Advancing Commercial Tobacco Control and Health Equity Through Policy, Systems, and Environmental Change

Abstract

OUTCOMES-INVITED COMMENTARY Commercial tobacco products have been protected from regulation, yet are designed to addict, are deadly, and are promoted to young people whose brains are not yet fully developed. Until everyone is protected from addiction and exposure, we must keep working toward fairness and valuebased policy, systems, and environmental change.

Shifting Loci of Responsibility Upstream to Advance Healthy Behavior and Equity

“…Herndon and colleagues remind us in this issue that taking health-promoting action to address epidemic drug use is a matter of equity and justice, considering youth, rural, and many marginalized communities have been targeted with harmful drugs and experience uneven protections that put them at disproportionate risk of use and associated health outcomes [28]. Unhealthy corporate marketing practices and relatively low-cost harm-inducing products underly increases in drug overdose deaths and use of harmful products within our state.…”

“…Excise taxes can potentially reduce business revenue from health-harming products by changing the relative price of the product for consumers, which can also reduce consumption. For example, Herndon and colleagues point out that a 10% increase in cigarette price reduces consumption 3%-5% [28]. In this issue, Golden and colleagues discuss the effectiveness of this lever on behavior change [41].…”