Iowa Attorney General creates e-cigarette advisory group
Attorney General Tom Miller formed an advisory group to both assist JUUL in combating underage use of their products and facilitate the transition of combustible smokers to e-cigarette users.
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August 23, 2018
An advisory group formed by Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller has announced membership of its board and expanded its plans to advocate for smokers to make the switch to e-cigarettes.
The advisory group is made mostly of former attorney generals, many of whom assisted with the 1998 tobacco settlement, when attorney generals of 46 states sued tobacco companies about their advertising, resulting in reduced advertising and medical-cost compensation. Also included are physicians, attorneys, and former Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon.
Two international members were also included — Clive Bates in London and Dave Sweanor in Ottawa, Canada.
“Tom has been in the world of anti-tobacco for a long time, so he looked primarily to former colleagues to form the group,” said Lynn Hicks, Miller’s communications director. “There are a lot of former attorney generals on the list, people involved in the tobacco settlement and other efforts to regulate tobacco.”
In May, JUUL Labs of San Francisco announced a $30 million campaign to combat underage use and sale of its products.
The company sought the assistance of Miller because of his background in anti-tobacco litigation, namely in leading the efforts to reach the tobacco settlement of 1998.
While the initial purpose of the group was to find ways to prevent underage e-cigarette use, this has expanded in the months since it was formed, according to a press release from Miller.
The group is now advocating for current combustible cigarette smokers to make the switch to electronic cigarettes, such as JUUL. The group believes this will be the push needed to lower the number of adult smokers to below 10 percent by the year 2021.
However, the idea that more e-cigarette use lowers combustible consumption may need more data before it can be quantitatively proven.
“Evidence on the efficacy of e-cigarettes on smoking cessation or reductions is controversial,” said University of Iowa Assistant Professor Wei Bao.
Bao has done research relating to this field. In May, he released an analysis that showed the number of frequent e-cigarette users declined during the 2015-2016 year by half a percent, while first-time users rose by an entire percent.
The advisory group’s initiative is still very much in its early stages, Hicks said. So far, the group has only met twice over the phone, and a request for advice from the public was sent out last month.
In addition to the advisory members, two executives from JUUL were also included in the meetings.
Hicks says giving JUUL a seat at the table is important for several reasons. the company’s goals are similar to that of the advisory group, because JUUL supports raising the minimum age for nicotine purchase to 21, he said.
JUUL’s market share also makes their participation important, as Nielson recently released statistics showing that JUUL currently holds 72 percent of the e-cigarette market.
Advisory group member Sweanor said Miller is a leader motivated to prevent the 20,000 preventable, daily deaths due to smoking causes.
“[Nicotine] is not killing [smokers], it is the delivery mechanism,” he said. “If we can solve this, we can solve one of the greatest human health crises of our time.”
