Tobacco.org

• Debate swirls over smoking in Air Force homes  

Some Air Force base housing residents in the Pacific say they wish their commands would offer them the option of smoke-free housing.

Others — smokers and nonsmokers alike — believe the military shouldn’t have any say in whether people can smoke in the privacy of their personal, albeit government-provided, home.

The issue came up at a Yokota Air Base town hall meeting earlier this year after residents there learned that Misawa Air Base would ban smoking in its family housing apartment towers starting May 1. During the meeting, several residents said they have neighbors’ cigarette smoke flowing into their homes and asked if the base could ban smoking in the towers.

Misawa officials said they instituted the ban because they weren’t in compliance with an Air Force instruction that states "the rights of the nonsmokers will prevail." They’ve since added other types of housing units to the ban and set the goal of making the majority of housing smoke-free as units undergo renovations.

The instruction, titled "Tobacco Use in the Air Force," gives commanders the authority to "designate areas or buildings in dormitories or family housing smoke-free when there is a common air-handling unit for multiple individuals or families ... to ensure a healthy and safe environment for all residents."

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• PHOTOS: Anti-smoking body painting 

A performer poses during a photo call for a body painting event, which is part of a government-sponsored anti-smoking campaign, in Seoul June 14, 2009.

A performer breaks off cigarettes as he poses for photographs during a photo call for a body painting event, part of a government-sponsored anti-smoking campaign in Seoul, June 14, 2009.

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Neonatal Hair Nicotine Levels and Fetal Exposure to Paternal Smoking at Home  

The authors investigated fetal exposure to paternal smoking at home during pregnancy. Korean families were included as trios of fathers, mothers, and neonates identified in 2005-2007. Sixty-three trios were finally enrolled in this study after exclusion of those in which the mother was a smoker or was regularly exposed to ETS at places other than the home. Nicotine and cotinine concentrations in hair were measured by using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry to determine long-term exposure to ETS. The difference between neonatal nicotine concentrations in the smoker and nonsmoker groups was not statistically significant. However, in the indoor-smoker group, neonatal nicotine concentrations were significantly higher than in the outdoor and nonsmoker groups (P < 0.05). Furthermore, neonatal nicotine concentrations in the outdoor-smoker group were not different from those in the nonsmoker group. These findings indicate that paternal smoking inside the home leads to significant fetal and maternal exposure to ETS and may subsequently affect fetal health. Conversely, findings show that paternal smoking outside the home prevents the mother and her fetus from being exposed to ETS.

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• Cigarettes Replace Incense for Roh 

At memorial services, people sometimes offer up items which the deceased liked, or wanted to have, during their life. In the late former President Roh Moo-hyun's case, it was a cigarette.

Some mourners gingerly lit up a cigarette and offered it to the late President at memorial altars in his hometown in southeastern Bongha Village and other locations across the nation.

Their offerings of lit cigarettes instead of laying flowers or burning incense were prompted by the news that Roh asked for a smoke from a security guard before killing himself. . . . Mourners are apparently feeling sorry for him because he couldn't smoke at the last moment of his life.

Roh used to be a heavy smoker, going through more than two packs of cigarettes a day. He quit smoking in October 2001, but about a year later, began to smoke again as his approval rate for the presidential candidacy was only around 10 percent.

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• Smoking Statistics Defy Conventional Wisdom 

The Korean Association of Smoking & Health said Sunday that the country's smoking rate headed south from 26.4 percent in 2005 to 24.1 percent in 2006 and 21.9 percent last year.

This sharply contrasts to Bank of Korea data, which shows that the overall expenditure on tobacco rose from 4.65 trillion won in 2005 to 4.95 trillion won in 2006 and 5.58 trillion won last year.

This means Koreans households channel up to 1.5 percent of their expenditure in purchasing cigarettes. Put otherwise, Koreans lit up a smoke about 65 billion times in 2008.

Experts came up with various explanations for the mystery such as the facts that foreigners are excluded from the smoking rate survey or smuggled tobacco is disappearing of late. But they struggle to explain the widening gap between the two figures.

Whatever the reason may be, lawmakers from both governing and opposition parties argue that the Seoul administration is lukewarm in its anti-smoking campaign.

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S. Koreans Spend Over W8 Tril. on Cigarettes 

South Koreans spent a record 8.16 trillion won ($6.46 billion) on cigarettes in 2008 despite efforts by the government and social groups to get people to cut down on smoking, a report by the central bank said Sunday.

The Bank of Korea said the figure represents a 3.9 percent gain from the 7.85 trillion won tallied the year before, according to Yonhap News Agency.

The total is equivalent to 25.2 percent of what the nation spends on medical and health care, 32.37 trillion won, and reflects a steady increase in cigarette purchasing.

Smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease and other ailments.

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SKorea elementary pupils in anti-smoking drive 

Officials in South Korea's capital will target children as young as seven for anti-smoking education and offer acupuncture to help them quit, authorities announced.

The Seoul city government's education office said it has included 24 elementary schools, covering ages 7-12, for the first time in its annual anti-smoking programme.

"It aims to better cope with the worsening smoking problem which damages the health of more students and younger students," Kim Seung-Chan, spokesman for the office, told AFP.

The programme from May to November will also cover 40 middle and 16 high schools

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• Sweeping Smoking Bans Set for Year`s End 

Smoking will be banned as early as this year in all public areas and inside buildings.

The Health, Welfare and Family Affairs Ministry said yesterday that it will designate 16 types of public facilities as non-smoking areas under a government roadmap on anti-smoking policy.

