Category Archives: News

With the start of the new year, many will be making a New Year’s resolution to quit smoking. If this is your resolution, you’re not alone! Nearly 70 percent of smokers say they want to quit but only 7.4 percent are able to each year. You don’t ever have to go in to a quit attempt blind. Sites like BecomeAnEX.org offer a variety of resources to help you prepare. Plus, BecomeAnEX has a caring community of other smokers and former smokers lending their support to each other. Read more......

The states are missing a golden opportunity to save millions of lives and billions of dollars in health care costs because they continue to shortchange proven programs that prevent kids from smoking and help smokers quit, according to a report released today by a coalition of public health organizations. The report challenges states to do more to fight tobacco use – the nation’s No. 1 preventable cause of death – and help make the next generation tobacco-free. This year (fiscal year 2017), the states will collect $26.6 billion from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes. But they will spend less than two percent of it – just $491.6 million – on tobacco prevention and cessation programs, according to the annual report assessing state funding of such programs. The report – "Broken Promises to Our Children: A State-by-State Look at the 1998 Tobacco Settlement 18 Years Later" – was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights and Truth Initiative. Read more...  ...

While the European Commission is engaged in a consultation processon the taxing of e-cigarettes, seven  EU member states have already instituted their own tax schemes. Between them, a variety of rates have been set. Unlike in the U.S., however, where several states and local governments have applied taxes on an array of different principles, in Europe taxation has mostly been established on the principle of a set figure per millilitre of e-liquid. Every four years the European Commission is required to review the rates and structures of excise applied to manufactured tobacco set forth in Directive 2011/64/EU and where appropriate propose changes. The directive mandates a framework for taxing tobacco products to ensure a harmonised approach among member states. E-cigarettes are not currently included in the directive, and while heat-not-burn (HnB) products contain tobacco and are therefore subject to taxation, their treatment is not explicitly addressed. Read more......

Around 3,200 young people try a cigarette for the first time each day and nearly 2,100 youth and young adults become daily smokers. These statistics do not include the young people who try other forms of tobacco every day—from cigars, cigarillos and hookah, to new non-combustible products that deliver tobacco in the form of mints, breath strips and toothpicks—which make it easier to experiment. Of particular concern is the burgeoning popularity of electronic cigarettes, devices that warm a nicotine solution to produce an aerosol that is inhaled without the combustion of tobacco. To date these products have been unregulated, while their usage tripled among middle and high school students between 2013 and 2014, according to a 2015 report by the Center for Tobacco Products. Some e-cigarette marketing campaigns appeal to youth. Unless innovative approaches are employed to dramatically decrease its use, the U.S. Surgeon General estimates that 5.6 million young people alive today will die prematurely from tobacco. Many more will live lives that have been compromised by its devastating effects. Read more... ...