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• High court upholds Bavaria's porous smoking ban  

constitutional.

A state parliamentary decision went into effect on August 1, changing the general ban to allow smokers in pubs smaller than 75 square metres, in addition to restaurants and beer tents that create smoking sections in side rooms. Children are not allowed in smoking areas.

The state Health Ministry will now also allow smoking at establishments that can insure limited second-hand smoke with special ventilations systems.

Smoking in public areas is still strictly forbidden, according to the court.

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• German doctors criticise "lifestyle pensions" that reward smoking and obesity  

Doctors in Germany have voiced concerns about the introduction of so called lifestyle pensions, which "reward" unhealthy behaviour by offering higher annuities to groups of people, such as smokers and obese people, who may be expected to die earlier than average.

Rudolf Henke, the chairman of the Marburger Bund, the German hospital doctors’ society, said it was "ludicrous and cynical" to reward customers for risking their own health.

Lifestyle pensions, also called non-standard annuities, are relatively common in other European countries such as the United Kingdom and have been increasingly promoted since the 1990s.

Several international insurance companies are now trying to push their products in Germany, offering them to their existing customers and approaching patients’ groups, such as those for people with diabetes, and smoking clubs.

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• Bavaria loosens its restrictions on smoking in public, Germany's toughest 

Bavarian lawmakers have voted to loosen Germany's toughest restrictions on smoking in public.

The state legislature in Munich decided Wednesday to allow smoking in one-room bars of up to 800 square feet (75 square meters) starting Aug. 1, so long as they are labeled as "smoking bars." Larger bars will be allowed to set a room aside for smokers.

That will end a complete ban on smoking in bars, restaurants and discos that took effect in January 2008 and bring Bavaria in line with looser restrictions elsewhere in Germany.

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• Implementation of electronic locking devices for adolescents at German tobacco vending machines: Intended and unintended changes of supply and demand 

Background: Starting on 01.01.2007, electronic locking devices based on proof-of-age (via electronic cash cards or a European driving licence) were installed in approximately 500,000 vending machines across Germany to restrict the purchase of cigarettes to those over the age of 16. . . .

Results: Between 2005 and 2007 the total number of tobacco sources decreased from 315 to 277 within the study area. Although the most obvious reduction was detected in the number of outdoor vending machines (-48%), the number of indoor vending machines also decreased by 8%. Adolescents changed from vending machines to other sources for cigarettes, particularly kiosks or friends (+ 31%-points usage rate, p<0.001; +35%-points usage rate, p<0.001, respectively).

Conclusions: Although the number of tobacco vending machines decreased, this has not had a significant impact on cigarette acquisition by underage smokers as they were able to circumvent this new security measure in several different ways.

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• BAT trials ‘less toxic’ cigarettes  

British American Tobacco has revealed it is testing a new “less toxic” tobacco.

The cigarette manufacturer, which owns brands such as Lucky Strike, Kent and Pall Mall, has made three prototype products for the £6m analysis.

The 22-week trial will be carried out in Germany on 250 volunteers by an independent research organisation.

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• BAT puts 'less toxic' tobacco to the test 

British American Tobacco is recruiting 250 volunteers in Germany to test experimental cigarettes designed to produce less toxic smoke than conventional products. . . .

BAT has made three "prototype combustible products" for the German trial. They incorporate tobacco that has been processed in several ways to generate fewer "toxicants" as it burns, including treatment with enzymes similar to those in biological washing powders. The prototypes also have new filters, with activated charcoal and resins to absorb harmful chemicals.

Momentum Pharma Services, a contract research organisation that normally works for drug companies, is carrying out the �6m analysis. It has been registered on an independent clinical trials database - a first for BAT - and results will be published in a scientific journal next year.

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• Smoking exacerbates progress of Crohn's disease 

The progress of Crohn's disease, a chronic inflammatory disease of the intestines, exacerbates dramatically in smokers, according to a professor at Goethe University in Frankfurt. Smokers, who contract Crohn's disease, must undergo surgery and suffer the dangerous advanced stages of the disease more commonly than non-smokers, said Professor Axel Dignass at a recent congress of Europe's Crohn disease and colitis organization in Hamburg. In most people with Crohn's disease the last section of the small intestine is affected. . . .

