Tobacco companies are growing bolder in their efforts to keep people addicted and misinformed. The Boston Globe recently wrote about their latest plan to elude regulation in Massachusetts — electronic devices that heat tobacco instead of burning it, which the industry claims is a safer alternative to combustible cigarettes.
In her piece, Globe columnist Marcela García points out that three Massachusetts state lawmakers — Sen. Patrick O’Connor, of Weymouth, and Reps. Daniel Cahill, of Lynn, and Daniel Ryan of Boston — sponsored legislation this year to exempt these so-called “modified-risk tobacco products” from the state’s 2019 landmark ban on the sale of flavored tobacco products.
“The move is instructive,” writes Garcia, “since it comes from the same decades-old Big Tobacco playbook. It’s an attempt to insert a loophole for the industry to grow its dying business by attempting to create, yet again, a new generation of nicotine-addicted teens — just like JUUL tried to do.”
Read Garcia’s full column, which features an interview with Dr. Rose Marie Robertson, deputy chief science and medical officer at the American Heart Association, here.