CVS Caremark to End Tobacco Sales

I have been a poor blogger and have not posted in a very long time.

Therefore, it is with great pleasure that I return with a happy announcement. Major media around the country was buzzing with the announcement the CVS Caremark announcement today the pharamacy chain will stop selling tobacco products by October 1. See the article below at http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/02/05/271906167/cvs-to-stop-selling-tobacco-products Notably, the chain already has a policy against selling "electronic cigarettes" or non-combustible tobacco delivery devices.

As reported by NPR-Saying it is "the right thing for us to do for our customers and our company to help people on their path to better health," the CEO of CVS Caremark announced Wednesday that the company's 7,600 pharmacies will stop selling cigarettes and tobacco products by Oct. 1. Larry Merlo also said CVS will try to help those who want to quit smoking with a "robust national smoking cessation program" at its locations. CVS says the decision will trim about $2 billion in annual revenue — out of what Forbes reports is $125 billion in sales each year. But as Forbes adds, Merlo believes that "continuing to sell cigarettes, which the Surgeon General blames for 480,000 deaths every year from heart disease, lung cancer, and stroke, was anathema to CVS' long-term plan to become a central player in the U.S. health care system."

Other retailers have recently come under fire for continuing to sell tobacco products while attempting to promote themselves as health and wellness-centered organization. Mega-retailer Walmart remains one of the largest dealers of tobacco products in North America.

Important study finds that using e-cigarettes reduces successful quits

       Reposted at http://tobaccodeathray.blogspot.com,

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A paper published earlier this year <http://ntr.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/05/07/ntr.ntt061.abstract> adds to the growing evidence that claims that e-cigarettes help people quit smoking are false.

 

Study authors collected information on e-cigarette use from people who called state quitlines in Connecticut, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas.  Nearly one third (30.9%) of respondents reported ever using or trying e-cigarettes; most used for a short period of time (61.7% for less than 1 month). Consistent with what other surveys have found, the most frequently reported reasons for use were to help quit other tobacco (51.3%) or to replace other tobacco products (15.2%). Study findings suggest that both e-cigarette user groups were significantly less likely to have quit smoking 7 months after first calling the quitline compared with participants who had never tried e-cigarettes: Only 21.7% of people who used e-cigarettes to help quit and 16.6% of those who used e-cigarettes to replace other tobacco products had quit, compared to 31.3% of people who did not use e-cigarettes (p < .001).

web-based distance learning for people with serious mental illnesses

 

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New York's Office of Mental Health, in a collaboration with the Center for Practice Innovations at Columbia Psychiatry, Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene, New York City Department of Health and Mental Health, and Allen Communication Learning Services, developed a web-based distance learning training in tobacco dependence treatment specifically designed for people with serious mental illnesses. Below are the links you need!

Press Release: Focus on Integrated Treatment Introduces Tobacco Dependence Training Modules
o   To access the training modules, you will need to sign up via the link: http://practiceinnovations.org/CPIInitiatives/FocusonIntegratedTreatmentFIT/tabid/186/Default.aspx
 and then create a username and password.
o   Their recipient / consumer module for tobacco dependence treatment and SMI: 
http://practiceinnovations.org/ConsumersandFamilies/tabid/200/Default.aspx
They ask their providers to watch this with their clients who smoke.

 

Posted by IGLC grantees forum Reposted at  

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8 and Counting: SAMHSA State Academies for Smoking Cessation Foster Change

Reposted http://www.tobaccodeathray.blogspot.com

 

The Smoking Cessation Leadership Center (SCLC) is pleased to invite you to a free webinar, “8 and Counting: SAMHSA State Academies for Smoking Cessation Foster Change,” on September 24, 2013 at 2:00pm Eastern Time (90 minutes).  

We are honored to have an assembly of state front-runners in behavioral health, public health, state quitlines, and tobacco control and prevention, presenting on these important topics. Steven A. Schroeder, MD, SCLC Director, will make a special introduction and the moderator, will be Catherine Saucedo, SCLC Deputy Director.  

