¿Por qué nosotros no? Acción Ciudadana por la Salud y el cambio de la Ley Española de Tabaco

A growing number of people are smoking marijuana out of e-cigarettes, NBC New York reports. Marijuana in liquid and wax forms used in e-cigarettes and vapor pens does not create an odor. Because the devices don’t produce a flame, a person smoking marijuana in an e-cigarette can take a puff and then quickly put it in a pocket.

Local law enforcement officials and drug counselors are concerned about the trend, particularly in minors. Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a survey that showed use of e-cigarettes among middle and high schools students doubled from 2011 to 2012. The CDC found 10 percent of high school students had tried an e-cigarette last year, compared with 5 percent the previous year. According to the survey, 1.8 million middle and high school students said they tried e-cigarettes last year.

Detective Lt. Kevin Smith, who heads the Narcotics Unit for the Nassau County Police Department in New York, said an officer arresting someone on a drug charge who has an e-cigarette is now directed to test ...

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Employers Debate Whether to Allow E-Cigarettes in the Workplace

By Join Together Staff January 16, 2014 Leave a comment Filed in Tobacco

Companies are struggling with the question of whether to allow employees to use e-cigarettes in the workplace, according to The Wall Street Journal. Employers want to encourage workers to quit smoking regular cigarettes, but are unsure about the benefits of letting employees use e-cigarettes, or “vape,” in the office.

Major corporations are taking a variety of approaches to e-cigarettes. Exxon Mobil allows vaping in smoking areas. CVS Caremark does not allow employees to use regular or e-cigarettes at its corporate campuses. While Starbucks bans e-cigarettes for both employees and customers, McDonald’s allows them. UPS requires employees who use e-cigarettes or regular cigarettes to pay higher health insurance premiums.

While 24 states and the District of Columbia ban workplace smoking, only New Jersey, Utah and North Dakota have added ...

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Rong Zablocki and colleagues recently published a nice paper that followed 1718 California smokers from 2009 to 2011 to see what effect smokefree homes and percieving laws requiring smokefree outdoors had on their smoking behavior.

Living in a smokefree home more than doubled the odds of smoking less (adjusted odds ratio 2.4) and making a quit attempt (AOR 2.3). Perceived smokefree outdoor policies nearly doubled the odds of smoking less (AOR 1.9) and making a quit attempt (AOR 1.8).

This paper adds to the growing evidence that smokefree policies not only protect nonsmokers from secondhand smoke, but also help smokers quit.

The full paper, "Smoking ban policies and their influence on smoking behaviors among current California smokers: A population-based study," was published in Preventive Medicine.

Kelvin Choi and Jean Forester just published a well-done longitudinal study of young adults that followed young adults in Minnesota for one year and examined how attitudes about e-cigarettes affected behavior.

They report that one year after entering the study 7.4% of the young adults reported ever using e-cigarettes (21.6% among baseline current smokers, 11.9% among baseline former smokers, and 2.9% among baseline nonsmokers). Put another way, 11.9% of people who had quit smoking before the study started were using e-cigarettes at the end as were 2.9% of people who had never smoked. For these people, e-cigarettes were a pathway to renewed or new nicotine addiction.

In addition, people who believed e-cigarettes can help people quit smoking and perceived e-cigarettes to be less harmful than cigarettes at baseline were more likely to report experimenting with e-cigarettes at follow-up regardless of whether or not they were smoking cigarettes at baseline. This finding is particularly troubling since, while e-cigarettes are widely promoted as ...

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