Tobacco.org

Smokeless tobacco on the rise  

The use of smokeless tobacco in Jackson County has steadily risen in recent years among teens and adults -- and now, officials fear the introduction earlier this year of new, candy-flavored "dissolvable tobacco" lozenges will make matters worse.

Called Orbs, the pellets, which look and taste like breath mints, contain as much nicotine as a cigarette and could cause cancer of the mouth and throat, said Jane Stevenson, tobacco program coordinator for the county.

Among eighth-grade males in Jackson County, use of smokeless tobacco jumped from 2 percent in 2001 to 7 percent in 2006, reported Stevenson. Among 11th-grade males, it rose from 10 percent in 2001 to 16 percent in 2006. Among adults here, 3 percent use smokeless tobacco. These figures are 1 to 4 percent higher than the state rates.

"The increase of smokeless tobacco use here among teens is significant and alarming -- and dissolvable tobacco is just as addictive as smoking," said Stevenson. "They are packaged to look hip and trendy and they carry the Camel logo. Usually, people are very loyal to their tobacco brand."

The introduction of dissolvable tobacco pellets is in response to new laws prohibiting smoking in bars, restaurants and the workplace, said Mike Welch, owner of Puff's Magazine & Fine Tobacco, an Ashland smoke shop.

The target market for dissolvable pellets, Welch added, is people who buy low-end generic cigarettes. His store won't be selling them, he said, because too many of his customers are concerned about throat cancer.

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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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Never Smoked, but at Risk for Lung Cancer?  

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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Smoking More Than 5 Cigarettes A Day Provokes Migraine Attacks 

Tobacco acts as a precipitating factor for headaches, specifically migraines. This is indicated in a study which shows that smokers have more migraine attacks and that smoking more than five cigarettes a day triggers this headache. The work has appeared in the Journal of Headache and Pain.

The influence of tobacco as a precipitating, non-causal factor of migraine attacks has produced contradictory data in scientific literature. The limited research prior to the work published in The Journal of Headache and Pain indicated that smoking could improve migraines by reducing anxiety, one of the factors that triggers an attack.

"This study is groundbreaking in Spain as there are few studies on this topic, and all are very biased. This is due to the complexity and need for prior training of the participants", Julio Pascual, one of the authors of this research and doctor at the Neurology Unit of Marqu�s de Valdecilla, University Hospital (Santander), explains to SINC.

One advantage of this study is that the sample used, 361 medicine students from the University of Salamanca, were fully aware what a migraine was.

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Cigarette Butts Toxic to Marine Life 

Story Highlights

* Cigarette butts an environmental danger

* Are cigarette butts hazardous waste?

* About the Cigarette Butt Advisory Group

Every year billions of cigarette butts end up on our beaches and in the ocean . . .

"The most important finding in this research is that it seems to be the filter, or rather what's in the left-over filter that is most dangerous to our water," Gersberg said.

Cigarette filters are made of cellulose-acetate, which is not readily biodegradable.

An estimated 1.69 billion pounds of butts wind up as litter worldwide each year.

Cigarette Butts Are Hazardous Waste

In response to these new findings, the national Cigarette Butt Advisory Group (CBAG) has made the recommendation that cigarette butts be placed on the list of hazardous waste.

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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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Movie Character Smoking and Adolescent Smoking: Who Matters More, Good Guys or Bad Guys?  

METHODS: A longitudinal, random-digit-dial telephone survey of 6522 US adolescents was performed with movie exposure assessed at 4 time points over 24 months. Adolescents were asked whether they had seen a random subsample of recently released movies, for which we identified smoking by major characters and type of portrayal (divided into negative, positive, and mixed/neutral categories). Multivariate hazard regression analysis was used to assess the independent effects of these exposures on the odds of trying smoking. . . .

CONCLUSIONS: Character smoking predicts adolescent smoking initiation regardless of character type, which demonstrates the importance of limiting exposure to all movie smoking. Negative character portrayals of smoking have stronger impact on low risk-taking adolescents, undercutting the argument that greater exposure is a marker for adolescent risk-taking behavior.

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Unplanned quit attempts--Results from a U.S. sample of smokers and ex-smokers  

Discussion: The results suggest, similar to previous research, that a substantial proportion of quit attempts are unplanned and that such attempts can be a successful route to cessation. Given the frequency of such attempts, methods of making treatment available to assist unplanned quitting should be considered.

