Tobacco.org

EDITORIAL: Cigarette Smoking and Bladder Cancer: A New Twist in an Old Saga?  

The findings of Baris et al. (7) are provocative and are accompanied by a tenable hypothesis. Recalling the steady accumulation of evidence and the cautious inferences that eventually led to the determination that smoking causes bladder cancer, these intriguing findings offer a testable hypothesis that warrants thorough investigation. An important element of this research will be to more precisely, pinpoint the specific role of cigarette additives will be an important element of this research. This study highlights the need for continued vigilance in monitoring the impact of changing cigarette content and design on disease risk, and demonstrates that the public health implications of the changing cigarette content and design are potentially severe.

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EDITORIAL: Remember ‘blue seal’ cigarettes  

A SWISS company is proposing to put in place a system where tax stamps will be affixed on every pack of cigarette and every bottle of liquor to raise more revenues for the government.

The company, SICPA, wants to make it appear affixing stamps on highly taxable goods is a fool-proof way of curbing smuggling and tax evasion by manufacturers. The reality is that it is selling a fraudulent bill of goods.

It’s only about 20 years now that cigarettes and liquor have been free of the green BIR stamp on every pack . . .

SICPA claims its stamps cannot be counterfeited. In this land of fake peso bills, diplomas, passports and even visas, does SICPA really want us to believe its stamps could not be faked? Even a reasonable facsimile would do as in the previous experience with BIR stamps. The BIR stamps, it will be recalled, were also printed in security paper with watermark. A close look at the genuine BIR stamps and the fakes would show which was which. But to repeat, this did not discourage the smugglers.

But the biggest objection to the SICPA proposal is that it will raise prices by an estimated P1.50 a pack, a cost that will be passed on to consumers. Out of that P1.50, about P1 will go to the government and P0.50 to SICPA.

Given that kind of sharing, why does not the government simply increase the specific tax on cigarettes across-the-board by P1 a pack? The government collects the same revenues. The consumer gets a P0.50 break.

The only loser would be SICPA and, presumably, its sponsors who are ramming the proposal down the throat of the BIR.

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EDITORIAL: Tobacco shakedown: It's not 'for the children'  

When the state attorney general fabricates an allegation to justify charging a person with criminal activity, everyone in the state ought to take note.

Attorney General Michael Delaney is pursuing a case against Tobacco Haven, a roll-your-own tobacco shop in Brookline. According to the Attorney General's Office, Tobacco Haven owes the state a whole bunch of back taxes on cigarette tobacco. Tobacco Haven says it doesn't because the tobacco in question is for pipes, not cigarettes. Cigarette tobacco is taxed; pipe tobacco is not. . . .

The "for the children" line is deployed every time government goes after tobacco users. From the industry settlements in the 1990s to the massive increases in cigarette taxes in the last few years, states (New Hampshire included) have tried to justify soaking tobacco dealers and users by claiming that their revenue grabs were "for the children."

But it's never for the children. It's always for the revenue. Delaney's attempt to demonize these tobacco shop owners is an abuse of authority. His boss, Gov. John Lynch, should make clear that he won't stand for such abuses in the future.

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Our Opinion: Smoking Ban Extension Decision Belongs To Us 

Based on a judge's decision last week - and pending a possible appeal - South Dakota's proposed smoking ban extension will go to a vote of the people a year from now. And that's where the decision belongs.

The law, which would ban smoking in bars, video lottery operations and Deadwood casinos, was passed by the Legislature last winter. . . .

What we all hope should follow during the next year is an informative discussion on the pros and cons of public smoking. This discussion should include the rights of business owners versus the rights of the public, the dangers of smoking and second-hand smoke, the economic impact of smoking not only in terms of businesses that may rely on it but also on health care in this country. The discussion must also include what's best for the future of this state and for its people.

The smoking ban vote should be an opportunity for the public to get involved in this dialogue. Whether we all do or not remains to be seen. Let's all hope to see it.

