Tobacco.org

• FDA warns Web companies not to sell flavored cigs 

The Food and Drug Administration said Friday that it has warned several companies to stop selling banned flavored cigarettes to U.S. consumers online.

The agency sent letters this week to more than a dozen Web-based companies saying they are violating a new ban and asking the companies to describe in writing what action they have taken to comply.

The FDA banned candy-, fruit- and clove-flavored cigarettes in September. Federal health authorities and regulators say those products appeal especially to young people and are thought to attract new smokers.

"FDA takes the enforcement of this flavored cigarette ban seriously," Dr. Lawrence R. Deyton, director of FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, said in a statement. "These actions should send a clear message to those who continue to break the law that FDA will take necessary actions to protect our children from initiating tobacco use."

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2008 New Zealand
Tobacco Use Survey: Quitting Results (PDF) 

Key Points

Introduction

This report presents the quitting results of 15–64-year-olds from the 2008 New Zealand Tobacco Use Survey (NZTUS), including, where possible, comparisons with the 2006 NZTUS.

Quitting attempts

In 2008 an estimated19,600 New Zealanders had quit smoking in the previous 6–12 months.

Three out of five current smokers had tried to quit smoking in the past five years, a third of smokers had quit for at least 24 hours in the past 12 months and a fifth had successfully quit for a week before starting to smoke again.

Four out of five current smokers said that they would not smoke if they had their life over again.

Three-quarters of smokers who had tried to quit in the past 12 months said one of the reasons was for their own health, while a third had tried to quit because of the cost of smoking.

Quitting services and programmes

Among current smokers, three-quarters had been asked their smoking status by a health care worker in the past 12 months.

Māori and Pacific people and those from areas of high deprivation were more likely than the total New Zealand population aged 15–64 years and those from the least deprived areas respectively to have been asked their smoking status by a health care worker over the past 12 months.

Over a quarter (27.6%) of 15–64-year-old current smokers had been given advice or information, referred to quitting programmes or given quitting aids by a health care worker in the past 12 months.

Māori current smokers were two-fifths more likely than all current smokers aged
15–64, and current smokers living in the most deprived areas were twice as likely as those in the least deprived areas to have been provided with advice or information, referred to quitting programmes or given quitting aids by a health care worker in the past 12 months.

A third of people who had tried to quit smoking in the past 12 months (‘recent quit attempters’) had used quitting products or advice in their most recent quit attempt. The most common product used was nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) (19.5%). Quitline was used by one in eight, and general practitioners were used by 6% of recent quit attempters.

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• 29 Businesses In Violation of Selling Tobacco to Minors 

Guam Public Law No. 24-278 (also known as the Tobacco Control Act of 1998) mandates the conduct of random, unannounced tobacco vendor compliance inspections each year.� The Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse (DMHSA) in partnership with the Department of Revenue and Taxation (DRT) completed its island wide 2009 monitoring activity.

For this current year, 347 businesses were inspected throughout the nineteen villages on the island; twenty-nine (29) were found to be in violation for selling tobacco products to minors and were cited by DRT officers.� P.L. 24-278 prohibits vendors from selling tobacco products to persons under the age of 18 and if found to be in violation, must pay a graduated penalty of anywhere from $500 up to $5,000 per violation.

This vendor monitoring activity is federally mandated by the U.S. Center for Substance Abuse Prevention for all states and territories who receive substance abuse prevention and treatment block grant funds.� Guam must provide assurances that the island’s tobacco vendors do not sell tobacco products to individuals below the age of 18.

“Guam has the highest tobacco use rates nationwide among youth and adults. Vendor compliance to not sell tobacco products to minors is an effective strategy for reducing tobacco use among youth and eventual health-related consequences.” said David L. G. Shimizu, Director of the Department of Mental Health & Substance Abuse.

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• Push to restrict tobacco sales to drugstores 

Now San Francisco entrepreneur Stuart Skorman, founder of the now defunct holistic-oriented drugstore chain Elephant Pharmacy, wants to make pharmacies the only places that sell tobacco products.

Skorman, who on Thursday launched a nonprofit organization called HealthyPharmacies.org to promote his idea, believes that restricting cigarette sales to pharmacies would not only control the distribution and visibility of the product, but also give pharmacists the opportunity to counsel customers about quitting.

