A Proposed Policy Agenda For Electronic Cigarettes In The US: Product, Price, Place, And Promotion

Health Aff (Millwood). 2022 Sep;41(9):1299-1306. doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.2022.00187.

Abstract

Growth in the market for electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) raises complex questions about the devices' public health implications and, hence, challenging policy issues. We propose a policy agenda addressing concerns about preventing youth uptake of e-cigarettes and the desire to realize the potential of e-cigarettes to increase adult cigarette smoking cessation. We organize interventions according to the "four Ps" of marketing: product, price, place, and promotion. Policies include decreasing the addictiveness of combusted tobacco products while ensuring the availability of consumer-acceptable reduced-risk nicotine products, imposing large taxes on combustible products and smaller taxes on e-cigarettes, limiting the sale of all tobacco and (nonmedicinal) nicotine products to adult-only retailers, and developing communications that accurately portray e-cigarettes' risks to youth and benefits for inveterate adult smokers. All members of the public health community should unite to pursue a shared commitment to the principle that both youth and adults deserve a future free of tobacco-related disease.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems*
  • Humans
  • Nicotine
  • Policy
  • Smoking Cessation*
  • Tobacco Products*

Substances

  • Nicotine