Note: World Lung Foundation united with The Union North America. From January 2016, the combined organization is known as “Vital Strategies.”
(January 6th, 2016, New York, USA) World Lung Foundation (WLF) today joined CDC in calling for youth to be protected from e-cigarette marketing and banned from buying e-cigarettes in order to protect them from nicotine-related harm and a lifetime of addiction. José Luis Castro, Chief Executive Officer, The Union North America and World Lung Foundation, said:
“We have long urged caution over e-cigarettes; concerns over youth addiction to nicotine – which is proven to be harmful to a child’s developing brain – and a lack of evidence regarding the consequences of long-term use have been central to our unease. Similar concerns have led to a number of other regions and countries placing restrictions on the marketing and sale of e-cigarettes, including the European Union and a number of middle eastern and Asian countries. Today’s report from CDC confirms soaring use of e-cigarettes among America’s youth, adding more evidence to the case for stricter FDA regulation of these products in the USA.
“Big tobacco doesn’t care whether it ensnares youth to a lifetime of nicotine addiction via e-cigarettes, shisha, chewing tobacco or cigarettes. All it cares about is getting consumers young and profiting from them for as long as possible. While they say they don’t target youth, an increase in expenditure on e-cigarette advertising from $6.4 million in 2011 to around $115 million in 2014 has undoubtedly helped to increase current e-cigarette use among high school students from 1.5 percent in 2011 to 13.4 percent in 2014.
“As experts in mass media communications we have recognized the similarities between the e-cigarette industry’s marketing imagery and tactics and those used by big tobacco during the 20th century (and in some countries, even today). Harm and a lifetime of addiction is so far removed from the imagery and messages of freedom, emancipation, rebellion, and sex used by these companies to sell e-cigarettes and other conventional tobacco products.
“We no longer accept that our young people should be exposed to tobacco advertising; how can it be acceptable that nearly 70 percent of middle and high school students have been exposed to all-pervasive e-cigarette marketing, conducted largely by tobacco companies well-practised in targeting and misleading youth?
“We believe it’s time for the USA to properly regulate e-cigarettes in order to protect youth and for investment in campaigns to explain the harms of nicotine among young people – just as we’ve had to debunk big tobacco’s marketing messages for conventional cigarettes.”