The idea would also prevent kids from going down to the corner store to buy cigarettes from a clerk who may not check identification, he said.

"Keeping tobacco away from 12-year-olds saves lives and billions of dollars from the health care system," he said.

Skorman advocates testing the concept in some cities and then comparing the impact on smoking with those that have banned the sale of tobacco products in drugstores. He said he's in discussions with city officials interested in the idea, but declined to name the cities.

"If limiting distribution and limiting the visibility of this dangerous product reduces smoking in communities, we believe pharmacists would be more than happy to be part of the program," he said.

The problem? Most pharmacists and health experts interviewed for this story found the idea downright unhealthy.

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If limiting distribution and limiting the visibility of this dangerous product reduces smoking in communities, we believe pharmacists would be more than happy to be part of the program
San Francisco entrepreneur Stuart Skorman, who wants to make pharmacies the only places that sell tobacco products.

16 Warren businesses cited in tobacco sales to minors  

A crackdown on tobacco sales to minors in Warren resulted in citations for 16 businesses over the past two months, Warren Mayor Jim Fouts said today.

During the first operation, at the start of the school year in September, police cited nine businesses for selling tobacco to minors. Last week, police cited seven businesses.

Most were gas stations near schools.

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Stores cited for selling tobacco to kids  

29 mom-n-pop stores received citations from the Department of Revenue & Taxation after they were caught selling tobacco to minors. Mental Health assisted DRT with the inspections of more than 300 businesses.

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Council imposes ban on flavored tobacco products 

The New York City Council has banned the sale of all flavored tobacco products, including little cigars.These little cigars look just like cigarettes, but, due to a tax loophole, cost considerably less. . . .

Council Member Letitia James pointed out that in Central Brooklyn and other communities like it, these brightly packaged flavored cigars are often marketed near the candy, right where they can best capture the attention of the youth. Most councilmembersof her colleagues in the council agreed. The prohibited flavors include chocolate, vanilla, honey, candy, cocoa, dessert, alcoholic beverage, herb and spice flavors. (Menthol, mint and wintergreen flavors are excluded from the ban.)

"A significant number of constituents that I have spoken with also believe that smoking cigars is less toxic and less addictive than cigarettes," James added. "They are wrong. One cigar has as much tobacco as five cigarettes and contains more nicotine. That is why we, as adults, have to stand up and ban these products."

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Kennesaw OKs subdivision plans; Powder Springs eyes smoking ban  

Powder Springs

The city conducted the first public hearing for a proposed ordinance to ban smoking at city-sponsored events on the town square, specifically the Fourth of July and Christmas celebrations. Mayor Pat Vaughn said Hillgrove High School senior William Wizner proposed the ordinance as part of a school project.

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Govt quits anti-smoking campaign 

A novel anti-smoking program aimed at primary school students has lost Tasmanian Government funding under the QUIT program.

Surgeon Stephen Wilkinson has been running the 'Docs for a Day' program for 15 years, giving thousands of students a dose of reality about the effects of smoking.

"We've had very clear evidence that people have changed their behaviour as a result," he said.

But the Government is not convinced and has withdrawn support.

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• 'Smoking' for trouble 

LIMBANG: 'Kemt' and 'Pally' are names that trigger an anxiety attack among parents here.

They are cigarette-shaped sweets that are packaged like cigarettes. At first glance, the sweet boxes look like real cigarette boxes. Parents are worried that such sales gimmick may eventually tempt children to start smoking.

Ibrahim Tapa, 38, said the products, known as 'Smoke Candy' here, were believed to be imported from China and were sold at 50 sen per box.

Unethical and illegal

This kind of gimmick by traders goes against the government's anti-smoking policy, where millions of ringgit is spent to discourage people from picking up the smoking habit and is making a mockery of the government's effort to create a healthy society."

A Borneo Post survey here showed that several traders were selling 'Smoke Candy' openly.

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Wednesday WTF: What is it with kids and smoking?  

We thought we'd seen the last of babies taking drags off ciggs with the first video, but nope.

This video was uploaded by someone who said he filmed it on National Day. In Guizhou, a couple of migrant workers bragged about how their baby (the fourth son in the family) could smoke half a pack a day. "Check it out, look kid, here have a smoke."

