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Strong representation was made today by Dave Atherton of Freedom2Choose and freelance journalist Pat Nurse who objected against the material on the grounds of incitement to hatred towards smokers, with the inference that smokers could be treated as nothing more than ‘punch-bags’.
Accompanying them was Dudley councillor Malcolm Davis.
The NHS Trust had recruited the photographer Rankin to assist with the hard-hitting anti-smoking film, which was being used as part of a multimedia campaign launched in September. Rankin had co-directed the film with Chris Cottam, which shows a smoker suffering an assault from an invisible assailant as he walks down the street.
Freedom2Choose lodged a complaint against the material and upon consideration, the NHS Trust has agreed to remove it from all venues within the next two weeks.
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Where, in an acutely sensitive regulatory environment, should the tobacco category be positioned in a duty free store?
When The Nuance Group opened its splendid new 650sq m tax & duty free store at Geneva International Airport earlier this month, it opted to place the entire tobacco category at the entrance of the store – displayed in what Nuance called a “breathtaking black and white setting”.
The logic is obvious. As many studies have proven, tobacco is not just a major drawcard in most duty free stores, it is also a tremendous fooftall (and therefore penetration) driver for other categories.
In Geneva that’s especially the case. The airport’s cigar assortment has long been a hallmark of the retail offer (it has been considerably enhanced here) and the cigarettes category is particularly important to the Geneva passenger profile.
But one wonders how that positioning sits with the approach likely to be adopted in English and Scottish duty free stores, where travel retailers have sought an exemption from proposed tobacco display restrictions that are being touted under the Health Bill. . . .
As we reported recently, The Tobacco Advertising and Promotion (Display) (England) Regulations 2010 propose wide-ranging limitations on the display and merchandising of tobacco products.
A new lung cancer drug that can cure the deadliest form of the disease is being developed by scientists.
The treatment, which appears to have no side affects, killed all traces of the 'small cell' version of the cancer in more than 50 per cent of the British trials on laboratory mice. It also blocked the cells' ability to resist standard chemotherapy treatment.
A fifth of lung cancer patients have the 'small cell' form, in which the tumours spread so quickly they can rarely be removed. Only 3 per cent of sufferers can expect to survive five years after diagnosis.
Professor Michael Seckl, head of Molecular Oncology and Lung Cancer Research at Imperial College, which led the research, said he hoped to start clinical trials with human patients as early as next year.
A ban on cigarette vending machines is set to become law across the UK, after it cleared its final Commons hurdle on Tuesday night.
MPs approved Lords amendments to the Health Bill, following the surprise agreement in the Commons to the proposal from Labour former minister Ian McCartney last month.
Health Minister Gillian Merron said it was hoped the ban would dissuade young people from smoking, as these were the "new recruits the tobacco industry needs to replace those who die".
There are many reasons why children take up smoking but youth exposure to tobacco marketing is a key factor. Although most forms of tobacco promotion were outlawed in the UK by the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2002, the tobacco industry has continued to use its marketing muscle to lure children to its products through elaborate displays and fancy packaging. . . .
Naturally, the tobacco industry disputes the evidence because of its need to recruit and maintain new customers. The industry has an established track record of contesting research evidence to delay regulation. Tactics include challenging the evidence in order to create uncertainty and using apparently 'independent' researchers to do its dirty work. Such allies include the Cato Institute, for example. . . .
Furthermore there is simply no evidence to support the claim that putting tobacco out of sight at the point of sale leads to an increase in illegal sales. The vast majority of retailers are law-abiding and would not be tempted to try and sell illicit products. The rise in smuggling in both Ireland and Canada predates the implementation of display bans and there is no evidence of any causal association. Tobacco smuggling is clearly a huge problem that requires a strategic response but abandoning a policy that would stop tobacco being promoted to young people is not the answer.
Sunderland Royal Hospital is "reluctantly" reinstating shelters for smokers in its grounds.
Health bosses admit they are unable to stop people disobeying the no-smoking rule and lighting up just outside the hospital's main doors.
This had led to complaints by patients and staff about second-hand smoke drifting into the building.
Purpose-built shelters, which were dismantled two years ago, are to be set up again.
