Policy Bulletins

Below are recent alerts and issues which are currently affecting the Asian American and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities. For additional information, and some background on many of these issues, please see the Policy Issues section.

• March 1, 2011 - Tobacco Control Advocates Convene to Express Concerns around Little Cigars and Cigarillos
  
  APPEAL, in collaboration with the National Latino Tobacco Control Network and Legacy Foundation, held a meeting to discuss new tobacco products on February 7, 2011 in which local and national tobacco control advocates participated. Legacy presented information on the tobacco industry’s new and emerging products and the implications of these products on communities of color, as well as low socio-economic status (low SES) groups, and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) communities. An emphasis on little cigars and cigarillos (LCCs) elicited concern among participants because of their targeting towards communities of color, LGBT communities and youth. Within the tobacco control community as well as the general public, there is a lack of knowledge about these products and confusion over the terminology. This may lead to challenges such as under-reporting of sales and prevalence data. Sales of little cigars and cigarillos have increased in recent years and are subject to lower taxes than cigarettes. Additionally, little cigars and cigarillos are currently not subject to regulation by the FDA. Meeting participants expressed concerns about all of the abovementioned issues and discussed advocating for these products to be regulated by the FDA as well as the need to create distinct definitions and tax categories for these products.

• December 9, 2010 - There is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke, according to new Surgeon General's Report
  
  Today, the Surgeon General released How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease: The Biology and Behavioral Basis for Smoking-Attributable Disease: A Report of the Surgeon General. The report details the biology of the damaging effects of tobacco smoke and how it causes disease.
  
  Some of the major findings from the report include:
  
  * There is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke.
  * Inhaling tobacco smoke causes immediate damage to the body.
  * The risk and severity of tobacco-related disease are directly related to the duration and level of exposure to tobacco smoke.
  * Nicotine compares with heroin and cocaine in its hold on users and effects on the brain.
  * Even low levels of exposure, including exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke, can trigger acute cardiovascular events such as heart attacks.
  
  To help spread these findings as widely as possible, the Surgeon General and CDC created a 20-page booklet entitled A Report of the Surgeon General: How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease: What It Means to You. The booklet highlights report findings in an easy-to-read guide with practical information about how tobacco smoke causes disease.
  
  For more information about the new Surgeon General Report, please visit the website. APPEAL encourages all our partners and friends to help spread the word about these important new findings about the harmful effects of tobacco.

• September 21, 2010 - Support SB 220 to require insurers to provide cessation services
  
  APPEAL has joined a diverse group of organizations supporting California's Senate Bill 220 (SB 220) which requires all health plans and insurers to provide coverage of treatments to help patients quit smoking. SB 220 has passed both the California State Senate and State Assembly and is awaiting the signature of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
  
  Communicate your support for SB 220 to Gov. Schwarzenegger by:‬‪
  Fax: 916-558-3177‬‪
  or email (please e-mail both addresses):‬‪
  Jennifer.kent@gov.ca.gov‬‪
  mike.prosio@gov.ca.gov‬‪‬‪‬‪
  
  Please let his office know that you support SB 220 and hope he will sign SB 220 into law.
  
  Key talking points:
  
  * This bill would allow patients to access smoking cessation treatments at least twice a year. Currently, many health plans only cover one cessation attempt to quit PER LIFETIME.
  
  * This bill would allow both physician and patient to determine the best method to quit after the patient has attempted to quit using the benefit determined by the health plan.
  
  * SB 220 reflects the Federal health reform requirement that all new plans cover smoking cessation at no cost to patients.
  
  *The American Lung Association estimates health costs attributable to smoking to be $5,633 per smoker. This amounts to a savings of over $45.5 million per year. Unrestricted access to smoking cessation treatments dramatically improves the success of cessation attempts.
  
  * APPEAL joins a coalition of health, labor, LGBT, and business groups to support the bill including Asian and Pacific Islander American Health Forum, the California State Firefighters Association, Coalition of Lavender-Americans on Smoking and Health, and the American Lung Association.
  
  For more information on the bill please go to the California State Senate website at: http://info.sen.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery? bill_number=sb_220&sess=CUR&house=A&site=sen.

