Context:In 1954 the tobacco industry paid to publish the "Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers" in hundreds of U.S. newspapers. It stated that the public's health was the industry's concern above all others and promised a variety of good-faith changes. What followed were decades of deceit and actions that cost millions of lives. In the hope that the food history will be written differently, this article both highlights important lessons that can be learned from the tobacco experience and recommends actions for the food industry. Methods:A review and analysis of empirical and historical evidence pertaining to tobacco and food industry practices, messages, and strategies to influence public opinion, legislation and regulation, litigation, and the conduct of science. Findings:The tobacco industry had a playbook, a script, that emphasized personal responsibility, paying scientists who delivered research that instilled doubt, criticizing the "junk" science that found harms associated with smoking, making self-regulatory pledges, lobbying with massive resources to stifle government action, introducing "safer" products, and simultaneously manipulating and denying both the addictive nature of their products and their marketing to children. The script of the food industry is both similar to and different from the tobacco industry script. Conclusions:Food is obviously different from tobacco, and the food industry differs from tobacco companies in important ways, but there also are significant similarities in the actions that these industries have taken in response to concern that their products cause harm. Because obesity is now a major global problem,

No abstract

Objective-To provide a comprehensive review of interventions and policies aimed at reducing youth cigarette smoking in the United States, including strategies that have undergone evaluation and emerging innovations that have not yet been assessed for eYcacy. Data sources-Medline literature searches, books, reports, electronic list servers, and interviews with tobacco control advocates. Data synthesis-Interventions and policy approaches that have been assessed or evaluated were categorised using a typology with seven categories (school based, community interventions, mass media/public education, advertising restrictions, youth access restrictions, tobacco excise taxes, and direct restrictions on smoking). Novel and largely untested interventions were described using nine categories. Conclusions-Youth smoking prevention and control eVorts have had mixed results. However, this review suggests a number of prevention strategies that are promising, especially if conducted in a coordinated way to take advantage of potential synergies across interventions. Several types of strategies warrant additional attention and evaluation, including aggressive media campaigns, teen smoking cessation programmes, social environment changes, community interventions, and increasing cigarette prices. A significant proportion of the resources obtained from the recent settlement between 46 US states and the tobacco industry should be devoted to expanding, improving and evaluating "youth centred" tobacco prevention and control activities.

Given the essential demographic phenomenon of our time, the rapid aging of the population, our findings lend increased urgency to understanding and addressing the interaction between aging and health care spending.

Table of Contents 1. Introduction and overview 1.1 Coverage 1.1 Health consequences of tobacco consumption 2. The impact of price on the demand for tobacco products 2.1 Conventional studies of cigarette demand 2.1.1 Analysis of aggregate data 2.1.2 Analysis of individual level data 2.2 Addiction models and cigarette demand 2.2.1 Imperfectly rational addiction models 2.2.2 Myopic addiction models 2.2.3 Rational addiction models 2.2.4 Critiques of the rational addiction model 2.3 Behavioral economic analyses of cigarette demand 2.4 Econometric studies of the demand for other tobacco products 3. Cigarette and other tobacco taxation 3.1 Comparative standards and the effects of tax on price 3.1.1 Purposes and methods of taxation 3.1.2 Effects of taxes on retail price 3.1.3 Variations in cigarette tax across countries and states and the issue of smuggling 3.2 Fairness standards 3.2.1 Horizontal and vertical equity 3.2.2 The benefit principle 3.3 Public health standards 3.3.1 The social cost of smoking 3.3.2 The health benefits of increasing cigarette taxes 3.4 Economic efficiency and the pursuit of an optimal cigarette tax 3.4.1 Negative externalities associated with smoking 3.4.2 Other efficiency considerations 4. Advertising, promotion, and the demand for tobacco products 4.1 Theoretical and conceptual issues 4.2 Econometric evidence 4.3 Findings from the non-economic literature 5. Other tobacco control policies and demand 5.1 Health information and counter-advertising 5.2 Restrictions on cigarette smoking 5.3 Limits on youth access to tobacco products 6. Agricultural policy and the macroeconomic implications of tobacco 6.1 Size and nature of the tobacco industry 6.1.1 The global industry 6.1.2 The U.S. tobacco industry 6.2The impact of the U.S. tobacco agriculture regulatory system 6.2.1 Nature of the system and its impact on tobacco farming 6.2.2 Relevance of the tobacco program to smoking and health 6.3The contribution of the tobacco industry to the economy 6.3.1 States and nations 6.3.2 Tobacco farm communities Conclusion ReferencesEconomics of Smoking -p. 13 Concern about the health consequences of smoking predates the "modern era" by nearly four centuries. In 1604, for example, King James I of England lambasted smoking as "a custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomlesse" (as quoted in Sullum, 1998, p. 18). King James subsequently raised the tax on tobacco by 1000%, deriving significant revenues for his coffers. This illustrates the profound dilemma that has confronted policy decision makers ever since: whatever its health consequences, tobacco has long been truly a "golden leaf" for farmers and politicians alike. Its role in the very earliest commerce between England and the American colonies is legendary, as is its role in contemporary politics (Taylor, 1984;Fritschler and Hoefler, 1996).Economics of Smoking -p. 4 million adults, almost a qu...

No abstract

SD smokers make up a substantial segment of the smoking population. They are not just beginning to smoke nor trying to quit. Many have developed a long-standing pattern of nondaily smoking, smoking relatively few cigarettes on the days when they do smoke. They are not substantially younger than daily smokers, as one might expect.

Smokers of all ages should be encouraged to quit because cessation at any age decreases lung cancer risk relative to that of current smokers.