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EDITORIAL: Smoking: Unexpected cough | Jacksonville.com 

It's a small increase as increases go. Less than 1 percent.

But the news that cigarette smoking among adults went up at all for the first time since 1994 is cause for some alarm. . . .

Of course, there's no price tag that can be put on a decreased quality of life or the related miseries from smoking that smokers and their loved ones may have to endure.

The adult smoking rate has been declining, off and on, since the 1960s, The Associated Press reports. At one time, two of five adult Americans smoked.

But the latest number - even if just a blip on the big picture - shows that prevention programs shouldn't take any vacations.

It's a matter of life and death.

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EDITORIAL: Fresh air for nonsmokers in Palm Desert  

For nonsmokers, few things are more offensive than to walk out of the office door and be greeted by a cloud of cigarette smoke. This became commonplace a few years ago when smoking was banished from most buildings.

On Thursday, the Palm Desert City Council did something about this. It voted to amend its smoking ordinance to rule that smokers must be at least 20 feet away from building entrances.

The Desert Sun applauds the decision. . . .

Thursday is the 34th annual Great American Smokeout. Smokers should quit for a day and visit the Web site www.cancer.org/GreatAmericans for tips on how to quit for good and add years to their lives.

Then they can join us in applauding Palm Desert's new limits on smoking.

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EDITORIAL: Tax hike would reduce smoking 

There were more adult smokers in the United States in 2008 than in the year before, the first time in nearly 15 years that the rate of smoking has increased , according to a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It's a troubling trend for an activity that is the No. 1 most preventable cause of cancer. . . .

Yet, in South Carolina, state lawmakers continue to reject the most effective way to encourage people to quit this harmful and expensive activity: raising the cigarette tax.

South Carolina's cigarette tax stands at 7 cents a pack. Seven cents. That's by far the lowest cigarette tax in the nation, and it has not been raised in more than three decades. . . .

The good news is lawmakers have an opportunity to revive the bill when they convene in January. This is the second of a two-year legislative term, and the Senate can approve the compromise when the session begins.

Whether they do that, or come at the tax increase with a new bill, lawmakers need finally to decide this year to raise this state's abysmally low cigarette tax.

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OUR VIEW: State needs to cut smoking rate  

we Hoosiers smoke too much.

According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey published last week, more than 26 percent of Hoosiers smoked in 2008. We're No. 2 in the nation, only behind West Virginia. Indiana was ranked sixth in 2007. Nationally, 20.6 percent of Americans light up, so clearly, Indiana has much work to do to catch up with the rest of the nation.

We suppose it could be argued the recession, with its anxiety- and stress-inducing pangs of uncertainty, is driving the numbers upward, but Indiana has always had high smoking rates no matter what phase of the economy.

We need to do a better job with existing tools to snuff smoking.

One of those, a ban on workplace smoking, was enacted in Delaware County in 2006 after nearly a decade of debate.

What's needed now is a comprehensive statewide measure that prohibits smoking at the workplace and in public places such as restaurants.

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Newton TAB Editorial: Smoking ban a bad idea  

Newton --

This week the Board of Aldermen passed an ordinance disallowing pharmacies from selling tobacco products. We are very disappointed in the vote and in the 18 aldermen who supported the measure, including some who told us privately that they were opposed to such a ban but didn't want to be seen as pro-smoking.

We applaud Aldermen Bill Brandel, Jay Harney and Amy Sangiolo for courageously voting against it. . . .

If the intended purpose is to make it more difficult for teens to buy cigarettes, it's a noble effort, but it's not going to work. All we've done is taken cigarettes out of a carefully monitored setting where underage smokers are probably least likely to buy cigarettes and deferred the business to gas stations and convenience stores, where underage smokers are more likely to buy cigarettes.

With all the substantive problems facing this city, our aldermen should not be getting involved in legislating what stores can and cannot sell. That's not why we elect them.