Webinar objectives: 

·         Learn about the Leadership Academy State successes and challenges in reducing the prevalence of tobacco use within the behavioral health field

·         Examine recent state tobacco treatment and prevention policies and the strategies used for implementation 

·         Identify two tobacco dependence treatment training programs for behavioral health providers available for use

·         Examine the evaluation of two statewide behavioral health tobacco use reduction projects and understand the important role data plays in creating change

·         Understand the importance of peer participation in tobacco dependence treatment

 REGISTER HERE: https://cc.readytalk.com/r/18jwil0tw5r9&eom

Accreditation: The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians and allied health professionals.

UCSF designates this live activity for a maximum of 1.5 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits^TM. Participants who join the LIVE session, on September 24, 2013, are eligible to earn up to 1.5 CME/CEU credits for a fee of $25* per certificate.  Physicians and allied health professionals should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the webinar activity.  Nurses, pharmacists, social workers, and other allied health professionals may also claim CE credits. 

*Through September 30, 2013, you are eligible to receive FREE CME/CEU credit thanks to the support of SAMHSA.  First come, first serve. 

Don’t need to claim CME/CEUs?  SCLC issues free certificates of attendance for those who want contact hours only. 

Please feel free to forward this announcement to your colleagues.  For questions, contact Jennifer Matekuare, SCLC Operations Manager, at jmatekuare@medicine.ucsf.edu, or call toll-free (877) 509-3786.  This webinar will be recorded and may be viewed online on the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center’s website after the presentation. 

This Week in CTP - Updates from the Center for Tobacco Products

Reposted at http://www.tobaccodeathray.blogspot.com,

 

New Tobacco Product Review Decisions and a Final Guidance Announced
08/28/2013

Today, FDA issued additional tobacco product review decisions, denying the marketing and sale of four new tobacco products through the substantial equivalence review path. The products were found to be “not substantially equivalent” to the predicate products to which they were compared. The products under review were not on the market and cannot be introduced into the market. These decisions follow the first tobacco product review decisions, which authorized the marketing and sale of two new tobacco products and denied the marketing and sale of four others on June 25, 2013. For more information on our substantial equivalence actions, please visit our Tobacco Product Marketing Orders webpage. --- Last week, FDA published a notice in the Federal Register announcing the release of the final guidance document titled, “Compliance with Regulations Restricting the Sale and Distribution of Cigarettes and Smokeless Tobacco to Protect Children and Adolescents” (also known as the reissued 1996 rule). The final guidance explains the provisions of the final rule, for instance, retailers are prohibited from selling tobacco products to youth under the age of 18; are required to verify the age of all customers under the age of 27 by checking a photo ID; and are prohibited from distributing free samples of cigarettes. Click here to view the full notice, read the guidance document, and post your comments.

E-cigarette use more than doubles among U.S. middle and high school students from 2011-2012

Released by CDC at Reposted at http://www.tobaccodeathray.blogspot.com,

The percentage of U.S. middle and high school students who use electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, more than doubled from 2011 to 2012, according to data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The findings from the National Youth Tobacco Survey, in today’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, show that the percentage of high school students who reported ever using an e-cigarette rose from 4.7 percent in 2011 to 10.0 percent in 2012. In the same time period, high school students using e-cigarettes within the past 30 days rose from 1.5 percent to 2.8 percent. Use also doubled among middle school students. Altogether, in 2012 more than 1.78 million middle and high school students nationwide had tried e-cigarettes.

"The increased use of e-cigarettes by teens is deeply troubling," said CDC Director Tom Frieden, M.D., M.P.H. "Nicotine is a highly addictive drug. Many teens who start with e-cigarettes may be condemned to struggling with a lifelong addiction to nicotine and conventional cigarettes."

The study also found that 76.3 percent of middle and high school students who used e-cigarettes within the past 30 days also smoked conventional cigarettes in the same period. In addition, 1 in 5 middle school students who reported ever using e-cigarettes say they have never tried conventional cigarettes. This raises concern that there may be young people for whom e-cigarettes could be an entry point to use of conventional tobacco products, including cigarettes.

"About 90 percent of all smokers begin smoking as teenagers," said Tim McAfee, M.D., M.P.H., director of the CDC Office on Smoking and Health. "We must keep our youth from experimenting or using any tobacco