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The ideas and innovators shaping health care | | | | |  | | By Ben Leonard, Erin Schumaker and Evan Peng | | | | |  Swedes have enjoyed snus for hundreds of years. | AFP via Getty Images | Efforts to combat smoking have driven U.S. smoking rates down by nearly half since 2005, to 11.5 percent of the adult population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Still, that’s a far cry from the 6 percent smoking rate in Sweden, which is within touching distance of the EU’s 5 percent target, where a country can declare itself officially smoke-free. Some Swedes attribute that success to the country’s tradition of using the smokeless tobacco product known as snus. By contrast, 18 percent of Europeans smoke. The case for snus: This spring, two Swedish politicians touted their country’s story at an event at the EU Parliament: “Recipe for a Smoke-Free Europe: Learnings from the Swedish Experience,” where they argued that snus use has given Swedes a smokeless alternative that’s helped drive down smoking rates, reports POLITICO’s Carlo Martuscelli. “I think the goal, if we want to fight tobacco-related mortality, is to get people to stop smoking cigarettes because cigarettes actually kill people,” Sara Skyttedal of the center-right European People’s Party said at the event. “I can tell you how we are not achieving this … overregulating products that have a serious potential to take market share away from cigarettes. Nicotine pouches, Swedish snus and e-cigarettes are examples of this.” Popular in Sweden for hundreds of years, snus is a porous pouch filled with a tobacco mixture that users stuff under their upper lip. Saliva releases the nicotine to be absorbed into the bloodstream through the gums’ thin skin. Unlike American chewing tobacco, it doesn’t require spitting. The hit is strong and immediate. In 2019, the most recent data available, snus was used daily by 14 percent of adult Swedes. Even so: An analysis of 73 scientific papers by a Swedish agency that evaluates technology and social services found data was insufficient to say whether snus helped people quit smoking or increased smoking rates. However, it did find, based on a low level of evidence, some suggestion that snus use could lead to smoking later in life. Anna Wetterqvist, a press officer for Sweden’s Public Health Agency, said the country’s smoking rate had been falling since the 1980s, while snus consumption remained steady. She attributed smoking’s waning popularity to anti-tobacco measures such as indoor smoking, flavored cigarette and advertising bans.
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Processed with VSCO with c1 preset | Evan Peng | This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. Reps. Dan Kildee, D-Mich., and Rick Crawford, R-Ark., have a bipartisan plan to incentivize healthier eating by giving beneficiaries of the government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program twice the spending power if they use their funds on locally grown fruits and vegetables. It builds on the existing Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program. Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Ben Leonard at bleonard@politico.com, Ruth Reader at rreader@politico.com, Carmen Paun at cpaun@politico.com or Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@politico.com. Send tips securely through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp. Today on our Pulse Check podcast, host Alice Miranda Ollstein talks with David Lim, who gives an update on the rise in Covid-related hospitalizations and explains why the White House is confident that treatments and vaccines can manage a potential fall outbreak.
| | | | | | | YOUR TICKET INSIDE THE GOLDEN STATE POLITICAL ARENA: California Playbook delivers the latest intel, buzzy scoops and exclusive coverage from Sacramento and Los Angeles to Silicon Valley and across the state. Don't miss out on the daily must-read for political aficionados and professionals with an outsized interest in California politics, policy and power. Subscribe today. | | | | | | | | |  The DEA has, until now, taken a skeptical line on virtual prescribing of controlled substances. | AFP via Getty Images | The Drug Enforcement Administration is signaling openness to relaxing its rules on the prescribing of controlled substances via telemedicine. In a notice posted Friday morning, the agency said it's considering creating a special registration process that would allow providers to write scripts for controlled substances without first meeting with patients in person. In the notice, the DEA said creating such a process would possibly require more data collection on prescribing practices to prevent overprescribing in "near-real-time." Why it matters: During the pandemic, the Trump and Biden administrations issued regulations allowing doctors to temporarily prescribe controlled substances, such as buprenorphine for opioid use disorder or Adderall for ADHD, without an in-person visit. In February, the DEA proposed making it more difficult for patients to access controlled substances after the end of the public health emergency in May and didn't include a special registration process, saying it would add more burdens. The agency expressed concern that telehealth firms have overprescribed medicines and has launched at least two investigations. But the February proposal came under fire from Democrats and Republicans in Congress and sparked a lobbying frenzy from telehealth companies, who argued that requiring in-person visits would impede access to care. The DEA changed course and decided to extend the pandemic rules through this November for new patients and through November 2024 for existing patients. The backstory: Congress told the DEA to facilitate virtual prescribing through a special registration process in the 2008 Ryan Haight Act, but the agency still hasn’t done so. What’s next? The agency will hold “listening sessions” at its Arlington, Va., headquarters Sept. 12 and 13 for the public to weigh in. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |  |
