On May 20th of last year, the EU ban on the manufacture and sale of menthol cigarettes went into effect for the Union’s 27 member countries. This regulatory move was predicated on the view that such a ban would discourage people from starting smoking or encourage existing smokers to quit—thus contributing to general public health. […]

In Part I, I discussed failures in the implementation of the Global Strategy to Accelerate Tobacco Control 2019-2025 (GS2025). As that post indicates, there are many factors contributing to shortcomings on this front. In the current piece, I focus on one where a country, Thailand, which, in my opinion, is still facing challenges in reducing […]

It was an era in which we became accustomed to daily death tolls broadcast on TV; work, school, and play shifted to virtual space; and masks served as both a life-saving accessory and confounding controversy. On many fronts, the era was marked by despair, not only from the virus proper, but also from the isolation […]

In 2018, the World Health Organization (WHO) adopted the Global Strategy to Accelerate Tobacco Control 2019-2025 (GS2025). Described as “a blueprint for the global tobacco control community,” this strategy sought to accelerate implementation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). Two years later, one cannot help but notice the absence of any report […]

Smoking remains a major public health challenge in Rhode Island. While Rhode Island has one of the lowest reported youth smoking rates in the US at 4.2%, and smoking rates have declined from 17.4% to 14.4% from 2011-2016 for adults and 13% to 4.2% from 2009-2019 for high school students, roughly a quarter of RI’s […]