally ban menthol [...] From our findings, we estimate that banning menthol cigarettes in the US would lead an additional 923,000 smokers to quit, including 230,000 African-American smokers."

Source: Medical Xpress, 6 April 2021

See also: Tobacco Control -
Evaluating the impact of menthol cigarette bans on cessation and smoking behaviours in Canada: longitudinal findings from the Canadian arm of the 2016–2018 ITC Four Country Smoking and Vaping Surveys ([link removed])
------------------------------------------------------------
Read Article ([link removed])


**
------------------------------------------------------------


** Jon-Patrick Allem, Assistant Professor of Research, University of Southern California, writes in The Conversation on his teams new research looking at the placement of e-cigarettes in popular music videos. Allem and his team have been looking at the extent of e-cigarette product placements in music videos as well as the actual impact of this, if any, on youth e-cigarette use.

------------------------------------------------------------


** Allem explains that "To see how prevalent this product placement is, my team first identified songs on the Billboard Hot 100 list between June 16 and Sept. 22, 2018 which had 180 official music videos. [...] We found that electronic cigarette product placement and imagery appeared in seven music videos, which were viewed over a billion times. These videos provided billions of electronic cigarette impressions. We identified two brands, KandyPens and Mig Vapor, in the study. For example, the video 'No Brainer' by DJ Khaled contained several scenes of female models using KandyPens’ products. Khaled used a KandyPens device and exhaled an aerosol cloud toward the camera."

Allem and his team then recruited over 1,000 young adults ages 18 to 24 living in California. These participants completed surveys assessing exposure to specific music videos and electronic cigarette use. Allem explains that "Our analysis revealed that participants who had viewed any electronic cigarette product placement or imagery in music videos were more likely to have used an electronic cigarette in their lifetime compared to participants with no exposure." Allem is clear that there are several limitations to the team's study and that it does not determine a causal relationship. He concludes that restricting e-cigarette product placement in music videos shouldn't be ruled out however, and that it may help prevent use among young people in the US.
------------------------------------------------------------


**
Source: The Conversation, 6 April 2021
------------------------------------------------------------
Read Article ([link removed])
Have you been forwarded this email? Subscribe to ASH Daily News here. ([link removed])

For more information call 020 7404 0242, email [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) or visit www.ash.org.uk

ASH Daily News is a digest of published news on smoking-related topics. ASH is not responsible for the content of external websites. ASH does not necessarily endorse the material contained in this bulletin.

============================================================
Our mailing address is:
Action on Smoking and Health
6th Floor New House
Hatton Garden
London
EC1N 8JY

Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can ** update your preferences ([link removed])
or ** unsubscribe from this list ([link removed])
Screenshot of the email generated on import

Message Analysis