Reducing Access to Vaping Products

AUGUST 2020

Tobacco/Vaping Work Group Sets Sight on Reducing Access to Vaping Products

As one of the Health Policy Advisory Committee’s (HPAC) five identified work groups, the Tobacco/Vaping group is furthering CHEST’s long-standing efforts in smoking cessation to counter the growing adoption among adolescents of vaping (e-cigarettes). HPAC member Laura Crotty Alexander, MD, who has been involved in e-cigarette research for the past 7 years, is now heading the efforts of this priority area as she and fellow member Roozehra Khan, DO, FCCP, set their sights on reducing smoking to less than 10% of the general population through regulating access to products for children as well as supporting CHEST’s current advocacy efforts. As the group moves forward, they plan to expand partnerships with like-minded organizations and conduct brainstorming sessions to identify tactics to reach the impressionable high school and college-age student population.

“Translating clinical data into advocacy messages is imperative as we leverage the information needed by influencers. School nurses, for example, are a prime advocate in our efforts, and we need to ensure that pulmonologists whose patients ask them about vaping as a means of quitting smoking have the facts,” says Dr. Crotty Alexander. CHEST has signed on with 50 other supporting medical societies and other organizations, including the American Thoracic Society and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, to urge the House Committee on Appropriations to oppose any efforts to weaken the FDA’s authority over cigars or any other tobacco products. This same group supported HR 7286, Quit Because of COVID-19 Act, introduced by Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Delaware), urging that all Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program enrollees have access to the full array of evidence-based tobacco cessation programs.

Dr. Crotty Alexander emphasizes, “Information is life-saving. Knowledge is power. We have the opportunity to take this message to national regulators for the benefit of the health of our patients and the nation to further the success CHEST has already had in this space.”

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