Tobacco.org

• Wales | Smoking 'costs NHS £1m each day' 

Every year 6,000 people die in Wales as a result of smoking

New figures indicate that smoking is costing the NHS in Wales more than £7m every week.

A report commissioned by Ash Wales and British Heart Foundation Cymru reveals that smoking related diseases cost NHS Wales an estimated £386m in 2007/08.

Smoking accounts for around 22% of adult hospital admission costs, over £235m every year, the research said.

The assembly government said tackling smoking was a priority and attitudes were changing towards smoking.

The report, being presented at an international tobacco control conference in Cardiff by Prof Ceri J Phillips of Swansea University, said £43m was also spent on GP consultations.

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• Smokers banned by Welsh council from adopting or fostering children 

A COUNCIL has become the first in Wales to impose a blanket ban on smokers adopting or fostering children.

Anti-smoking campaigners last night welcomed the move by Merthyr Tydfil council, but critics have pointed out there are already not enough foster parents in Wales.

They fear the changes might discourage potential carers from coming forward and could jeopardise the future of children already in the care of smokers.

Increasing numbers of local authorities, including Cardiff and Pembrokeshire, have banned smokers from fostering children under five but this is the nation's first blanket no-smoking rule for foster carers and adopters.

Roslyn Rees, head of operational children's services at Merthyr Tydfil council, said: "The health, safety and well-being of children and young people are at the heart of policies and practice related to children.

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• Smoking ban in Wales proves a breath of fresh air 

IS it really two years since the smoking ban was introduced in Wales? Because the majority view seems to be how did we ever put up with the smog-filled pubs and restaurants of the past.

Councils in North Wales have broadly adopted a softly-softly approach to enforcement, preferring persuasion and education to zealous persecution of smokers and landlords.

Conwy council has used the stick rather than carrot most often with 52 fixed penalty fines.

Yet with more than 99% of premises inspected across Wales in January complying with the smoke-free legislation, the people have clearly signed up to the deal which can only benefit public health in the longer term.

The benefits are there: significantly improved air quality in pubs and other venues protecting workers and customers from the risks of second-hand tobacco smoke; more than 12,000 signing up to quit smoking in the last year, while 32% smoke fewer cigarettes because of the ban. . . .

The predicted fall in cases of lung cancer can not come soon enough.

But the evidence from Scotland is encouraging.

There has been a 17% decrease north of the border in hospital admissions for Acute Coronary Syndrome since smoke-free laws were introduced there.

The evidence for Wales will become available soon.

If, as anticipated, this mirrors the trends in Scotland, even the most ardent, libertarian smoker will have to admit that the law is doing its job.

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• Consultant in lung cancer calls for a ban on smoking throughout NHS hospitals 

A LEADING consultant has called for a total ban on smoking in all hospital grounds.

Dr Ian Campbell, a chest consultant at Llandough Hospital, said attempts by NHS trusts to prohibit smoking within their grounds need to be enforced by laws to make smoking illegal on any NHS estates.

His comments come after security staff at hospitals in North Wales said they are facing daily verbal threats and abuse from the public when they try to enforce a smoking ban in hospital grounds.

Dr Campbell, a lung cancer expert and former president of the British Thoracic Society, helped to mastermind a no-smoking culture at Llandough Hospital, in Penarth, more than 20 years ago.

Such action, coupled with the appointment of the first smoking cessation counsellor in the UK, virtually rid the hospital and its grounds of smokers.

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• Single mother who allowed her son aged THREE to smoke cigarettes walks free from court 

A young mother who allowed her three-year-old son to smoke cigarettes at home was freed by a judge today - for her children's sake.

Mother-of-three Kelly Marie Pocock, 24, was accused of letting the little boy smoke in his bedroom and around the house.

A court heard family friend was so concerned she used her mobile phone to film the youngster puffing away.

She handed the evidence to social services who alerted police. Pocock was arrested for child cruelty.

The single mother was yesterday given a 40-week jail sentence - but it was suspended for two years after a judge said her children had suffered enough.

The judge spared her an immediate prison sentence after hearing Pocock had attended six parenting classes and was 'now putting her children before herself'.

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• Shocking teenage smoking figures revealed 

UNDERAGE teenagers are smoking up to 200 cigarettes a week, shocking new research has revealed.

A study by anti-smoking charity ASH Wales found that many are buying smuggled tobacco or are being sold individual cigarettes by shopkeepers who are breaking the law.

It has been illegal to sell single cigarettes in the UK since 1991.

The teen smokers, whose average age is just 14, also find it easy to buy cigarettes in their local corner shops and in supermarkets, despite the age limit on tobacco being raised from 16 to 18.

ASH Wales today called on the Assembly Government to take a lead and consider licensing retailers to sell tobacco in the same way they are licensed to sell alcohol . . .

The shocking research findings come as the Department of Health is consulting on radical proposals to limit the availability of tobacco - these would apply in Wales, England and Northern Ireland.

This includes banning cigarette vending machines and branding on tobacco packaging.

The Scottish Government has also announced a range of proposals

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• Painter given £30 fine for smoking 'at work'...in his own van | Mail Online 

For painter and decorator Gordon Williams, his van is simply a means of getting from A to B.

But council officials chose to give the vehicle a more lofty status.

When they spotted him behind the wheel with a cigarette, they handed him an on-the-spot fine of £30 - for smoking in his place of work.

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• Heritage Minister Rhodri Glyn Thomas quits  

NATIONAL Assembly Culture Minister Rhodri Glyn Thomas has sensationally resigned after being told to leave a pub for smoking a cigar.

Plaid Cymru’s Mr Thomas quit following a meeting with Deputy First Minister Ieuan Wyn Jones in Caernarfon. . . .