What does this mean for me?
We don't know why people who switched cigarette types were less likely to succeed in quitting. The researchers suggest some possibilities:
* People who switched may have been more addicted to nicotine, so tried to cut down by switching first rather than simply trying to quit
* They may have used up their initial motivation by switching brands, and run out of enthusiasm to quit altogether
* They may have felt that quitting was less important, because they wrongly thought they were doing less damage to their health with the low-tar brand.
Overall, the study suggests that swapping types of cigarette doesn't help you give up smoking. The message seems to be that it's better to concentrate your energies on giving up, rather than worrying about the type of cigarette you smoke.
What should I do now?
If you want to give up smoking, contact your GP surgery. They can help you to quit. Alternatively, call the NHS Smoking Helpline on 0800 022 4332 to find out about stop smoking services in your area.
Six years after the ban on tobacco advertising and sponsorship in the UK, a London-based sports body stands accused of breaching the law by promoting a cigarette brand on its website.[1] The Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) which represents the world's top male tennis players, is responsible for the sponsorship contracts for the various international tournaments. The next ATP World Tour tournament, which is due to take place in Basel, Switzerland from 31 October to 8 November, is sponsored by Davidoff, a cigarette brand manufactured by Imperial Tobacco. The Swiss indoor tournament is believed to be the only one in the world to be sponsored by a tobacco company.
British-based Imperial Tobacco acquired the Davidoff cigarette brand in 2006 and has exploited the weak law in Switzerland which still allows events to be sponsored by tobacco companies, although tobacco advertising on television is banned. However, the televising of the event means that tobacco advertising will be beamed into the homes of more than one billion people worldwide, [2] contrary to Article 13 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control which has been signed by 160 countries worldwide. [3]
ASH has written to the ATP urging the organisation to end its ties with the tobacco industry when the current contract comes to an end and is seeking clarification from the Department of Health regarding the possible breach of UK law.
In the last 40 years we in the UK have developed a way of regulating drugs using a complex legislative framework. There are two major acts of parliament regulating drugs. First, there is the Medicines Act 1968, which is essentially monitored and acted upon by the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA), and second, there is the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, which comes under the remit of the Home Office (see Figure 1). Thus, recreational psychoactive substances are controlled by Home Office legislation.
There are a number of other substances that are popularly used and cause harm whose risks fall outside these two control mechanisms. For example, alcohol and tobacco are essentially regulated foods or commodities, while solvents, which kill about ten people a year in the UK through inhaling, are regulated at the point of sale according to the age of the person buying the solvent. . . .
If we look on the generous side, there is a likelihood that taking cannabis, particularly if you use a lot of it, will make you more prone to having psychotic experiences. That includes schizophrenia, but schizophrenia is a relatively rare condition so it’s very hard to be sure about its causation. The analysis we came up with was that smokers of cannabis are about 2.6 times more likely to have a psychotic-like experience than non-smokers. To put that figure in proportion, you are 20 times more likely to get lung cancer if you smoke tobacco than if you don’t.
That’s the sort of scaling of harms that I want people to understand. There is a relatively small risk for smoking cannabis and psychotic illness compared with quite a substantial risk for smoking tobacco and lung cancer. . . .
The ranking also suggests that a tripartite classification system might make sense, with drugs ranking as more harmful than alcohol being class A and those ranking lower than tobacco as class C. . . .
We also have to fully endorse harm reduction approaches at all levels and especially stop the artificial separation of alcohol and tobacco as ‘non-drugs’. In some parts of the UK this has already happened. In Wales the programme of intervention in relation to drug harms now incorporates smoking and drinking because those are seen as in some cases being bigger problems than other drugs. There are other merits in approaching them simultaneously: for example, many of these drugs are being used at the same time by the same people.
A fully scientifically-based Misuse of Drugs Act where drug classification accurately reflects harms would be a powerful educational tool. Using the Act in a political way to give messages other than those relating to relative harms undermines the Act and does great damage to the educational message. We also have to fully endorse harm reduction approaches at all levels and especially stop the artificial separation of alcohol and tobacco as ‘non-drugs’.Professor David Nutt
The UK's drugs czar, who was sacked for publicly criticising government policy, has branded Gordon Brown and his cabinet "irrational Luddites".