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EDITORIAL: A moving target  

When the federal government raised the tax on the loose tobacco people use to roll their own cigarettes a staggering 2,000 percent, companies stopped selling "loose tobacco." Smokers stopped buying it. Very little of the projected tax revenue of $35 million per month appeared.

Yet smokers still roll their own cigarettes and still legally buy the ingredients.

Pipe tobacco is taxed at a rate of $2.83 per pound. Loose cigarette tobacco is now taxed at $24.78 per pound. . . .

Again and again we see that taxes meant to change the behavior of the taxed backfire. They rarely raise the revenue their proponents promise, generally don't cause people to act as predicted and often create unintended consequences.

The fairer a tax is, the harder it is to evade. . . .

Seemingly incapable of learning, the federal government is now looking to set stricter legal distinctions between pipe and cigarette tobacco in an attempt to collect its money. Unmentioned is the issue of why the tax on one should be 10 times the tax on the other.

Perhaps government policymakers think pipes are cool and intellectual, and home-rolled cigarettes are just uncouth. If so, that's a poor rationale for tax policy.

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• CORCORAN: Ottawa's fruit-flavoured tobacco bomb 

The result was Bill C-32, officially titled The Cracking Down on Tobacco Marketing Aimed at Youth Act -- a misnomer if ever there was one. Today, a year later, what Mr. Harper's Conservatives have delivered instead is an over-the-top law that threatens a global trade war and another bonanza for Canada's already out-of-control contraband cigarette market.

The trade-war potential gathered momentum earlier this month when, according to Inside US Trade, the United States joined Argentina, Mexico, Switzerland, the European Union and other nations in opposition to Ottawa's new anti-bubble-gum tobacco law. At a meeting in Geneva, the nations said Canada's law would restrict trade in regular tobacco products to the benefit of Canadian tobacco producers.

The more immediate impact of the law, however, is a ban on the sale in Canada of virtually all brands of U.S. cigarettes. Guess where that leads? The logical result of a ban on legal imports of Marlboros and Winstons is new demand for illegal supplies through the burgeoning Native-dominated contraband market, a tax-evading multi-billion-dollar industry that already accounts for between 33% to 50% of the Canadian cigarette market. . . .

While this may look like another case of unintended consequences run amok, it more likely is part of deliberate scheming by Health Canada officials and others who are consciously using fruit-flavoured smokes to create a global tobacco trade bomb against the U.S. and tobacco industries in Europe, South America and Asia. . . .

Still, Bill C-32 became law, even though Senator Segal abstained over the trade issue. As a result, Mr. Harper's opportunistic election gimmick, aimed at curbing the use of flavoured tobacco to children, will do nothing to protect children. By further enhancing the power and scope of the contraband market, it will only increase the supply of illegal cigarettes, a prime source of tobacco to the young. At the same time, the government has launched a protectionist scheme that threatens a trade conflict.

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EDITORIAL: Tobacco ban helps UK, state’s health for future 

But with the ban, UK is no longer looking to the past, but to the future.

In four or five years, only a relatively small number will remember what it was like to use tobacco on this campus. In that time, this year’s freshman class, the last one to see tobacco use at UK, will be on the way out. The fresh faces that will come after them will never know what they missed.

Nor will they care.

UK is responsible for the greater community. As the state's flagship unversity with so many resources and such a far-reaching influence, it must be a leader in the tobacco-free movement.

The university and the state have obvious deep ties to the controversial crop. . . .

Going tobacco-free is possibly the best decision UK has made all year.

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EDITORIAL: Tighten laws on tobacco and public smoking 

It is a pity that when many developed countries have tightened laws to make smoking unacceptable or illegal in public places, in developing countries it is the reverse.

In the last 40 years, according to the ACS, smoking rates have fallen in rich countries like the United States, Britain and Japan but have been rising in most of the developing world. Statistics show that smoking will kill six million people worldwide as early as 2010 and 72% of those will be from low and middle-income countries. Uganda is a poor country whose health sector is grossly inadequate. . . .

