Tobacco.org

LETTER: Exclude tobacco from inflation index 

I question why our measure of inflation includes alcohol and tobacco, as neither product is a necessity of life, and fewer and fewer people are actually smoking. If the CPI had risen much further in the June quarter, all home owners with a mortgage would have been paying a considerably higher amount per month (contributing in its own way to inflation).

I would make a plea to the Australian Bureau of Statistics to remove alcohol and tobacco prices from the CPI as soon as possible, or at the very least justify why they are included.

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Briefings: Monthly Newsletter: August 2010 

July 27, 2010 Letter from Diane Canova

Dear Partners,

Partnership for Prevention and ActionToQuit were very pleased with the announcement in mid-July of new regulations under the Affordable Health Care Act requiring private health plans to cover evidence-based preventive services and to eliminate cost-sharing for preventive care. Among the services to be covered are tobacco cessation interventions to for tobacco users.

July 28, 2010 Views on Unassisted Cessation: An Interview with Steve Schroeder

Simon Chapman has written about the neglect of "unassisted cessation." . . .

July 28, 2010 "Celebrating Smokefree Voices" YouTube Contest Winner

The Smokefree Women web site www.smokefreewomen.gov has just celebrated its 1-year anniversary with a video contest on YouTube. People were asked to submit videos explaining why women should stay smokefree or why they want the women they love to be or stay smokefree. More than 14,000 people voted for their favorite of the many videos that were submitted.

July 28, 2010 State and City News

-University of Arizona Providing Cessation Training for Complementary and Alternative Medicine Professionals

-South Dakota Smoking Down to 17.5 Percent

-Los Angeles County Report Shows Smoking Rates by Local Community . . .

Key Dates

September 13 - 17, 2010 Tobacco Treatment Specialist Certification

http://www.regonline.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?eventid=854142

Columbus, OH

September 30 - 1, 2010 Online Social Networks and Smoking Cessation: Strategic Research Opportunities

http://www.legacyforhealth.org/PDF/SNCC_Final_Program.pdf

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Kiwi fights to keep smokes in prison 

Prison officer Steve Burrows has vivid recollections of when they tried to ban smoking inside Brisbane's rebuilt Woodford Correctional Centre.

"That didn't work, that jail burnt down. It was severely damaged by rioting and fire."

The inmates' outrage when one of their liberties was threatened back in 1997 might preface the reaction when New Zealand's penal institutions become smoke-free from July 2011.

The New Zealand Government's policy, announced last week by Corrections Minister Judith Collins, goes further than current Australian legislation - no prisons are totally smoke-free.

Burnt by the Brisbane riot, Queensland's corrections department allows prisoners to smoke in designated areas, ditto Western Australia. In South Australia smoking in cells is permissible.

Each state has its own smoking reduction policy for prisons, the intention being to ultimately stub the habit out altogether.

A national summit on tobacco smoking in prisons will be held in Canberra next month in a bid to formulate an Australia-wide strategy.

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Queensland motorists fined $200 for smoking in cars with children  

MORE than 150 people who have continued to smoke in cars with children - putting them at risk of serious respiratory diseases - have copped $200 on-the-spot fines since January.

Queensland Health said research suggested more than 30 per cent of smokers with children aged under 14 continued to smoke in their cars.

Latest figures show 158 people have ignored new state laws, introduced on January 1, banning smoking in cars carrying children under 16, and have been fined.

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• Queensland motorists fined $200 for smoking in cars with children 

MORE than 150 people who have continued to smoke in cars with children - putting them at risk of serious respiratory diseases -have copped $200 on-the-spot fines since January.

Queensland Health said research suggested more than 30 per cent of smokers with children aged under 14 continued to smoke in their cars.

Latest figures show 158 people have ignored new state laws, introduced on January 1, banning smoking in cars carrying children under 16, and have been fined.

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• Ban on menthol in cigarettes is urged 

Australia will be urged to ban or reduce heavily menthol in cigarettes if the US recommends a crackdown on the cigarettes.

A 12-member US panel is considering whether menthol makes smoking more addictive, and its findings could spell disaster in Australia for Alpine cigarettes and imported brands such as Kool, Virginia Slims and Salem.

Anti-tobacco campaigners argue that menthol coats the throat with a ''mild anaesthetic'' and encourages young people, especially women, to take up smoking. . . . University of Sydney professor of public health Simon Chapman said Australia had failed to regulate any tobacco additives and tobacco company chemists could add any legal substance.

Internal tobacco company documents had shown its chemists were adding ammonia, for example, which speeds up the rate nicotine penetrates the brain, helping to hook users, he said.

The companies were hiding the ammonia and other agents under the benign term ''processing aids'', said Professor Chapman, who was the 2008 NSW Premier's Cancer Researcher of the Year.

These let them ''cover up the secret formula of their brands''. He called on the federal government to force the companies to disclose fully cigarette additives by displaying all ingredients where tobacco was sold, and in packets.

''The real issue here is whether it is sensible to allow tobacco companies to add ingredients that will make tobacco products more palatable to young smokers when they're first starting off,'' he said. The push coincides with Australia preparing to become the first country in the world to force generic packaging on tobacco companies.