• August 31, 2010 - FDA Launches "Break the Chain" Campaign to Raise Awareness about New Tobacco Regulations for Protecting Youth
  
  In August 2010, the FDA launched a new campaign and website (www.fda.gov/BreakTheChain) intended to educate stakeholders, help raise awareness and spread the word about important tobacco product regulations designed to protect America's youth from tobacco use.
  
  Every day nearly 4,000 kids under the age of 18 try their first cigarette. 1,000 of those kids become daily smokers. In hopes of curbing these rates, the FDA passed several new regulations which went into effect on June 22, 2010, including:
  
  * Prohibiting the sale of cigarette packages with less than 20 cigarettes
  * Prohibiting distribution of free samples of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco
  * Mandating that cigarettes or smokeless tobacco be sold only in a direct, face-to-face exchange, except in adult-only facilities, and
  * Prohibiting tobacco companies from sponsoring any athletic, musical or other social or cultural events
  
  Some of the resources which can be found on the "Break the Chain" website include content syndication (which allows partners to display automatically-updated FDA tobacco control information on their own websites), "Break the Chain of Addiction" badges, widgets and posters, a podcast series on retailers and selling tobacco to minors, and more in-depth information on these new regulations to protect kids from tobacco use and its negative health effects
  
  For all of this and more, please visit www.fda.gov/BreakTheChain. APPEAL encourages all our partners and friends to support these efforts to get the word out about these regulations and resources.

• August 1, 2010 - Minnesota's Tobacco Modernization and Compliance Act of 2010 Goes into Effect
  
  In early May 2010, Minnesota took an important step that will modernize the state's tobacco laws, reduce tax evasion, and reduce youth access to tobacco products. The Tobacco Modernization and Compliance Act of 2010, which went into effect on August 1, 2010, has been called a "common-sense solution" for combating the tobacco industry, whose tactics for enticing new customers is continuously evolving.
  
  More than 5,500 people in Minnesota die every year of tobacco related diseases. Indeed, 634,000 adults (and 85,000 middle and high school students) are smokers, while 28.4% of the state's young adult population (age 18-24) are tobacco users. The Tobacco Modernization and Compliance Act will hopefully allow Minnesota to begin lowering these numbers and drastically curb the influence of both new and traditional tobacco products on adults and youth.
  
  Among other things, the Act prohibits the sale of "tobacco-related devices" to youth and requires that such items be sold from behind the counter (rather than next to candy or gum). It also expands the definition of "tobacco products" to reach nearly all new tobacco products and prohibits the sale of e-cigarettes and certain other types of non-tobacco nicotine-delivery products to youth.
  
  For more information on this new law, please view this one-page fact sheet (http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/hpcd/tpc/documents/TMCA1pager.pdf), or visit: https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/?id=305&doctype=Chapter&year=2010&type=0.

• May 25, 2010 - FDA Hosts Retailer Training Sessions on New Tobacco Regulations
  
  In June 2010, several new FDA tobacco regulations went into effect which will impact both tobacco retailers and our communities at large. In particular, the Regulations Restricting the Sale and Distribution of Cigarettes and Smokeless Tobacco to Protect Children and Adolescents contain "a broad set of federal requirements designed to significantly curb access to and the appeal of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products to children and adolescents in the United States." To assist retailers in learning about their responsibilities under these new laws, the FDA has also begun hosting FREE live training sessions which will provide information about how to comply with, and an opportunity to ask questions about, the regulations.
  
  The final live training sessions will be held in Dallas, TX (9/22) and Los Angeles, CA (9/29). If you are unable to make it to one of these sessions, please consider participating either by phone or webcast!
  
  APPEAL asks all our friends and partners to help GET THE WORD OUT about these trainings and encourages all retailers, particularly those within the Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities, to attend! More information on session topics, live training session registration, call-in and webcast information, and materials from previous trainings can be found on the FDA Tobacco Retailer Compliance website.

• April 1, 2010 - APPEAL supports data collection bill in California State Assembly
  
  In March 2010, APPEAL wrote a letter of support for Assembly Bill 1737 (AB 1737) when it was heard in the California State Assembly's Business and Professions committee. This bill would ensure that specified state agencies collect and publish data that are disaggregated into additional Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander ethnic groups, as currently reported by the U.S. Census.
  