It is significant that smoking has a particularly negative affect on the intestinal membrane, which is already inflamed in people with the disease, and the immune system. According to Dignass, smoking is among the most adverse influences on the disease

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• Bavaria eases Germany's toughest smoking ban 

The state of Bavaria in Germany is relaxing its strict smoking ban. From August, small bars will be able to introduce special smoking areas, as will beer tents, such as those during Munich's 'Octoberfest'. . . .

Bavaria's Health Minister Dr Markus Söder explains it was impossible to enforce the legislation, and relaxing the regulations will restore "social peace".

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• Cigarette Smoking and Perception of a Movie Character in a Film Trailer 

Conclusion

Even incidental smoking in a very short film trailer might strengthen the attractiveness of smokers in youth who have already tried their first cigarettes.

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• Germans win right to light up after court ruling on smoking 

In stark contrast to Australia — where smokers have become a much maligned social group — the German High Court has just overturned smoking bans in small bars and restaurants, making Germany one of the last havens for smokers in Europe.

The ruling came after the owners of two small bars claimed their businesses had been unfairly hit by the smoking ban. They claimed that because of their bars' small size, they were unable to provide a cordoned-off smoking area, which created a competitive disadvantage. The constitutional court agreed.

The ruling means that German states must ban smoking in all pubs or restaurants or offer exceptions for single-room establishments.

The court ruled that the previous rather modest smoking ban proposed by Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition of conservatives and Social Democrats was unconstitutional. It found that the law went against the rights of the state governments to impose their own regulations.

This latest ruling is part of an ongoing tussle in Germany, where the forces of civil libertarianism and corporate tobacco industry interests have become unlikely bedfellows. . . .

History may play a role here too.

The Nazi Party was strongly opposed to smoking and, after 1945, smoking became a symbol of postwar freedoms and progressive values.

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• JTI opens three Munich lounges  

Japan Tobacco International (JTI) is installing airport smoking lounges and areas at Munich Airport in Germany. This week JTI inaugurated three smoking lounges, a Camel Plaza and six smoking corners at Munich International Airport. Other airports that JTI is working with include Athens, Bali, Moscow, Zurich, Kiev, Ho Chi Minh City, Casablanca, Marrakech, Frankfurt, Agadir and Geneva.

"I think this new facility will be applauded by many people travelling from or via Munich, both smokers and non smokers," says Fadoul Pekhazis, JTI's president Middle East, near East, Turkey, Africa and Worldwide Duty Free. "JTI pioneered the concept of smoking lounges and smoking stations in 2003." . . .

By the end of 2008, JTI will have locations in 15 international airports with 46 lounges, 70 smoking cabins and over 60 smoking stations.

Pekhazis adds, "This is a win-win solution for all parties. The smoking public is looked after, non-smokers are not annoyed by tobacco smoke and the airport provides an excellent service to travellers."

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• Fatal Blaze: Fire Kills 20 on German Tour Bus  

Twenty elderly people were killed when a fire broke out on a coach as it travelled down the A2 motorway near Hanover in northern Germany on Tuesday night. Police suspect that the fire was caused by a passenger sneaking a cigarette in the bus toilet.

Police say that the fire broke out at 8.45 p.m. (CET) on Tuesday evening after the toilet door was opened and flames shot out, quickly engulfing the vehicle.

It is thought that some of the elderly passengers who perished had walking disabilities and were unable to escape in time. The driver, who had managed to pull over, and 12 other passengers managed to flee the burning bus. Many were injured and three of them suffering serious burns.

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• Papers show how tobacco companies stopped airline’s smoking ban  

The tobacco industry in Germany, working with the popular German daily newspaper Bild, stopped the airline Lufthansa from banning smoking on its domestic flights in the early 1990s, an analysis of internal tobacco industry documents shows.

