Tobacco.org

• The aim of the Tobacco Act should be to stop the use of tobacco products  

The Government proposes changing the aim of the Act on Measures to Reduce Tobacco Smoking so that it will be to stop the use of tobacco products. According to the proposal, the display of tobacco products and their trademarks in retail sale facilities will be forbidden in the future. Accordingly, tobacco products may not be sold or otherwise supplied to persons under 18 years, and also the import and possession of tobacco products by them is to be forbidden. Persons selling tobacco products should be aged at least 18 years.

The prohibitions against smoking are proposed to be extended to apply e.g. to facilities used by children and young people and to vehicles, joint facilities of housing real estates, events organised outdoors, and hotel rooms. According to the law proposal the import, sale and other supplying of snuff will be forbidden, but a maximum of 30 packets containing 30 grams snuff may be imported for one's own use. In addition, the sale of tobacco products from automatic vending machines is to be forbidden.

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• Finland to ban smoking in cars carrying children 

The Finnish government on Thursday unveiled a bill to ban smoking in cars carrying children as well as in places frequented by children.

The government proposed a number of amendments in the Act on Measures to Restrict Tobacco Smoking, including penalties for selling or giving tobacco to children and a ban on the import and possession of tobacco by children.

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Tobacco in Finland to 2013 - new market and company analysis 

This databook provides key data and information on the tobacco market in Finland. This report is a comprehensive resource for market, category and segment level data including value, volume, distribution share and company & brand share. This report also provides expenditure and consumption data for the historic and forecast periods.

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ARCHIVE: Finnish Supreme Court rejects smoker's compensation demand 

Finland’s Supreme Court has rejected a lawsuit in which Tampere resident Pentti Aho had demanded that a tobacco company pay FIM 460,000 in damages for diseases caused by smoking.

After Aho’s death of cancer of the larynx, the lawsuit was pursued by his widow and son. Lamenting the court’s decision, the Aho family’s lawyer Erkki Auerjärvi called it a great victory for the international tobacco industry.

The precedent is the first of its kind in all of Europe.

"The tobacco industry was afraid that a different decision would have opened possibilities for similar cases in other European countries. The Finnish tobacco case has been followed very closely Sweden, Norway, and Denmark." The decision was welcomed by Gavin Little, CEO of British American Tobacco Nordic.

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• Appeal in big tobacco liability case begins today  

A case against two tobacco companies brought by Professor Erkki Aurejärvi continues today, Monday, in the Helsinki Court of Appeals.

Originally, four women wanted compensation for harm caused to their health by “light” cigarettes. The diseases included emphysema and lung cancer. Only two them are still seeking damages from two tobacco companies - British American Tobacco Finland and Amer, the latter of which gave up the tobacco business years ago.

One of the plaintiffs died before the district court session, and the other withdrew her appeal last winter for health reasons.

The plaintiffs lost the first round in Helsinki District Court and each of them were ordered to pay EUR 250,000 in court costs.

The appeals court will have to evaluate if the women were aware of the risks that they were taking when they chose to smoke. . . .

Aurejärvi sees the case as the last tobacco trial involving individual plaintiffs. However, the case could lead to class-action suits if the women are even partially successful, Aurejärvi says.

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• Court of Appeals Hears Cigarette Liability Case 

A lawsuit against two tobacco companies went to the Helsinki Court of Appeals on Monday. The plaintiffs are two women who have smoked for a long time, and who are seeking damages from the Amer Group and the Finnish subsidiary of British-American Tobacco.

While some American victims of smoking-related diseases have managed to Finns have successfully sued tobacco companies for their smoking-related illnesses, this has not happened in Finland.

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LETTER: SMOKING AFFECTS WOMENS' SEX HORMONE-REGULATED BODY FORM 

Saarni et al.1 recently published an interesting study using Finnish twins to examine the association between adolescent smoking and adult abdominal obesity and overweight. They found that smoking was a risk for abdominal obesity in females.1 Unfortunately, they were unable to provide any explanation for the phenomenon, and did not realize that this probably affects the attractiveness of the female body.2 Here we propose why smoking may increase abdominal obesity in women and reduce attractiveness.

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• Midlife Heart Risk Factors Linked to Later Dementia  

The things that are bad for your heart in the middle years of life -- high blood cholesterol, high blood pressure, smoking, diabetes -- are bad for your brain in later years, new research indicates.

High cholesterol levels in midlife were associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia many years later, according to scientists in California and Finland, who tracked almost 10,000 men and women for four decades.

"We found an association not only with high blood cholesterol, but also borderline high levels," said study senior author Rachel Whitmer, who is a research scientist and epidemiologist at the Kaiser Permanente division of research in Oakland. Researchers at the University of Kuopio in Finland also participated in the study. . . .

For those in midlife with borderline-high readings between 200 mg/dl and 239 mg/dl, the increased incidence was 52 percent, according to the study, which was published online in the journal Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders and funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. . . .

