Tobacco.org

• Smoking bans stoke global warming? 

something else is going up in smoke from a sidewalk in central Oslo – about $100,000 a year in extra outdoor heating bills.

The heated pavement, installed at a cost of about $400,000, may be the most extreme example of an environmental side-effect of smoking bans: rocketing power use.

“It’s warm out here even when it’s snowing and minus 10 (14 Fahrenheit) on the worst winter day,” said N. Virani, managing director of the Mona Lisa restaurant, which includes an outdoor section named after former health Minister Dagfinn Hoybraten who introduced the smoking ban in 2004.

Virani said he believed it was the only heated sidewalk in Scandinavia. And it’s true — today at a chilly 10 Celsius (50F) outdoors it felt like sitting at a warm outdoor cafe by the Mediterranean.

The strip of heated paving outdoors, and heaters in the roof, represent about 180,000 watts of electricity. Total electricity bills for the large business have almost doubled to 1.2 million crowns ($240,000) a year, Virani said. . . .

I’m a big fan of the smoking bans overall as a way of protecting workers’ health and helping some people to kick the habit. But what can people like Mr. Virani do about the side-effect of soaring power use that in many countries is strengthening what U.S. President George W. Bush once called an ”addiction to oil”?

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Norway's Pension Fund May Ban Sex Industry, Tobacco, Gambling 

Norway's government pension fund, Europe's largest retirement plan, is mulling excluding pornographers, cigarette makers and bookmakers from the 2.08 trillion kroner ($388.1 billion) portfolio. . . .

Norway, the world's fifth-largest exporter of crude oil, places most of its petroleum revenue in the fund. The pension plan is the world's second-largest so-called sovereign wealth fund after the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. . . .

The fund plans to ``lobby against child labor and for a climate-change agreement,'' Halvorsen said. ``We have now withdrawn from 25 companies, and we are continually reviewing our shareholdings to ensure we are not contributing to ethical violations.''

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• Hand-rolled cigarettes more carcinogenic - study  

Smokers of hand-rolled cigarettes tend to consume less tobacco, but face a greater risk of developing lung cancer than those who smoke manufactured cigarettes, a study on Norwegian lung cancer patients has found.

Norway is one of the last Western countries that still use a significant amount of hand-rolled tobacco, amounting to one-third of tobacco sales, according to the study released on Wednesday.

While smokers of hand-rolled cigarettes "consumed (fewer) cigarettes, and statistically had fewer years of smoking, hand-rolled cigarettes were more carcinogenic, resulting in a higher incidence of lung cancer development", the study by Heidi Rolke, of Norway's Sorlandet Hospital, said.

The paper was presented at the World Conference on Lung Cancer in Seoul.

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Crown Princess Mette-Marit chided for smoking 

Crown Princess Mette-Marit, like many other members of the royal family, enjoyed her cigarettes for years until she finally claimed she'd kicked the habit while pregnant with Norway's new heir to the throne.

It appears she's gone back to puffing, though. Magazine Se og Hor published photos this week of the crown princess smoking at a wedding this summer.

The photos have prompted the head of the Norwegian cancer society (Kreftforeningen) to offer Mette-Marit courses on how to stop

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• Snuff's popularity grows, despite cancer fears  

Snuff's rise in popularity has followed Norway's introduction of laws that ban smoking in offices, restaurants, bars and other public places.

Many smokers, denied their cigarettes, turned to snuff instead, and producers responded by boosting production of snuff in small packets that now are often found under the lips of many young Norwegian men. And women.

Studies show that around 6 percent of the Norwegian population aged 16-74 use snuff daily. Three times as many in the age group 16 to 24 are believed to use snuff daily.

Researcher think the figures will soon reach 35 percent of the population aged 16 to 24, despite cancer fears.

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Prenatal smoking exposure and psychiatric symptoms in adolescence 

Conclusion: Adolescents exposed to prenatal smoking had higher scores for both externalizing and internalizing psychiatric symptoms, which could not be explained by a broad range of possible psychosocial confounders. Thus, smoking in pregnancy may be a marker for increased risk of psychiatric symptoms in the offspring.

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• Tobacco images and texts in Norwegian magazines and newspapers  

Results: All editors for men's magazines and the majority of newspaper editors had no restrictions on displaying both indirect tobacco advertisements and images of people smoking. In total, 610 texts or pictures on tobacco were found in the 624 issues of magazines and newspapers. Only 26 items were indirect tobacco advertisements. Items promoting smoking were more common than coverage of tobacco and health (71% vs 29%), and occurred most frequently in men's magazines (2.1 per issue) and least frequently in local newspapers (0.3 per issue). The proportion of tobacco and health coverage compared with the total tobacco coverage was significantly lower in men's than in family magazines and local newspapers.

Conclusion: Editors should be encouraged to increase the coverage of tobacco and health in print media. This may be an important factor in helping their readers to give up or not to take up smoking.

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• Last gasp for tobacco firm  

Skandinavisk Tobakskompagni took over JL Tiedemanns Tobaksfabrik in 1998 and already had cut cigarette production by 30 percent and tobacco production by 50 percent. The firm also produces cigars and is perhaps best known in Norway for its non-filter "Teddy" cigarettes.

Now the Danish owners plan to close the 230-year-old facility in Oslo's Etterstad district completely. It had been owned for generations by the Andresen family, but the family sold out its remaining stake in 2005.

Employees were angry and frustrated when told of the shut-down on Monday, not least since Tiedemann had earned a profit of NOK 360 million last year and looked set to boost profitability this year.

