John,

In recent decades, global smoking rates have dropped steadily. Thanks to new laws, higher taxes, and other efforts that have had a major impact, the tobacco industry sold 750 billion fewer cigarettes in 2021 than they did in 2012.

That has saved and improved millions of lives.

But this success has also driven the tobacco industry into a frantic search for customers. They've taken aggressive steps to hook younger generations on their deadly products -- and their latest actions in California show just how far they'll go.

"In peddling addiction to children, the tobacco industry has refused to take no for an answer in California -- not from parents, not from legislators, not from the courts and not from voters," writes Mike in a new opinion piece in The Hill. "Like any drug dealer, it keeps pushing, and it keeps trying to win over the most vulnerable potential customers: kids."

Read Mike's piece in The Hill to learn about the latest dangerous actions from the tobacco industry, and about the plan to "meet it head on" with $420 million in new funding to reduce e-cigarette use among U.S. teenagers and curb tobacco use in low- and middle-income countries.

In California, the tobacco industry has been working furiously -- and losing repeatedly -- in efforts to stop the state from banning sales of flavored tobacco products, which are directly tied to e-cigarette use among adolescents.

After repeated failures, they've decided to evade the law: A major tobacco company now markets menthol and mint flavored products as "fresh" and "crisp" in order to skirt the new regulations.

"The company is flouting the law," Mike writes, "because it knows that habits form early, and it's terrified of losing out on a generation of customers." Read more →

We know the fight against tobacco use can be won. But in California -- and around the world -- it's clear that the tobacco industry will stop at nothing in their attempts to roll back the hard-won, life-saving reductions that have been made.

Take a moment to read and share Mike’s piece in The Hill:

https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/3839826-big-tobacco-is-lighting-the-law-on-fire-to-peddle-addiction/

Thanks,

MikeBloomberg.com