The other research, reported in the August issue of the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, followed more than 11,000 American participants in a study of atherosclerosis, the hardening of the arteries that can lead to heart attack, stroke and other major cardiovascular problems.

Researchers from the University of Minnesota, the University of North Carolina, John Hopkins and the University of Mississippi Medical Center measured smoking, high blood pressure and diabetes among the participants from 1990-1992. They then tracked them until 2004 to see how many were hospitalized for dementia.

Smokers were 70 percent more likely to develop dementia than nonsmokers

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Does binge drinking increase the risk of lung cancer: results from the Findrink study  

Conclusion: Binge drinking is not associated with an increased risk of lung cancer among non-smokers but among smokers, it is associated with an increased risk irrespective of the number of cigarettes smoked daily. Even though the number of lung cancer cases among non-smokers was relatively small, the fact that the increased risk was limited to only smokers means that residual confounding by smoking may play a role. Larger studies are needed to clarify this association.

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• Binge Drinking Increases Risk Of Lung Cancer In Smokers 

The risk of lung cancer increases for those smokers who have a tendency to binge drinking. This was found by the Kuopio Ischemic Heart Disease Risk Factor Study (KIHD), conducted at the University of Kuopio in Finland.

The KIHD study has followed up a cohort of men from eastern Finland for about 17 years. Binge drinking was found be associated with an increased risk of lung cancer among those who had smoked between 1 and 30 years regardless of how many cigarrettes a day they smoked. Meanwhile, binge drinking was not associated with any increased risk of lung cancer among non-smokers.

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芬兰：餐馆全面禁烟 服务人员健康受益 

新华网赫尔辛基６月１日专电（记者刘硒碲）芬兰职业健康研究所１日公布的一份调查结果显示，自２００７年６月芬兰在全国所有餐饮场所全面禁烟以来，餐饮业服务人员请病假的人数减少，健康状况明显改善。

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Stricter Smoking Laws Boost Workers’ Health 

New anti-smoking legislation has significantly reduced restaurant and bar workers’ risk of exposure to cigarette smoke.

According to new research from the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, the stricter tobacco laws have also reduced sick leave days taken by workers who suffer from breathing disorders and eye irritation caused by cigarette smoke.

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Improving education may cut smoking in youth 

Although low socio-economic status is associated with an increased liability to smoke, performing well at school can mitigate this effect. A new study, published in BioMed Central's open access International Journal for Equity in Health, has shown that high-achieving schoolchildren, even those from poor backgrounds, are less likely to smoke.

Christina Schnohr led a team of researchers from the University of Copenhagen's Institute of Public Health who surveyed 20,399 schoolchildren from the UK, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland. She said, "Above average academic achievement was associated with lower risk of smoking. Teachers and politicians may find this information useful, and allocate resources to give higher priority to a supportive environment in schools especially for children and adolescents in lower social groups. This might contribute to reducing smoking in this group".

The researchers' study confirmed that children from less well-off families are more likely to smoke, and are less likely to perform well at school - although this latter effect was least pronounced in the UK. However, those poorer children who did perform well in class were also less likely to be smokers. Schnohr said, "This mediating role of academic achievement emphasizes the role of teachers in supporting students from deprived families. If they can focus on students from lower socio-economic positions, it might help reduce the social inequality in smoking prevalence".

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• Smoking Is Independent Risk Factor for Cervical Cancer in Women With Oncogenic HPV Types: Presented at IPV 

New research confirms that smoking is an independent risk factor for cervical cancer in women with oncogenic human papillomavirus (HPV) types, researchers stated here at the 25th International Papillomavirus (IPV) Conference.

"We must emphasise cervical cancer prevention among women exposed to tobacco smoke," said Aline Simen-Kapeau, PhD, National Institute for Health and Welfare, Oulu, Finland, on May 12.

The researchers noted that the strong correlation between smoking and exposure to oncogenic HPV types makes determining the independent role of smoking in cervical carcinogenesis difficult. This study was designed to determine that role.

Data from 5 large Nordic country serum banks with samples from >1 million people were correlated to national cancer registries (1973-2003).

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Improving education may cut smoking in youth 

Although low socio-economic status is associated with an increased liability to smoke, performing well at school can mitigate this effect. A new study, published in BioMed Central's open access International Journal for Equity in Health, has shown that high-achieving schoolchildren, even those from poor backgrounds, are less likely to smoke.

Christina Schnohr led a team of researchers from the University of Copenhagen's Institute of Public Health who surveyed 20,399 schoolchildren from the UK, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland. She said, "Above average academic achievement was associated with lower risk of smoking. Teachers and politicians may find this information useful, and allocate resources to give higher priority to a supportive environment in schools especially for children and adolescents in lower social groups. This might contribute to reducing smoking in this group".

The researchers' study confirmed that children from less well-off families are more likely to smoke, and are less likely to perform well at school

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