Professor David Nutt, who was dismissed as chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) yesterday after he claimed that illegal drugs such as cannabis and ecstasy are less dangerous than alcohol and tobacco, is warning that more senior scientific advisors are set to walk out over the row over drug classification.
He was asked to resign by Home Secretary Alan Johnson, who claimed he has "lost confidence" in the expert's political impartiality.
Today, Professor Nutt claimed Gordon Brown's government was alienating themselves from the scientific community appointed to advise them.
He said: "Gordon Brown makes completely irrational statements about cannabis being 'lethal', which it is not. . . .
Professor Nutt's sacking came after he used a lecture at King's College, London, and a briefing paper, to attack what he called the "artificial" separation of alcohol and tobacco from illegal drugs.
A man from Cumbria has admitted selling counterfeit cigarettes to a child from his ice cream van.
Anthony Wharton, 61, of Marsden Street, Barrow was caught by trading standards officers who found him selling cigarettes to a 16-year-old.
Cheap cigarettes smuggled from abroad and sold illegally in "tab houses" are getting children hooked on smoking, trading standards officers have warned.
About 30% of under 18s admit to buying illicit tobacco, particularly in areas of deprivation, officials say.
The cigarettes are sold from private homes without age checks, creating a new generation of smokers, they claim.
Tobacco smuggling is thought to cost the UK economy about £3bn a year in lost tax revenue.
Trading Standards say "tab houses" are a growing problem, often charging half as much as legitimate shops. . . .
Betty McBride, director of policy and communication at the British Heart Foundation, said: "It is shocking that children's health is being put at risk by people running these illicit tobacco dens.
Soaring numbers of Scottish women are dying of lung cancer despite survival rates among men improving significantly, new figures show.
The increase also bucks the trend for death rates from other types of cancer north of the Border, all of which are going down.
Lung cancer deaths in men plummeted by 21 per cent in the 10 years to 2008, but increased by more than 11 per cent among women. . . .
However, the figures also reinforced major health differences across Scotland, with those living in the poorest areas 40 per cent more likely to have cancer than those in the wealthiest neighbourhoods.
Death rates in the most deprived communities are 75 per cent higher than those in the richest areas.
Dr Richard Simpson, Scottish Labour health spokesman, said: "I welcome the general improvement in cancer survival rates, but I am both disappointed and deeply concerned that more women are dying of lung cancer.
"This mainly reflects the increase in smoking among women over the past 20 years."
Exposure to cigarette smoke might weaken immune cells' ability to remove bacterial infections from the lungs, specifically nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHI), a pathogen often associated with respiratory infections and the progression of respiratory disease, says a new study.
NTHI has been found to cause invasive diseases such as meningitis, sinusitis, pneumonia, and bronchitis.
It is also the pathogen most frequently isolated in the respiratory tract of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and chronic bronchitis.
Alveolar macrophages are part of the lungs'' innate defense system and they play an essential role in the clearance of bacterial infections.
The research team has found that cigarette smoke may disrupt the capability of alveolar macrophages to clear NTHI from the lungs. . . .
The study appears in journal Infection and Immunity.
Thanks to some unusual candour on the part of the anti-tobacco brigade in New York City, we now have official confirmation that banning smoking in public has absolutely nothing to do with protecting the health of non-smokers from second-hand smoke, but everything to do with stigmatising both smoking and smokers. Closer to home, new evidence from the National Health Service (NHS) shows that the public smoking ban in England has made absolutely no positive difference in smoking rates, despite claims made by its champions that it would.
In September, Dr Thomas Farley, New York City's Health Commissioner, proposed banning smoking at all of the city's parks and beaches (1). Dr Farley's rationale for the ban has nothing to do with the risks that outdoor smoking pose to non-smokers, but rather with preventing people, particularly children, from having to see anyone smoking in public. . . .
Patrick Basham directs the Democracy Institute and is a Cato Institute adjunct scholar. John Luik is a Democracy Institute senior fellow. They are co-authors of Hidden in Plain Sight: Why Tobacco Display Bans Fail.