  AB 1737 aligns critical state data so that it is broken out into the additional Asian and Pacific Islander ethnic groups that have data reported in the U.S. Census, including Hmong, Tongan, Thai, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, Malaysian, Indonesian, Taiwanese, and Fijian. While overall data may show that AAs and NHPIs are doing better than average on certain social indicators, data that is separated out by ethnic group clearly shows that certain communities, especially among Pacific Islander and Southeast Asian ethnic groups, have some of the greatest needs, including some of the highest poverty rates and lowest educational attainment rates in California. Laotians, Cambodians, and Hmong, for example, have some of the highest poverty rates of all ethnic groups.
  
  As of right now, AB 1737 has passed out of committee by a 7-3 vote and has been sent to the Assembly Appropriations committee for consideration.

• March 31, 2010 - APPEAL continues to monitor menthol provision in FDA law
  
  In summer of 2009, Congress passed Public Law No: 111-031, providing the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with authority to regulate tobacco products. Various provisions of the law include restrictions on advertising, better warning labels, the creation of scientific and oversight committees to monitor compliance, the allocation of resources to enhance the FDA and other organizations in the control of tobacco products, and the immediate banning of fruit/candy flavorings. However, while these provisions are indeed commendable, Public Law 111-031 relies too heavily on "the FDA to determine" that menthol is an additive that would need further study prior to banning. Considering that menthol affects communities of color disproportionately, APPEAL is concerned that the protected status this law affords menthol would effectively devalue the health of communities of color even further.
  
  To implement the provisions of the law, the FDA announced the selection of the voting members of the Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee (TPSAC). The first meeting of the committee was held on March 30-31, 2010 and focused on the impact of the use of menthol in cigarettes on public health. APPEAL, in partnership with other CDC National Networks and as an advocate for removing the protected status of menthol in Public Law 111-031, will continue to monitor the discussions of the TPSAC on menthol in the future.
  
  To view the webcast of the March 30-31 meeting, please see the Meeting Webcast.
  
  For more information on this committee and on Public Law 111-031, please review the related press release, the official Advisory Committee Meeting Announcement, or visit the FDA Center for Tobacco Products.

• March 17, 2010 - County of Hawai`i Council to consider secondhand smoke legislation
  
  In early March, on the Big Island of Hawai'i, a new Bill was introduced by Puna Councilwoman Emily Naeole-Beason that could make it illegal in the County of Hawai'i for any adult to smoke in a motor vehicle occupied by someone under the age of 18. If passed, smokers who violate this law will be issued a citation.
  
  According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), secondhand smoke in cars can be ten times more concentrated than the level considered "unhealthy" by the EPA. Furthermore, the developing lungs of young children are severely affected by exposure to secondhand smoke because children have elevated breathing rates. This Bill would decrease that exposure, and subsequently increase the health of Hawai'i's keiki (children). Bill 216, which was advanced by a 6-3 vote of the County Council's Human Services and Economic Development Committee on March 16, will now go before a full council for the first of two votes required for its passage.

• February 5, 2010 - Guam passes historic tobacco tax legislation
  
  On February 5, 2010, Guam passed Bill 150-30 (now Public Law 30-80) which increases tobacco tax rates and earmarks tax revenues for tobacco and cancer prevention and control. This is a significant milestone for Guam, which had the highest adult smoking rate per capita of all U.S. states and territories from 1998-2007.
  
  The Bill, entitled, "An Act to Amend §26603 (A), (B), and (C) of Article 6, Chapter 26, of Title 11 of the Guam Code Annotated, Relative to Increasing Tobacco Taxes, The Healthy Futures Fund, and Creating a Guam Cancer Trust Account," will raise the current $1 tax on tobacco to $3, and the current $3.50 tax on various other tobacco products to $14. This is the largest one-time tobacco increase ever seen nationwide!

• January 27, 2010 - Palau Strategic Plan on Tobacco and Health is Ready for Viewing!
  
  Palau recently completed its Strategic Plan of Action 2010-2015: Ending the Exploitation of the People of Palau; Eliminating Tobacco and Related Health Disparities.
  
  This 5-year Strategic Plan is a result of the successful collaboration between The Coalition for a Tobacco Free Palau, the Palau Ministry of Health, and APPEAL. It provides a clear direction for addressing tobacco and its consequences, and is a major step toward combating health disparities and the negative affect tobacco has had on the people of Palau.
  
  To view a pdf of this publication, please click here.