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Statins may improve survival in lung patients  

Cholesterol-lowering drugs may improve the survival of patients suffering from a deadly lung disease that afflicts 44 million people worldwide, Norwegian scientists said on Wednesday.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which includes bronchitis and emphysema, is an incurable illnesses caused by smoking. It begins with a cough that leads to shortness of breath and difficulty breathing as it destroys the lungs.

But researchers from Akershus University Hospital in Lorenskog in Norway have found that statins can reduce deaths in COPD patients whose condition has exacerbated or worsened.

"The present study shows that the use of statins is associated with improved survival after chronic obstructive pulmonary disease exacerbation," said Vidar Soyseth in a report in the European Respiratory Journal.

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• Snuff use explodes 

Increasing numbers of Norwegians are walking around with a rather thick upper lip. Under it is a pouch of tobacco, known as "snuff" or snus in the local language, and its popularity has skyrocketed after the country invoked strict anti-smoking laws.

Some are calling it a "snuff epidemic," and it's infected young men especially. Even in Aftenposten's own newsroom, colleagues share the small round boxes of the stuff that older colleagues remember their grandfathers using.

Snuff has suddenly become trendy. "It's good," Anders Stikbøkken, age 21, told newspaper Aften in Oslo. "I think it's great to sit down and relax with a cup of coffee and some snuff. It's become a habit." . . .

Tobacco companies are milking the market for all it's worth. Some are producing "start packages" for teenagers, in which the tobacco pouches are flavoured with fruit or anise extracts. Many sports stars are using snuff as well.

The trend worries some experts, including researcher Karl Erik Lund. "The aggressive anti-smoking campaigns were successful in getting many people to quit," he told Aftenposten. "But a side-effect is that they're beginning with snuff instead.

"Then you're just scaring people over to another product that's just as addictive. We know that snuff isn't as dangerous as smoking, but it's not risk-free."

Kari Huseby of the Ministry of Health is already hoping to snuff out snuff, and has some "anti-snuffing" programs under production.

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News for Smokers: Cutting Back Isn't Good Enough 

New research debunks the belief that cutting down on cigarette smoking can buy you time. The study, published in the current issue of Tobacco Control, found that heavy smokers who halved their daily cigarette intake had the same overall mortality rates as people who continued to smoke 15 or more cigarettes per day. Lead researcher Kjell Bjartveit, an epidemiologist for Norway's National Health Screening Service, says that believing you can lower your risk of death and disease by reducing intake is "nonsense," and health educators and doctors who promote the idea need to reassess the tactic. "The message is: If you want to do something with your cigarette smoking, quit entirely."

More than 51,000 adults ages 20 to 49 were screened initially in Norway during the mid-1970s, with either one, two or three follow-up screenings over the next three to 13 years.

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• Absolutely no smoking  

Norwegian hotel tycoon Petter Stordalen will enforce a total ban on smoking at his 152 Choice Hotels in Scandinavia.

Stordalen has the support of major trade union confederation leader Gerd-Liv Valla, who has helped advise him on the matter.

Stordalen confirmed to newspaper VG that smoking in his hotels would be banned from Jan. 1, 2007. Choice Hotels Scandinavia is one of the region's largest chains, with hotels in Denmark, Norway and Sweden under chains Comfort, Quality and Clarion.

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Prognosis: In Smoking, Research Finds, Cutting Back Won't Do 

Smokers who say they just can’t quit are sometimes told to at least cut down. But even if they reduce their intake by half or more, they are unlikely to see much benefit, a new study reports.

The study, which appears in the journal Tobacco Control, followed the health of more than 50,000 Norwegian smokers over more than two decades. . . .

“In health education and patient counseling,” the researchers wrote, “it may give people false expectations to advise that reduction in consumptions is associated with reduction in harm.”

They did say that cutting back probably had value as an interim step to quitting smoking.

It is unclear why those who cut back did not seem to be healthier. One possibility, the study said, is that to compensate for the cigarettes they give up, smokers inhale smoke more deeply and smoke more of each cigarette.

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Cutting Back on Smoking Won't Cut Death Risk 

A Norwegian study found that merely cutting back on the number of cigarettes smoked per day did not lower a heavy smoker's risk of early death.

Reporting in the journal Tobacco Control, a team from the National Health Screening Service in Oslo found that limiting the daily amount of cigarettes may be useful as a temporary measure when a smoker is trying to quit, but kicking the habit is the only real way of reducing the risk of smoking-related health consequences and early death.

The team studied more than 51,000 men and women ranging in age from 20 to 34 at the start of the study, when they were first assessed for cardiovascular risk factors.

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• Heavy smokers 'must quit totally' 

There are no half measures for heavy smokers wanting to minimise the risk that their habit will lead to their early death, research suggests.

Scientists found no evidence that heavy smokers who halve their daily cigarette intake cut their premature death risk.

The long-term Norwegian study, of more than 51,000 men and women aged between 20 and 34, found stubbing out was the only way to cut the risk.

The study is published in the journal Tobacco Control. . . .

"For smokers who are not yet ready to quit but want to cut down, we recommend that they use NRT, otherwise there is a danger that their cigarette consumption will quickly return to previous levels."

Simon Clark, director of the smokers' lobby group Forest, said it was important to take into consideration the fact that many smokers tended to lead a generally unhealthy lifestyle, eating a poor diet, and not taking exercise.

He said: "Unfortunately, campaigners prefer to emphasise the 'quit or die' message, which is a gross exaggeration, but if you are a heavy smoker it is surely better to reduce consumption, combining that with a healthy diet and plenty of exercise, than not cut down at all?"

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