Mr Thomas’s letter said: “In the light of the publicity that has been following me in the last weeks I feel that my position in the Government is no longer sustainable. Further comments would be bound to follow. It has been a privilege to be part of this Government during this exceedingly exciting period.” . . .

“I wish you well both personally and in your future career.” Breaking the smoking ban in Wales carries a £50 fixed penalty fine.

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• Workingmen’s clubs face last orders 

LAST orders may soon be called at workingmen's clubs across Wales because the smoking ban is dragging down business.

Landlords say bar takings have nose-dived in the last year because regulars are turning their backs on the clubs.

Instead they are choosing to drink at home where they can smoke in peace.

And across Wales club membership numbers have plummeted as the price of supermarket alcohol gets cheaper and cheaper.

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• An informal school-based peer-led intervention for smoking prevention in adolescence (ASSIST): a cluster randomised trial. (PDF) 

The absence of any effect on young people who were already smoking every week, as well as their sense of addiction, calls for greater attention to programmes for smoking cessation. The processes that affect initiation are probably different from those that affect progression and maintenance of regular smoking,6 and youth-specific cessation programmes need to become more available to adolescents. There is growing evidence for the promise of interventions for tobacco cessation for young people,8 but more high quality, rigorous controlled trials—like ASSIST—are needed to move this area forward.

We also need to consider other social influence factors that could have an equal, if not greater, effect on youth smoking than could peers. Adolescents are more likely to smoke if a parent smokes, and sibling smoking might have an even stronger effect on an adolescent’s smoking.9,10 Some family interventions might prevent adolescent smoking,11 but rarely do these programmes include a sibling component. Yet siblings, even those who smoke, could be able to provide powerful antismoking messages, given that anecdotally these young people often state that they hope their younger siblings never smoke or become addicted like they are. Siblings remain an untapped resource for the extension of prevention programmes. Social influence processes also come into effect with marketing and advertising by tobacco companies, and some researchers have noted that teenagers are more likely to be influenced to smoke by cigarette advertising than they are by peer pressure.12

Both bold policy solutions and effective interventions are needed to reduce smoking in adolescents. As encouraging as ASSIST’s findings are, an important message is the need to go beyond the classroom setting and into the many domains of social influence that adolescents encounter.

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• Study suggests cool kids can help others avoid smoking 

Getting the cool kids to talk to their peers about the dangers of smoking cut the number of young people who started using cigarettes in one study by nearly 25 percent, British researchers said on Friday.

The study published in the journal Lancet took a different approach than most tobacco cessation programmes aimed at youths by asking students to nominate others they viewed as influential or leaders to spread the anti-smoking message.

This peer selection proved more effective than conventional programmes and greatly reduced the number of students likely to start smoking, the researchers said.

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• Wales | 80 penalties given in smoking ban 

Seventy nine people and one business have been penalised for flouting the smoking ban in the year since it was introduced in Wales, figures show.

The ban made it illegal to smoke inside public buildings and some pub landlords say it has affected trade and warn of closures.

But the chief medical officer for Wales described the ban as a "milestone for public health".

And the assembly government says more people are giving up smoking.

It also said there was an increase in public support for the ban

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• Hospital shock for kids of smokers 

CHILDREN of smokers are a shocking 70 per cent more likely to end up in hospital than youngsters whose parents don't light up, according to a top medic.

And Dr Iolo Doull, consultant respiratory paediatrician at the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff, claims about a third of youngsters he treats are there because of chest-related problems linked to passive smoking in the home.

Dr Doull said: "If either parent smokes your chances of having a chest problem are 20 per cent greater and chances of having an ear problem are 60 per cent greater. Sudden infant death syndrome, or cot death, is twice that in mothers who smoke.

"Basically, you're more likely to have coughing and wheezing in the first two years of life. The risks of coming into hospital are 70 per cent greater than if you have got parents who don't smoke."

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• Smoking During Pregnancy Can Put Mothers And Babies At Risk 

Pregnant women who suffer from the high risk condition pre-eclampsia -- which leads to the death of hundreds of babies every year -- are putting the lives of their unborn children at significantly increased risk if they continue to smoke during pregnancy.

But experts at The University of Nottingham have also shown that if women give up smoking before or even during pregnancy they can significantly reduce these risks.

The study linking smoking and pre-eclampsia was carried out by the Genetics of Pre-Eclampsia Consortium (GOPEC) and was funded by the British Heart Foundation. The results have just been published in the journal Hypertension.

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• Now the smoke has cleared... 

New research carried out for The Publican and Britvic shows licensees are adjusting to the smoking ban and looking for ways to make it work for their businesses

The facts surrounding the smoking ban are slowly beginning to emerge.

Three months into England�s smoking ban � and six months into the ban in Wales � exclusive research carried out among 500 licensees for The Publican and Britvic has begun to pinpoint the trading opportunities for pubs. . . .

Much of the mantra surrounding the end of smoking in pubs has been about the growing family opportunity. Across our total sample, fewer than 10 per cent of pubs have seen a significant increase in families coming in since the ban ­ but the figure rises significantly for pubs to the west of Offa¹s Dyke.

One in four (26 per cent) pubs in Wales has seen an increase in families coming into the pub since April 1.

Moreover, a larger proportion of pubs in Wales ­ 28 per cent ­ is seeing regular new customers since the ban.

Small numbers of pubs in Wales are reporting a rise in both drinks and food sales, with soft drinks among the categories showing a significant upward trend.

There are forces of change at work. These are likely to be replicated in England in the months to come, and it is up to pubs to capitalise on them.

Paul Linthwaite, business unit director, on-premise, at Britvic Soft Drinks, suggests the experiences of pubs in Wales are offering an example to pubs across the UK.

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