According to the Uganda Heart Institute, respiratory diseases and lung cancer will be Uganda's leading killer by 2020.

Lung cancer is closely associated with smoking and is on the increase because anti-smoking laws are very weak or non-existent in poor countries. In 2004, the then environment minister Kahinda Otafiire imposed a smoking ban in all public places. However, since the public places were not gazetted, its enforcement became problematic. Clearly, there is need to discourage smoking.

The starting point is to help tobacco growers switch to alternative crops. The law on public smoking must be vigorously enforced and non-smoking areas clearly demarcated. Cigarettes should be sold in packets and not as individual sticks to make its cost prohibitive.

Churches, mosques and schools should play a role in sensitising people about the danger of smoking. With concerted effort, the deadly menace of smoking can be tackled.

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• EDITORIAL: Cigarette Smoking and Bladder Cancer: A New Twist in an Old Saga?  

So far, the changing carcinogenic properties of cigarettes have been studied most extensively for lung cancer, and it is known that this risk has increased over time (13). Furthermore, the relative risks of mortality from "other smoking-related cancers" increased for both men (RR = 2.7 to 3.5) and women (RR = 1.8 to 2.6) when a cohort established in 1959, with follow-up through 1965, and another cohort established in 1982, with follow-up through 1988, were compared (14). In cohort studies carried out in the United States, that reported the RR for current smokers relative to nonsmokers in relation to bladder cancer incidence. No increase in the association was observed in successive and overlapping cohorts in Washington County, Maryland (RR = 2.7 for bladder cancer incidence in current smokers relative to nonsmokers in the first cohort, followed from 1963 to 1988; RR = 2.6 in the second cohort, followed from 1975 to 1994) (15). A similar relative risk (RR = 2.9) was reported in a Hawaiian cohort followed from 1966 to 1988 (16). In a few recent cohort studies, reported RRs of bladder cancer incidence among current smokers relative to nonsmokers were notably higher: 5.7 in Seventh Day Adventists followed from 1976 to 1982 (17) and 5.5 in the Iowa Women's Health Study cohort followed from 1986 to 1998 (18). This evidence is equivocal but certainly does not rule out that the association has grown stronger over time.

The findings of Baris et al. (7) are provocative and are accompanied by a tenable hypothesis. Recalling the steady accumulation of evidence and the cautious inferences that eventually led to the determination that smoking causes bladder cancer, these intriguing findings offer a testable hypothesis that warrants thorough investigation. An important element of this research will be to more precisely, pinpoint the specific role of cigarette additives will be an important element of this research. This study highlights the need for continued vigilance in monitoring the impact of changing cigarette content and design on disease risk, and demonstrates that the public health implications of the changing cigarette content and design are potentially severe.

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EDITORIAL: The battle continues  

COMPLACENCY has its cost. It has led some people to erroneously believe that smoking is fading as a public health danger. But a new report by the government dispels that perception by showing a small but disturbing uptick in the number of American smokers. . . .

Gains have been undermined by cuts in state tobacco control campaigns, as happened in Ohio. Tobacco companies have offered deep discounts to offset tax increases, and, since the 1998 state tobacco settlement, overall tobacco marketing has risen substantially. . . .

Basically, say anti-smoking advocates, when you increase tobacco prices and fund tobacco prevention and cessation programs, smoking rates go down, and when prices stay flat and programs are cut, rates go up. The challenge, they say, is to resist the complacency that follows victory over tobacco use, as with indoor smoking bans, higher cigarette taxes, and Congress' recent decision to allow the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco.

The CDC survey clearly indicates that much more needs to be done to reduce smoking. The cost to the nation in lives and medical expense is too steep to allow backsliding now with an unhealthy habit that remains the number one preventable cause of death in the United States.

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