Like the person who posted this, we've been rendered speechless too.

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• Austria tops teen smokers ranking  

Austria has the highest percentage of 15-year-old smokers, 25 per cent, in Europe, according to a Vienna doctor. Manfred Neuberger, the head of the preventive-medicine division at Vienna Medical University, added the number of Austrian youth who smoked had been steadily increasing since 1997 and that 145,891 Austrians aged 11 to 17 smoked.

Noting the average age at which young people began smoking had fallen to 11, he said: "The younger one begins, the worse the consequences will be.”

Neuberger claimed the government had been doing too little to get young people not to smoke. "It is easier to buy cigarettes than groceries,” he said, adding the government should use the 60 million Euros in cigarette taxes that young smokers paid annually to pay for a prevention campaign.

Neuberger called protection of non-smokers in Austria "a health and political time bomb” and said the country was on the level of the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Hungary, Albania and Serbia in that regard. The doctor cited polls in Styria and Upper Austria that had shown 91 per cent of people who visited nightspots felt harmed by secondary smoke and 60 per cent of them wanted the law on smoking toughened.

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• Hazard in plain sight? 'Crossover products' may help hook kids on smoking, drugs 

Redford recently spoke about the products at a Marblehead Board of Health meeting, unloading for the board a bag of such products that she's collected throughout the year. Her presentation left most board members in disbelief.

"Are we the only ones who don't know about this stuff?" asked a bewildered Helaine Hazlett, the board's chairman.

Take a walk into the 7-11 store in Marblehead, and here is what you will find: "grinders" (small metal contraptions that are used to grind up tobacco or drugs), pipes, hookah pipes for smoking specially made flavored tobacco, flavored chewing tobacco, boxes of blunt wraps (tobacco-based rolling papers), cigarettes that are packaged like Chanel perfume boxes, and smokeless-tobacco gum that comes in a candy-mint-like container. The list goes on.

None of these products are illegal to sell, although in most states, including Massachusetts, to buy any tobacco-related product a person must be 18 or older. In fact, as a local tobacco-control officer, Redford's job is to conduct "compliance checks," . . .

Cigarette companies spent approximately $13 billion on advertising and promotional expenses in 2005 for those tobacco-specific products, nearly double what was spent in 1998, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Of that money, Redford says advertisers are more often targeting women and teens.

In 2008, tobacco company Philip Morris USA unrolled its sleek "purse pack" cigarette packaging containing ultra-slim cigarettes; the packaging is made to look as if it is a cosmetics case.

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Do movie critic's "smoke breaks" glorify an unhealthy smoking habit? 

It's no secret that Post-Standard movie critic Joan Vadeboncouer is a smoker. Drive past the downtown building at any time of day, and you're liable to see her standing outside smoking her cigarettes. (Smoking hasn't been allowed in the Post-Standard building for almost two decades.)

It's also no secret that JV knows movies. . . .

Last week, a fun new feature appeared on Syracuse.com called "Joanie's Smoke Break Movie Reviews." There's one posted about Whip It, and another about Zombieland. . . .

Research has shown that young people start lighting up partially because of what they see in the movies, because of the way filmmakers glamorize the dirty habit. US News & World Report has written about the controversy, and so has Forbes, in a story about how student participation in sports can't compete with the powerful influence of smoking in films. . . .

Clearly, it's a hot research topic, and a controversy in Hollywood. What about right here in Central New York? I've heard some complaints about JV's cigarettes, but what do you think? Are JV's "smoke breaks" a vector in the expansion of the smoking epidemic?

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Purchase of tobacco for under-18s outlawed  

Adults in Scotland who buy cigarettes for under-age young people could soon face prosecution, bringing the law on the sale of tobacco products in the country into line with that on alcohol.

The Scottish government revealed today that it is to insert a new clause into the Tobacco and Primary Medical Services Bill, now going through Parliament, would would outlaw the use of what is known as 'proxy purchasing'.

The move has been disclosed by Shona Robison, the deputy health minister in the Scottish government, in a letter to Christine Grahame, the convener of Holyrood's health committee. It comes after pressure from the committee for the new clause.

It is already illegal in Scotland for an adult to buy alcohol and then pass it on to a child, but as yet there is no such law for tobacco.

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