The facilities where smoking will be banned are large buildings; performance halls; private academic institutes; large sales outlets; lodging facilities; schools; indoor sports facilities; medical institutions; social welfare centers; public transportation venues; public bathhouses; game arcades; large restaurants; comic book stores; government buildings; and childcare facilities. . . .

Game arcades, comic book stores and restaurants allow smoking as long as over half their floor sizes are designated as smoke-free zones, but the plan is to ban smoking at those places completely.

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• SKorean company takes tough anti-smoking stance 

South Korean steelmaker Posco has sent its employees a tough no smoking message and may require them to take blood tests to check if they have kicked the habit.

Company officials said Tuesday that CEO Chung Joon-yang wants Posco, which employs 16,000 people, to be smoke-free by the end of year. . . .

But Noh Hee-bum, a spokesman at the Constitutional Court, says the move could violate South Korea's Constitution, which guarantees the people's right to seek happiness.

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Philip Morris hopes to grow despite health risks 

Philip Morris Korea, an affiliate of Philip Morris International, one of the world’s largest tobacco companies, had trouble penetrating the local market when it arrived here 20 years ago.

Koreans had long been suspicious of imported products. . . .

“This year, we plan to advance and accelerate even more in terms of business growth,” said Managing Director Roman Militsyn yesterday at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry building as the company celebrated its 20th anniversary. He added, “There is yet more room to grow.”

But the number of Koreans being treated for lung cancer, a leading complication of smoking, increased from 62,000 in 2005 to 71,000 last year, according to the Korean Association for the Study of Lung Cancer.

“I must agree that a tobacco product is a dangerous product,” Militsyn said. “I strongly support the regulations on all areas from how they’re made, taxed, marketed, sold and consumed.”

Korea levies a 641-won tax on each pack of 20 cigarettes, and the Health Ministry has designated 20 Seoul restaurants as non-smoking.

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No Smoking Zones Expanded 

Smokers in Seoul will have fewer places to smoke, as the city is moving to designate parks and all other public places as nonsmoking areas.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government said Monday that it plans to assign outdoor public places including plazas, streets and schools, as nonsmoking areas and will issue related regulations soon.

The ordinance, aimed at protecting nonsmokers from unwanted cigarette smoke, will not be legally binding nor will fines be imposed on smokers who violate it.

It will be a recommendation that provides the basis for provincial governments to take various steps to curb smoking in public places.

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Smoking Is Biggest Cause of Death  

In 2010, smoking-related cancer will be the biggest killer of humans, according to a report released by the World Health Organization last December.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) under the WHO has predicted the number of cancer patients worldwide will more than double to 27 million, 17 million of whom will die by 2030.

In Korea, there was a total of 265,000 deaths nationwide in 1979, according to data released by the then Economic Planning Board. Of these, 522 people died from lung cancer, accounting for a mere 0.2 percent of the total.

But, according to the National Statistical Office, of the 245,817 deaths in 2003, 12,725 resulted from lung cancer, a 24.4-fold increase compared with 1979. It is assumed that an increase in tobacco consumption contributed to the sharp rise in deaths from lung cancer.

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Tobacco Companies Target Girls In South Korea, Research Shows 

Tobacco marketing in South Korea has been deliberately aimed at girls and young women. New research has shown that transnational tobacco companies (TTCs) are using tactics long used with devastating effect in Western countries to snare new female smokers in Asia.

Kelley Lee from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine led a team of researchers who studied internal documents from the tobacco industry that reveal the scheme to seduce a generation of girls. She said, "Since the opening of the South Korean tobacco market in the late 1980s, females have been targeted by TTCs as an important source of future market growth and profitability. The rise in smoking rates among females within certain age groups since the late 1980s suggests that these efforts have been successful".

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The strategic targeting of females by transnational tobacco companies in South Korea following trade liberalisation (FULL TEXT PDF) 

In 1988 South Korea opened its cigarette market to foreign companies under the threat of US trade sanctions. Despite strong social stigma against female smoking in South Korea, and restrictions on tobacco marketing to women and children, smoking rates among young Korean females increased from 1.6% in 1988 to 13% in 1998. Previous analyses describe how Asian countries have been targeted by transnational tobacco companies for new markets, with Asian females offering substantial future growth potential. An understanding of the strategies used by TTCs to increase smoking among Korean females is critical to public health efforts to adopt a stronger gender perspective in implementing the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. . . .

Conclusions

Since the opening of the South Korean tobacco market in the late 1980s, females have been targeted by TTCs as an important source of future market growth and profitability. The rise in smoking rates among females within certain age groups since the late 1980s suggests that these efforts have been successful. The implementation of comprehensive tobacco control measures under the FCTC, from a gender perspective, is urgently needed to protect and promote the health of Korean women and girls.

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The strategic targeting of females by transnational tobacco companies in South Korea following trade liberalisation 

Results

TTCs have targeted Korean females since the late 1980s, conducting market research to understand consumer preferences, cultural characteristics and social changes affecting women and girls. Brands designed to appeal to females have focused on "slim" and "superslim" cigarettes, "light" and "mild" claims, and marketing which appeals to the growing numbers of young women entering the labour force. Strategies for overcoming legal restrictions on marketing to women and children have included the use of company rather than brand names, retail distribution at venues frequented by females, trademark diversification and sponsorship.

Conclusion

Given the high male smoking rates in South Korea, tobacco control efforts have given limited attention to girls and women. The limited data available on female smoking behaviour suggests that, despite legal restrictions and social stigma, smoking among females has increased since market opening, notably within younger age groups. In addition to more detailed trend data, there is an urgent need for the development and implementation of gender-sensitive tobacco control measures. Part of South Korea's accession to the FCTC should include emphasis on measures to address the strategic targeting of Korean females by TTCs.

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