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New Study Shows Many Unplanned Quit Smoking Attempts Are Successful 

Data published in the journal, Nicotine and Tobacco Research, shows that many U.S. quit attempts are unplanned and can be a successful route to cessation. In the study, almost 40 percent of subjects reported that their most recent quit attempt started without any advance planning, suggesting that for some smokers, setting an advance quit date may not be as necessary as once thought.

While a period of planning prior to quitting has long been thought to allow smokers time to prepare themselves for their quit attempt, the study explores the various reasons as well as demographic and psychographic data which may contribute to a smoker deciding to quit spontaneously.

"The study examines the possibility that while quit attempts may seem like spontaneous efforts on the surface, they may actually be the result of prolonged subconscious dissatisfaction with or concern about one's smoking. The results do not discredit planning out a quit attempt, however, a smoker needs to determine what may be the best approach to ensure long-term cessation," said Dr. Saul Shiffman, professor in the departments of psychology and pharmaceutical science at the University of Pittsburgh and study co-author. "All smokers should consider ways to manage tough situations such as cravings and withdrawal symptoms to ensure long-term success."

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Warning: Quit-smoking drugs can kill ... but they're still on sale here  

Two drugs to help smokers kick the habit will continue to be sold in Hong Kong despite claims they may trigger depression or induce suicidal thoughts. . . .

A spokeswoman for the Hospital Authority said Champix is a self- financed medicine, but added frontline medical staff will heed FDA warnings.

Pfizer Corporate Affairs director Geraldine Ip Pui-see said depression and suicidal tendencies are among symptoms contained in the drug description.

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What is 'third-hand' smoke?  

"Third-hand" smoke refers to the cigarette byproducts that cling to smokers' hair and clothing as well as to household fabrics, carpets and surfaces -- even after secondhand smoke has cleared. Doctors coined the term to raise awareness about the danger these invisible tobacco toxins pose to small children, who are especially susceptible because they breathe near, crawl on, play on, touch and mouth contaminated surfaces.

The important thing to know is that you can't eliminate smoke exposure in your home by opening a window, using air conditioning or a fan, or allowing smoking in some rooms but not others. If you can smell tobacco smoke -- even if you can't see it -- you're breathing in toxins, including more than 60 known carcinogens. The only way to fully protect your children -- and nonsmoking adults in your family -- is to make your home and car smoke-free. Consider this added bonus: Enforcing these smoke-free zones may help smokers quit and reduce the risk of teens becoming smokers.

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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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Prepulse inhibition deficits in schizophrenia are modified by smoking status 

Background

Schizophrenia is associated with high rates of cigarette smoking and deficits in sensorimotor gating, as measured by prepulse inhibition (PPI) of the startle response. However, the relationship between PPI deficits and smoking status is unclear. We examined whether smoking status modifies PPI deficits in schizophrenia. . . .

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that PPI deficits are present in nonsmokers with schizophrenia, and may be modified by smoking status. Acute smoking in schizophrenia is associated with an elevation of PPI to the levels in non-psychiatric control smokers. These findings have significant implications for understanding vulnerability to tobacco dependence in schizophrenia, which may lead to the development of more effective treatments for PPI deficits and tobacco dependence in this population.

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• Cigarette smoking normalizes deficits in sensorimotor gating in schizophrenia 

Study results show that cigarette smoking has a positive effect on sensorimotor gating in patients with schizophrenia, improving the prepulse inhibition (PPI) deficit of the startle response to levels comparable to those seen in healthy individuals.

“These findings have significant implications for understanding vulnerability to tobacco dependence in schizophrenia, which may lead to the development of more effective treatments for PPI deficits and tobacco dependence in this population,” write Tony George (University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada) and co-authors in the journal Schizophrenia Research.

The authors studied PPI of the startle response as a function of smoking status and schizophrenia diagnosis in smokers with schizophrenia (n=14), non-smokers with schizophrenia (n=15), control smokers (n=11), and control non-smokers (n=10).

The authors found the smokers with schizophrenia had comparable levels of PPI – as seen by significant differences in the peak onset – to control smokers and non-smokers (33.0, 28.5, and 39.1 ms, respectively). Significantly higher levels of PPI were seen in smokers with schizophrenia than schizophrenia nonsmokers (peak onset = 33.0 vs 14.3 ms).

Furthermore, at all prepulse to pulse intervals (30, 60, and 120 ms), non-smokers with schizophrenia had an approximate 50% reduction in PPI compared with control non-smokers.

The study results therefore suggest that acute smoking to produce smoking satiation is associated with apparent normalization of PPI deficits in patients with schizophrenia.

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