Tobacco.org

Letter - A Mother’s Love, a Message on Smoking 

In "Aiming Wide in City War on Smoking" (NYC column, June 30), Clyde Haberman reports that the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene wants to post photos of diseased lungs next to cash registers where cigarettes are purchased.

My mother had a better idea. When the surgeon general issued his report "Smoking and Health" in 1964, she got hold of a copy, wrote on the cover, "To my children and their friends, because I love them," and left it on the pillow each time we had an overnight guest.

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Tobacco prevention program gets reprieve  

The Washington County Tobacco Prevention Program has received a grant that will keep operations going through Sept. 25, but after that the future is still uncertain.

The program, which has helped more than 1,000 area residents stop using tobacco and served more than 10,000 youth through prevention programs, was scheduled to end Tuesday due to funding shifts.

Now, a Rural Hospital Flexibility Grant (FLEX) grant from the Ohio Department of Health will keep full services going for three more months while employees apply for additional funding.

"We have (smoking cessation) classes scheduled, we'll be able to provide materials at no cost, we're moving ahead," said director Stephanie Davis. "For now, we're keeping our jobs and more importantly we'll be able to provide services to the community."

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• Health groups back tobacco treaty  

With legislation to strengthen tobacco regulation now signed into law, public health groups are pushing for the Senate to ratify a treaty on tobacco control that has languished for five years.

Though the United States signed the treaty in May 2004, President George W. Bush never submitted it for approval by the Senate, the final step in the process.

The treaty requires a host of anti-smoking measures by the 164 signing nations. And it seeks to attack global issues such as cross-border advertising and tobacco smuggling.

Supporters say it is time for the Senate to act.

"There's no excuse, we really should," Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said in an interview in the White House Rose Garden after President Barack Obama signed the new law that allows the federal Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco products.

Opponents, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., believe American participation in the treaty is unnecessary. . . .

The global treaty threatens the future of tobacco growers in Kentucky and other states, as well as around the world, said Roger Quarles, president of the Burley Tobacco Growers Cooperative Association.

"It's basically a pathway to eradicate tobacco consumption and production throughout the entire world," said Quarles, who is also president of the International Tobacco Growers Association.

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BROWN : New tobacco control act  

The annual health care costs in New Jersey directly caused by smoking amount to $3.17 billion. Residents' state and federal tax burden from smoking-caused government expenditures is $664 per household. Regardless of the state of the economy, no one wants any of his or her hard-earned money going toward these costs, let alone $664. Finances aside, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act will save something much more precious than money: It will save lives. The law "gives us hope," as President Obama said, adding that, "It will help protect the next generation of Americans from growing up with a deadly habit."

To learn more about cessation resources on how to quit smoking, visit lungusa.org or call 1-800-LUNG-USA, ext. 2.

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MUHLE: Tobacco use is deadly and contributes to poverty  

Tobacco is a health problem directly resulting from the impact of globalisation. As other expects put it: "[Tobacco] provides examples of the ways in which globalisation, trade liberalisation, modern communication and marketing, direct foreign investment and the growth of multi-national corporations can impact on the poor, on life expectancies and health status, and on the ability of national governments to legislate for and implement tobacco control policies." This article is an attempt to help demonstrate why tobacco is a developmental issue and also a public health issue. One could as well argue that it may be considered to be within the same bracket as AIDS. Like HIV and AIDS it will certainly pose a challenge to those who deny the reality of tobacco as an epidemic. So many lives of fellow Swazis are at risk--many unwittingly. This article is a humble attempt to let us understand why - given all that we know - so little is being done about this silent yet venomously deadly epidemic. All evidence point to the reality that tobacco smoking, like HIV, is on the increase in the country. Like HIV, it is being denied and very little seems to be done about it at all levels. Like HIV, it is not easy to confront it, let alone change. Nevertheless, we must face up to the reality of how the use of tobacco is damaging our people, especially the young--the very vestige of our future as a people and society. . . . The one greatest challenge we are facing as country in this front is the illicit trade on this deadly product as demonstrated by the recent spate of cigarette smugglings in truck loads! You and I have a duty to play our role and help the people of this country overcome this impeding epidemic regardless of who is purported to be involved in the smuggling syndrome--remember this words "without fear or favour"? The ball is in our court!

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Cash boost to curb smoking 

CIVIC chiefs have been given a £100,000 boost to help smokers quit and reduce health inequalities.

The cash will be used to increase the number of successful smokers quitting, reduce the number of youngsters starting to smoke and to crackdown on cheap and illicit tobacco.

Hartlepool Borough Council has been given the cash by the Department of Health as part of its Reducing Health Inequalities through Tobacco Control programme.

