Should tobacco sales be restricted to state-run alcohol outlets? Perspectives from 10 US alcohol control states.

Background And Aims: The ubiquity of tobacco retailers helps to sustain the tobacco epidemic. A tobacco retail reduction approach that has not been tried is transitioning tobacco sales to state-controlled alcohol stores (TTS), which are limited in number and operate under some restrictions, e.g.

Retailer experiences with tobacco sales bans: lessons from two early adopter jurisdictions.

Background: Beverly Hills and Manhattan Beach, California, are the first two US cities to prohibit the sale of tobacco products, passing ordinances that went into effect on 1 January 2021. We sought to learn about retailers' experiences with these laws 22 months after implementation.

Methods: Brief in-person interviews with owners or managers of businesses that formerly sold tobacco (n=22).

Relapse to problem drinking or trading up to spirits? Using U.S. national cross-sectional survey data to highlight possible negative impacts of potential tobacco retail changes.

Background: According to the National Alcohol Beverage Control Association, twelve states in the United States (U.S.) have government retail monopolies on spirits/liquor sales.

Tobacco retail availability and cigarette and e-cigarette use among youth and adults: a scoping review.

Objective: States and localities are formulating strategies to reduce the widespread retail availability of tobacco products. Evidence of associations between retailer density/proximity and tobacco use outcomes can help inform those strategies. We conducted a scoping review on tobacco retail availability and cigarette/e-cigarette use in adults and youth, and considered variations in spatial units, measures of retailer exposure and outcomes across studies.

Feasibility, Acceptability, and Outcomes of a Yoga-Based Meditation Intervention for Hospice Professionals to Combat Burnout.

(1) Background. This research examined the feasibility, acceptability and outcomes of delivering a 6-week yoga-based meditation intervention to clinical teams of hospice professionals (HPs) at a large non-profit hospice organization. The intervention was designed to increase mind-body integration and combat burnout.

Tobacco Imagery in the 20 Best-Selling Video Games of 2018.

Introduction: Video games are played by the majority of American adolescents. A small body of research has shown that video games expose users to tobacco imagery, potentially influencing subsequent smoking behavior. We examine the presence, type, and quantity of tobacco imagery in recent popular video games.

California advocates' perspectives on challenges and risks of advancing the tobacco endgame.

In the USA, California's highly-regarded Tobacco Control Program (CTCP) has defined its goal as "ending the tobacco epidemic for all population groups" by 2035. To understand local advocates' perceptions of endgame-oriented policies, we interviewed 28 advocates from California communities that had recently adopted tobacco control policies. There was no consensus among participants on which specific policies would constitute the tobacco endgame in California.

Tobacco industry and public health responses to state and local efforts to end tobacco sales from 1969-2020.

Background: In June 2019, Beverly Hills, California, became the first American city in the 21st century to pass an ordinance ending the sale of most tobacco products, including cigarettes, and it is unlikely to be the last. Knowledge of previous efforts to ban tobacco sales in the US, both successful and unsuccessful, may help inform tobacco control advocates' approach to future efforts.

Methods: We retrieved and analyzed archival tobacco industry documents.

'Cease and desist?' The persistence of Marlboro brand imagery in racing video games.

Background: Since 1972, Philip Morris (PM) has sponsored motorsports. Racing video games are a popular genre among youth and often emulate the branding of their real-life counterparts, potentially exposing youth to tobacco imagery. We examined racing video games for the presence of Marlboro imagery and explored the history of efforts to remove or regulate such imagery.

Exploiting the "video game craze": A case study of the tobacco industry's use of video games as a marketing tool.

Background: Video games have grown in popularity since the 1970s, and tobacco imagery is present in a substantial subset of games, including those oriented to youth. Much like exposure to tobacco content in films, exposure to tobacco content in video games may influence smoking uptake and use; however, the tobacco industry's role in facilitating or promoting the use of tobacco imagery in video games is unclear. We explored the industry's interest in and use of video games to market their products to youth and young adults.

Retailers' perspectives on selling tobacco in a low-income San Francisco neighbourhood after California's $2 tobacco tax increase.

Background: California's tobacco tax increased by $2.00 per pack in 2017. Although such increases are among the most effective tobacco control strategies, little is known about their impact from the perspective of corner store owners in low-income neighbourhoods with high concentrations of tobacco outlets.

Interactive effects of severe drought and grazing on the life history cycle of a bioindicator species.

We used the lesser prairie-chicken (), an iconic grouse species that exhibits a boom-bust life history strategy, on the Southern High Plains, USA, as a bioindicator of main and interactive effects of severe drought and grazing. This region experienced the worst drought on record in 2011. We surveyed lesser prairie-chicken leks (i.

Merchant Attitudes Toward a Healthy Food Retailer Incentive Program in a Low-Income San Francisco Neighborhood.

In low-income urban communities across the United States and globally, small stores frequently offer processed foods, sodas, alcohol, and tobacco but little access to healthy products. To help address this problem, the city of San Francisco created a healthy food retailer incentive program. Its success depends, in part, on retailers' willingness to participate.

Leadership Perceptions of Endgame Strategies for Tobacco Control in California.

Objective: To explore the perspectives of key stakeholders regarding advancement of the tobacco endgame in California.

