Worldwide news and comment

ABSTRACT

Despite some tobacco control success in China, likely as a result of completing MPOWER’s policies of monitoring tobacco use, introducing prevention policies and introducing mass media policies, the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) found that smoking cessation attempts have actually decreased from 36.4% of smokers in 2010 to 19.8% in 2018. [...]China faces significant tobacco-related disease burdens and direct and indirect economic costs, which have been estimated to be between USD$9 billion to USD$57.5 billion per year. Letters urging the Attorney General not to approve the Brookline bylaw were submitted by the Business Retail Association of Brookline and by the New England Convenience Store and Energy Marketers Association, while letters urging approval of the measure were submitted by Action on Smoking and Health and by PHAI. On 14 September, 2021, several Brookline tobacco retailers filed a lawsuit in Massachusetts Superior Court challenging the bylaw on the basis that despite the approval by the state attorney general, it is pre-empted under state law, and that it violated the Massachusetts Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law by discriminating against anyone born on or after 1 January, 2000.