It comes in the same week as the Mail revealed that more than 500 law-breakers have been hit in the pocket for dumping cigarette ends.

A total of 531 people were handed £75 fixed penalty notices in Hartlepool for dumping cigarette butts between April 2008 and March this year.

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ROY: Package warning: A good anti-tobacco tools  

Currently, under the Tobacco Control Act 2005 in Bangladesh, only written warnings on tobacco products are required to occupy 30 per cent of the main surfaces of the packets. Such warnings include "Smoking Kills" and "smoking Causes Lung Cancer". Under the FCTC (Framework Convention for Tobacco Control), pictorial warnings accompanied with written messages should account for 50 per cent (front and back) of the total packet of tobacco products.

Already, there has been tremendous progress in Bangladesh implementing legislation to mandate pictorial warnings. Seven countries including Thailand, Australia and Singapore require all tobacco containing products to convey health warning pictorial and message accounting for a minimum of 50 percent both side of the total packet.

Most of the story of tobacco control in Bangladesh is still unwritten and events continue to unfold. It remains to be seen whether the tobacco control movement will be sufficiently powerful and proactive to counter industry tactics and persuade the government to take strong measures to control tobacco. The tobacco industry is a mighty force in Bangladesh than elsewhere and it will be difficult to maintain a spotlight on tobacco in the face of so many competing causes of disease and ill health. But if the progress made over the past few years is any indication of the future, the many organizations and individuals working for tobacco control in Bangladesh have good reason to be optimistic. . . . we need to act now. This is the time to go ahead to save our future generation. And for that let us work together.

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• Smokers priced out of the habit  

CIGARETTES would cost more than $20 for a packet of 30 and come in plain wrapping under a radical proposal being considered by the Federal Government to fund a massive preventive health program.

The cigarette tax hike and ban on all remaining forms of tobacco advertising have been included in the Federal Government's yet-to-be-released Preventative Health Taskforce report.

The report, being examined by Health Minister Nicola Roxon, urges the Federal Government to slash smoking rates in the next decade to 9 per cent of the adult population, cutting the number of people 14 and older who smoke daily from 3 million to 2 million.

Under the changes cigarette packets would be generic with larger graphic health warnings . . .

The plan has been strongly backed by anti-smoking organisations such as the Public Health Association, the Cancer Council and the National Heart Foundation but has alarmed cigarette companies, which are claiming such changes could be unlawful.

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Experts: Big Tobacco dead by 2047, possibly sooner 

The pair published "Stealing a March in the 21st Century: Accelerating Progress in the 100-Year War Against Tobacco Addiction in the United States" in the July issue of the American Journal of Public Health. Michael Fiore and Timothy Baker, director and associate director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention (UW-CTRI), respectively, chart milestones in beating tobacco addiction and map a battle plan to eradicate tobacco use in the next few decades. The researchers analyzed data from the 1960s, when the first systemic tracking of smoking rates began, until the present.

"Numerous observers have claimed over time that tobacco use has plateaued and progress against its use has stalled," the authors write. "However, the remarkable decline in rates of tobacco use since the 1960s belies this claim and underscores the remarkable success of tobacco control efforts to date."

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show adults smoking between 1965 and 2007 dropped by an average of one half of one percentage point per year, from 42 percent to the current rate of about 20 percent rate. While this rate of decline hasn't occurred each year, the overall decrease has been quite steady.

The two researchers urge a nationwide effort designed to accelerate the rate of decline over the next 50 years

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User: officials meet pumping "bare smoke" is a red naked naked supervision Declaration rejected 

Some officials are now meeting with the display of cigarettes, "the new attention." June 29, netizen "sister peaches" online posting on the peninsula, "officials have become smarter, and now all available on the meeting smoke naked", with photos showing city officials held a meeting table with a plate placed the number of for access to cigarettes. Without the luxury packaging, a few cigarettes a neatly placed in the plate, even if the camera angle was no longer the close, still do not see what is the licensing of these smoke

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Smoking ban on cartoon characters too! 

If you thought it was only a certain former Indian minister who zealously wanted to put an end to smoking on screen, you’re wrong.

For a health group in the UK is trying to one up the ex-minister. Yes, it is planning to certify cartoons that have smoking scenes as 18+!

And, people are equally flabbergasted by the move like many across the world. “It’s quite funny to hear this because the cartoon Popeye single-handedly made spinach a craze in the US, and created awareness about healthy eating among youngsters. If you mention the word Popeye to any kid, I’m pretty sure a pipe will not figure even in the top five terms that they associate with the cartoon,” says software professional Nirmal Venkatranghan.