Design: Interviews and focus groups exploring participants' knowledge of the tobacco endgame concept, their reactions to 4 endgame policy proposals (banning tobacco sales, registering smokers, retailer reduction, and permanently prohibiting tobacco sales to all those born after a certain year ["tobacco-free generation"]), and policy priorities and obstacles.

Participants: Interviews with 11 California legislators/legislative staff members, 6 leaders of national tobacco control organizations, and 5 leaders of California-based organizations or California subsidiaries of national organizations.

"You Want Your Guests to Be Happy in This Business": Hoteliers' Decisions to Adopt Voluntary Smoke-Free Guest-Room Policies.

Purpose: To explore why some hotels have implemented 100% smoke-free policies voluntarily, the perceived consequences of doing so, and media responses.

Design: Qualitative study of hotel management and quantitative content analysis of media coverage of smoke-free hotels.

Setting: Hotels and media based in the United States.

United Nations Global Compact: an 'Inroad' into the UN and reputation boost for the tobacco industry.

Background: The United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), a UN initiative to engage corporations in supporting the UN's mission, sets out principles that companies should follow for more ethical business practices. Since its inception in 2000, at least 13 tobacco companies, subsidiaries and tobacco industry affiliates joined the UNGC. In a September 2017 integrity review, the UNGC Board excluded from UNGC participation companies who derive revenue from tobacco production or manufacturing.

Health Care Organizations and Policy Leadership: Perspectives on Nonsmoker-Only Hiring Policies.

Purpose: To explore employers' decisions to base hiring policies on tobacco or nicotine use and community perspectives on such policies, and analyze the implications for organizational identity, community engagement, and health promotion.

Method: From 2013 to 2016, 11 executives from six health care organizations and one non-health-care organization with nonsmoker-only hiring policies were interviewed about why and how their policies were created and implemented, concerns about the policies, and perceptions of employee and public reactions. Focus groups were conducted with community members (n = 51) who lived in or near cities where participating employers were based, exploring participants' opinions about why an employer would stop hiring smokers and their support (or not) for such a policy.

"It doesn't seem to make sense for a company that sells cigarettes to help smokers stop using them": A case study of Philip Morris's involvement in smoking cessation.

Background: In the late 1990s, American tobacco companies began offering limited cessation assistance to smokers by posting links on their company websites to government-sponsored smoking cessation resources. Philip Morris USA (PM) went further, funding youth cessation programs and creating its own online cessation program, QuitAssist. We explore why PM entered the cessation arena, and describe the variety of options considered and how PM-supported cessation programs were evaluated and promoted.

US Media Coverage of Tobacco Industry Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives.

Media coverage of tobacco industry corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives represents a competitive field where tobacco control advocates and the tobacco industry vie to shape public and policymaker understandings about tobacco control and the industry. Through a content analysis of 649 US news items, we examined US media coverage of tobacco industry CSR and identified characteristics of media items associated with positive coverage. Most coverage appeared in local newspapers, and CSR initiatives unrelated to tobacco, with non-controversial beneficiaries, were most commonly mentioned.

Policy coherence, integration, and proportionality in tobacco control: Should tobacco sales be limited to government outlets?

Multiple factors, including marijuana decriminalization/legalization, tobacco endgame discourse, and alcohol industry pressures, suggest that the retail regulatory environment for psychoactive or addictive substances is a dynamic one in which new options may be considered. In most countries, the regulation of tobacco, marijuana, and alcohol is neither coherent, nor integrated, nor proportional to the potential harms caused by these substances. We review the possible consequences of restricting tobacco sales to outlets run by government-operated alcohol retail monopolies, as well as the likely obstacles to such a policy.

"The Policy Dystopia Model": Implications for Health Advocates and Democratic Governance.

In this Perspective on the research article by Ulucanlar and colleagues, Elizabeth Smith and Patricia McDaniel discuss how industry opposition to regulation can undermine the public's overall confidence in government and science.

Shared vision, shared vulnerability: A content analysis of corporate social responsibility information on tobacco industry websites.

Tobacco companies rely on corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives to improve their public image and advance their political objectives, which include thwarting or undermining tobacco control policies. For these reasons, implementation guidelines for the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) recommend curtailing or prohibiting tobacco industry CSR. To understand how and where major tobacco companies focus their CSR resources, we explored CSR-related content on 4 US and 4 multinational tobacco company websites in February 2014.

African media coverage of tobacco industry corporate social responsibility initiatives.

Guidelines for implementing the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) recommend prohibiting tobacco industry corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, but few African countries have done so. We examined African media coverage of tobacco industry CSR initiatives to understand whether and how such initiatives were presented to the public and policymakers. We searched two online media databases (Lexis Nexis and Access World News) for all news items published from 1998 to 2013, coding retrieved items through a collaborative, iterative process.

Tobacco is "our industry and we must support it": Exploring the potential implications of Zimbabwe's accession to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

Background: Zimbabwe is the largest tobacco producer in Africa. Despite expressing opposition in the past, Zimbabwe recently acceded to the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). We explored why Zimbabwe acceded to the FCTC and the potential implications for tobacco control within Zimbabwe and globally.