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Greens move to stop cheap cigarette imports  

Coles is importing cheap cigarettes from Germany, which are $2 to $4 a packet cheaper than most other brands. (Reuters: Alexandra Beier, file photo)

The Australian Greens will move to introduce laws preventing major supermarket chain Coles from flooding the market with cheap imported cigarettes.

Coles and its parent company Wesfarmers are under mounting pressure to stop importing cheap cigarettes from Germany, which are $2 to $4 a packet cheaper than most other brands.

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Australian Greens vow to plug Coles’ cheap selling of imported cigars  

Following news of Coles' move of countering the federal government's policy of restricting cigarette sale by unleashing cheap imported brands in the market, the Australian Greens said on Wednesday that they intend to counter the tactic by more stringent legislative initiatives.

Wesfarmers, the giant retailer's parent company, was already chided by the Senate for circumventing government efforts to reduce alcohol abuse by offering cheap alcohol in Alice Springs as Greens Senator Rachel Siewert stressed that Coles should consider being a more responsible corporate citizen.

Senator Siewert added that she was frustrated "to see one of our major supermarket chains flooding the market with cheap alcohol and cheap cigarettes when clearly we need a much more responsible approach to both alcohol and smoking."

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Charge smokers $20 a packet for cigarettes, says acting AMA SA president  

LEADING doctors in South Australia have called for the price of cigarettes to be further increased after the latest tax hike failed to significantly deter smokers.

The Australian Medical Association SA says the Federal Government's 25 per cent tax increase on May 1 - an average jump of about $2.16 for a pack of 30 - was inadequate.

Figures obtained by The Advertiser show calls to Quit SA have only increased by 10 per cent, from 190 a week before the tax increase to 210 a week.

However, in the four weeks immediately following the rise, calls did reach over 300 a week.

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Expert sees end to lung cancer epidemic  

An award-winning public health advocate says lung cancer will most likely become an uncommon disease in Australia by 2050.

Professor Simon Chapman says a ban on advertising, indoor smoking and health warnings on cigarette packets have contributed to a decline in the disease.

. . .

Professor Chapman says we could be seeing the beginning of the end of the lung cancer epidemic, thanks to government policy. . . .

He says although people are clearly still addicted to cigarettes, it is a far cry from the 1970s when people were smoking in offices.

"There was tobacco advertising everywhere, to be a smoker was to be a very different personality than you are today if you're a smoker," he said.

"I don't think too many smokers [today] enjoy being smokers."

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Brisbane City Council plans to fine smokers in Queen Street Mall 

SMOKERS could face $200 fines for lighting up in Queen Street mall within months after the Brisbane's Lord Mayor decided to bow to community concerns.

Lord Mayor Campbell Newman yesterday revealed smoking will be either completely banned in the Mall or relegated to three designated smoking areas after community consultation concludes in a month.

Cr Newman said he did not completely support the idea of a ban on smoking but would act after 78 per cent of residents surveyed said they supported a ban.

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Butt House Smoking Shelters for Brisbane Queen Street Mall? 

Could glass 'smoking huts' be the answer to separating smokers from shoppers in Brisbane's Queen Street Mall?

Lord Mayor Campbell Newman said yesterday he has no choice but to introduce legislation restricting smoking after a council survey found overwhelming support for action.

The phone survey of 1000 people found 52 per cent of people favoured a total ban, with another 35 per cent preferring designated smoking areas.

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Coles importing cheap cigarettes from Germany and selling them at discount prices  

COLES is importing cigarettes from Germany and selling them at discount prices to lure low-income smokers into its supermarkets.

The grocery giant has priced the "home-brand-style" packs of 25 cigarettes at around $11 almost $4 a pack less than Australian-made Winfield and other leading brands.

They are believed to be the cheapest on the market since the federal Government raised cigarette taxes by 25 per cent in April.

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Charge smokers $20 a packet for cigarettes, says acting AMA SA president 

LEADING doctors in South Australia have called for the price of cigarettes to be further increased after the latest tax hike failed to significantly deter smokers.

The Australian Medical Association SA says the Federal Government's 25 per cent tax increase on May 1 - an average jump of about $2.16 for a pack of 30 - was inadequate.

Figures obtained by The Advertiser show calls to Quit SA have only increased by 10 per cent, from 190 a week before the tax increase to 210 a week.

However, in the four weeks immediately following the rise, calls did reach over 300 a week.

Should cigarette packet prices rise? Tell us below.

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Food killing more of us than tobacco 

OBESITY is set to overtake smoking as the leading cause of premature death and illness in Australia, and experts are calling on government authorities to take the same tough stand on the weight crisis as it did on tobacco.

After years of sharp decline, deaths from cardiovascular disease have increased, health advocates saying excess weight might be to blame.

More than 60 per cent of the adult population is overweight or obese, and weight-related health problems are estimated to cost the economy more than $60 billion a year, twice as much as smoking.

''It is a worrying trend and one that is hard to confront,'' said Professor Kerin O'Dea, head of the Sansom Institute for Health Research at the University of South Australia.

''Food manufacturers are powerful lobbyists. But if the various health departments can take on the tobacco companies, they really need to confront the food manufacturers.

''I think the way the tobacco control has been managed is a good model for the food industry. It shows that regulation which is properly enforced can be effective.''

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