VJ Pooja, who is a self-confessed Popeye fan, says, “As a fan of Popeye, I can safely say that he doesn’t exactly smoke, in the truest sense of the word.” . . .

Agrees a volunteer from an NGO that preaches against smoking, “These are actions being taken by a few over-zealous individuals who are misguided in their efforts to restrict smoking.” He also offers a constructive alternative, “Instead, governments across the world should use these cartoons constructively to preach about the evil effects of smoking to children.” Now, here is someone talking reason. But will the folks who matter listen?

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• Using The Internet To Help Young Smokers Quit 

The University of Illinois at Chicago is leading a $2.9 million National Cancer Institute project to increase demand for evidence-based, Internet-based smoking cessation treatment among young adults.

"Even though many young adults think about quitting and actually want to stop smoking, they tend not to use what we know works - evidence-based approaches to quitting," said psychology professor Robin Mermelstein, director of UIC's Institute for Health Research and Policy and principal investigator of the five-year study.

Young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 have the highest rates of smoking compared to any other age group, but they have among the lowest rates of quitting, according to Mermelstein.

A multidisciplinary team of investigators from UIC, the University of Iowa and the American Legacy Foundation will work with GDS&M Idea City advertising agency to develop interactive, Internet-based ads and evaluate what messages motivate young smokers to use the evidence-based stop smoking program www.BecomeAnEx.org. . . .

The four-part study will develop Internet-based ads, evaluate if the ads are reaching young adults and driving them to Internet-based cessation programs, determine if the approaches are effective, and find out if those who used the Internet-based program were successful in stopping smoking.

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Panel suggests eliminating tobacco from military within 20 years  

A complete ban on tobacco in the military is needed but would likely take about 20 years, according to a new Institute of Medicine study commissioned by the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs.

The ban is possible if the DOD begins to "close the pipeline of new tobacco users entering the military" and slowly cuts off supplies of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, the Committee on Smoking Cessation in Military and Veteran Populations found in its study, which was released Friday.

The DOD and VA asked the institute for recommendations on how to deal with smoking among servicemembers.

The study gives a bleak account of the health and financial toll tobacco takes on the military, which has nearly twice the smoking rate of the civilian population.

More than 30 percent of servicemembers smoke or use tobacco, though smokeless tobacco use is less certain. Those people are more likely to drop out of basic training, have poor vision, leave the service within the first year, get sick and miss work, according to the study findings.

The 15-member committee of doctors and health care professionals said the best way to reduce the problem is to eliminate it through a phased-in tobacco ban across the services. . . .

The NIH researchers said many in the DOD have avoided pressuring smokers deployed to war zones to enter smoking cessation programs, and they had trouble finding DOD documentation on whether those smoking cessation programs were helping people quit.

“This does not inspire confidence that the programs are meeting the needs of military personnel and it prevents contributions from outside personnel on how the programs might be improved,” researchers wrote.

The cessation programs should be improved and even deployed servicemembers must be encouraged to quit tobacco by commanders, the committee recommended.

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Maryland Notebook: Secrets of Grass-Roots Organizer's Success 

Most Annapolis insiders know Vinnie DeMarco as an indefatigable advocate for universal health care, beloved by progressive Democrats and dismissed by conservatives. As executive director of the nonprofit Maryland Citizens Health Initiative, he's a familiar face to reporters: a friendly nudge, always looking for publicity for his causes.

Now comes a book by Michael Pertschuk, a consumer advocate and a former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, that immortalizes DeMarco and his story as a template for successful grass-roots organizing.

"The DeMarco Factor: Transforming Public Will Into Political Power," scheduled to be published in the spring by Vanderbilt University Press, chronicles DeMarco's successful campaigns against the National Rifle Association, the tobacco lobby, Wal-Mart and the health-care industry.

Pertschuk explains how DeMarco, a former leader of the Maryland Young Democrats, has, since the 1980s, organized broad coalitions of health policy advocates, unions, churches and faith communities and even some business interests to help defeat the state's gun and tobacco lobbies with tougher gun control laws and higher cigarette taxes.

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Renewed push to ban cigarette branding on packs 

PRESSURE is mounting for brand labels to be removed from cigarette packets - a move that the tobacco industry bluffed a previous Labor government out of pursuing, according to anti-tobacco campaigners.

The Public Health Association, the Cancer Council and Heart Foundation yesterday swung behind Family First Senator Steve Fielding's move to introduce legislation banning brand labels on cigarette packs. "There is no case for allowing any glossy brand promotion for a product that is lethal and addictive," Senator Fielding said.

The national preventative health taskforce in its report handed to the Government this week is expected to call for the branding ban - which the tobacco industry has fiercely resisted in the past.

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