Historical and political context for Philip Morris International's continuing medical education courses on harm reduction.

In 2024, Philip Morris International's (PMI) website stated they support 'independent' continuing medical education courses on harm reduction for medical and other healthcare professionals. These courses mirrored industry marketing and political strategies by presenting smokeless tobacco products and e-cigarettes as alternatives to smoking, sometimes without mentioning tobacco cessation. The enactment of the US Family Smoking and Tobacco Control Act gave the US Food and Drug Agency jurisdiction over tobacco products and included the industry's 'continuum of risk' frame, and emboldened tobacco companies to make harm reduction claims about these products, which they had previously avoided for fear of triggering restrictive regulation of cigarettes.

Cannabis legalization and changes in cannabis and tobacco/nicotine use and co-use in a national cohort of U.S. adults during 2017-2021.

Background: Little is known about whether cannabis legalization impacts cannabis use uptake or has spillover effects on co-use of cannabis and tobacco/nicotine (using both in the past 30 days). We determined associations of cannabis legalization with self-reported (1) current (past 30-day) cannabis use; (2) current ("now") tobacco/nicotine use (smoking or electronic cigarette use); and (3) current co-use of cannabis and tobacco/nicotine and how prevalence is changing over time.

Methods: In this longitudinal study, a web-based survey was administered to a nationally representative, population-based panel of US adults in 2017, 2020, and 2021.

More than a "characterizing flavor": Menthol at subliminal levels in tobacco products.

Introduction: In addition to imparting flavor, menthol in menthol-flavored cigarettes enhances nicotine addiction and increases experimentation, initiation, and progression to regular smoking. Menthol can be added to cigarettes at perceptible levels (so-called flavored cigarettes or characterized flavored cigarettes) or non-perceptible levels (subliminal). Our objective was to understand the reasons that tobacco companies use subliminal menthol.