The tobacco company Philip Morris has had to publish thousands of internal documents on the internet as a consequence of a US court sentence against it in 1998. A paper in a German public health journal has used the documents to shed light on the tobacco industry’s successful lobbying strategies in Germany (Gesundheitswesen 2008;70:315-24, doi:10.1055/s-2008-1078752).

The documents also show how the German Association of the Cigarette Industry (Verband der Cigarettenindustrie) managed to prevent a ban on tobacco advertising, to persuade the German government to bring action against certain EU guidelines, to keep cigarette vending machines accessible to children, and to prevent the introduction of higher taxes on tobacco products. They also show how scientists and doctors acted as expert witnesses against the dangers to health of tobacco.

"However," said Martina Pötschke-Langer, one of the authors of the paper and head of the World Health Organization Collaboration Centre for Tobacco Control at the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg, "the campaign against Lufthansa’s non-smoking flights appears to be especially vicious, since pressure was applied to the government as well as to public opinion via the mass media."

In 1989 Lufthansa tried to introduce non-smoking domestic flights but was unsuccessful until 1996.

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• German heart specialist received research grant from tobacco industry foundation 

The work of several leading German medical scientists has been sponsored by the International Philip Morris Research Foundation. Johannes Spatz, public health specialist and antitobacco activist in Berlin, made the discovery in a search of the internet archive of the tobacco company Philip Morris.

An official question by the Green Party in the Berlin Senate has publicly highlighted that the cardiologist Eckart Fleck, from the Berlin Heart Centre, had received a grant of {euro}937 000 (£744 000; $1.28m) in 2003 to sponsor his work . . .

Professor Fleck is known for publicly warning of the dangers of smoking for the heart. He denies any commercial links with the tobacco industry . . .

Critics such as Dr Spatz agree that there was no direct dependence, but say that scientists such as Professor Fleck were ignorant about the underlying strategy of the tobacco industry to keep close links with relevant research topics and stay in touch with opinion leaders in the discipline. Therefore, they say, all research institutions and organisations in Germany should follow the example of the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg and other medical societies that abstain from receiving tobacco industry grants.

Apart from Professor Fleck, 16 other German scientists were found . . .

Their names are listed in an internal document in the extensive internet archive of Philip Morris. . . .

The thoracic surgeon Thomas Kyriss, from Stuttgart, who has been involved in the analysis of the Philip Morris documents, says that in the late 90s the tobacco industry changed from direct funding of pro-tobacco research projects to a more sophisticated policy of supporting high powered research of relevant projects of the future.

Dr Kyriss points towards a publication on the research funding strategy by the US public health specialist Norbert Hirschhorn in Tobacco Control (2001;10:247-252).

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• Mayor Bloomberg touts anti-smoking plan in Germany, admits shame caused him to quit 

BERLIN - Drinking beats smoking, Mayor Bloomberg said today at a beer-soaked street fair in the heart of Germany's capital.

After scooping up an anti-smoking award, the mayor bragged that New Yorkers who smoke are now ashamed to huddle outside bars with cigarettes, while non-smokers buy more food and drinks inside.

"It turns out that it is economically good for the bar and restaurant business," Bloomberg said. "It's certainly good for everybody except the funeral parlors."

The mayor was in Berlin to accept an award from the European Lung Foundation for his anti-smoking crusade. . . .

Bloomberg acknowledged that he used to smoke two decades ago and said humiliation helped him kick the habit.

"Friends of mine sort of looked down on me. It was embarrassing that I was doing something that can only be described as self-destructive and not very smart," the mayor said. "It's relatively easy to stop, and once you stop, you're going to feel so much superior to those who do smoke that there's instant gratification." . . .

He scolded medical professionals who still smoke as setting a horrible example to their patients.

"Every doctor who smokes sets an example that undermines the best public health anti-smoking campaign," he said. "He or she sends the message - after all, how bad can smoking really be?"

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It's relatively easy to stop, and once you stop, you're going to feel so much superior to those who do smoke that there's instant gratification.
NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, on quitting smoking.