Tobacco.org

China: Govt should not smoke with public money 

China's corruption watchdog will clamp down on government officials who use public money to buy expensive cigarettes, the official Xinhua News Agency said Thursday, after one county last month urged its officials to smoke more than a million local cigarettes a year.

Smoking is tightly woven into the fabric of daily life in China, the world's largest tobacco market, where about 2 trillion cigarettes are sold every year. Offering cigarettes is an important part of official banquets, and expensive brands of cigarettes confer greater status.

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• Discipline watchdog to ban tobacco purchase by public funds 

China's discipline watchdog will start a joint campaign with the Chinese Association of Tobacco Control (CACT) to ban government officials from purchasing tobacco using public funds, according to a spokeswoman who spoke with Xinhua Thursday.

Zhang Jing, a publicity officer with the CACT, said that the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) proposed the campaign last week.

"They (CCDI) phoned us last week. They are taking very active interests in such a joint campaign," said Zhang who, however, insisted that a specific timetable was not immediately available.

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Smoke Alarm Launches New Cannabis And Tobacco Education Initiative 

Smoke Alarm, a new not for profit Community Interest Company, is launching a series of nationwide seminars to help Smoking Cessation Therapists understand more about the addictive interdependency of cannabis and tobacco.

Throughout Europe, and in many other countries, the favoured method of cannabis delivery is to smoke the drug together with tobacco, creating a powerfully addictive, carcinogenic cocktail. The risk to health from tobacco smoking is incontrovertible; the physiological risks from cannabis are more controversial and often less readily accepted. James Langton, Smoke Alarm Director and Founder of http://www.clearhead.org.uk the support website for cannabis users who want to quit their habit, comments:

"Cannabis and tobacco are intimately connected and although the science of nicotine addiction is well understood, much less is known about how to help cannabis smokers with the psychological and physiological aspects of their dependency, and how the two substances interrelate to compound the difficulties in quitting either or both, together or separately.

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MPs Call For Passage Of Tobacco Usage Bill 

Dr Mustapha Ahmed, Member of Parliament (MP), Ayawaso East and Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health, on Tuesday said efforts should be made to lay before Parliament, the Tobacco Usage Bill to help control the use of tobacco in public places. He said the government was ready to put in place policies and programmes to curb tobacco use in public if the Bill was passed by Parliament.

“In the meantime we need to function as educators by setting the example of abstaining from tobacco use.” Dr Ahmed made the appeal in a statement on the floor of the House, in commemoration of World No Tobacco Day, which fell on May 31, on the theme: “Tobacco Health Warnings.” He said Ghana was at the early stage of tobacco control, while the public was not fully aware of the severity of the health hazards from tobacco use.

Dr Ahmed said there was no need for the country to wait for the catastrophe attached to tobacco use.

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World Heart Federation Warns that Burden of Tobacco Epidemic Continues to Worsen Societies and Economies 

G-20 leaders pledged to provide the International Monetary Fund with $500billion to help struggling economies, sparking global controversy. Yetstartling research shows that the combined costs of tobacco-related death andrelated productivity losses, healthcare expenditures, employee absenteeism,and widespread environmental harm are responsible for draining the sameamount - $500 billion - from the global economy each year and it receives much less attention than it deserves.

In recognition of World No Tobacco Day on 31st May, the World Heart Federation insists on bringing more attention to the impact of tobacco onhealth and disease. Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death andis closely linked to cardiovascular disease, which is the leading cause ofdeath worldwide. In 2010, it is estimated that six million people will diefrom the effects of tobacco - more than from HIV/AIDS, malaria andtuberculosis combined - and nearly three-quarters (72%) will be in low- andmiddle-income countries. Using tobacco causes clogging of the arteries, heartdisease, stroke, sudden death and heart failure.

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LCA Applauds Senate Leadership Team Working to Secure New FDA Regulatory Authority Over Tobacco 

Today, Lung Cancer Alliance (LCA) attended a press conference held by the Senate leadership team guiding consideration of historic legislation that would give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory authority over tobacco products.

Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), a senior member of the Senate Health, Labor, Education and Pensions Committee (HELP) and Chairman Edward Kennedy's chief deputy whip for health reform, reiterated his call for quick action to protect our children from tobacco addiction and save lives.

Dodd was joined by Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Jack Reed (D-RI) and Matt Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

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Picture this! 

It seems like the government will do all that is possible to make sure that citizens of India are healthy both in terms of their economic stituation and health. With pictorial warnings being made mandatory on all tobacco products, it still remains to be seen whether manufactures are going to feel the impact and moreover will the consumer behaviour change.

This could possibly happen to you. Thats what the health ministry and World Health Organisation wants you to know when you light up your next cigrette. Pictorial warnings are being made mandatory on all tobacco products. All cigarette will have to carry the pictorial warnings, covering at least 40 % of the principal display area of the pack. The packs also, cannot carry any message that directly or indirectly promotes a specific tobacco brand or tobacco use in general. Although the use of strong warnings like skull and cross bones or a cancer-disfigured face is optional, it is mandatory to have a scorpion and diseased lungs on all tobacco products.

The government order, issued last month, came despite stiff resistance from manufacturers.

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Students make statement about smoking in movies 

Several North Country high school students helped make a statement in New York City about smoking in movies.

They were among more than 200 high schoolers demanding that major motion picture studios eliminate smoking and other tobacco imagery from youth-rated movies.

One of those attending last weekend's demonstration was Alaina Mallette, a senior at General Brown.

She's also a member of Reality Check, an anti-smoking movement sponsored by the state Department of Health. Ms. Mallette says Hollywood is paying only lip service to the problem of movie promotion of smoking.

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SULLUM: 'One of the Worst Public Health Laws Ever Conceived' 

Manufacturers would have to demonstrate that their products are not merely safer than some of the existing alternatives. They would have to demonstrate that once the products enter the market, they would not have undesirable second-order effects such as encouraging smokers to switch instead of quit, or encouraging non-smokers to start who otherwise would not have started.

Meeting this kind of standard would be extraordinarily difficult; it is nearly a recipe to discourage the development of almost any new product no matter how much safer it would be than what smokers now use. . . .

As I said in a 2008 column, the central problem with this bill is that it seeks to prevent consumption rather than protect consumers, whose desires it aims to frustrate rather than satisfy.

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• Police target drugs, contraband tobacco in raids 

It stood like a fortress in Kahnawake for the past four years and left many people on the Mohawk reserve wondering what was going on inside.

Montreal police shed some light yesterday on the mysterious warehouse that is alleged to have served as the transit point for Salvatore Cazzetta's activities both as a Hells Angel and as a legitimate businessman.

The facility was targeted as a small part of Project Machine - a major investigation into drug trafficking in downtown Montreal that began in 2007 - but the building also proved to be the focal point.

Montreal police arrested 46 people yesterday in an operation that involved more than 600 officers from the Montreal force, the Sûreté du Québec, the RCMP and Kahnawake Mohawk Peacekeepers.

According to Montreal police, contraband tobacco and such drugs as crack cocaine flowed out past the three-metre-high fence surrounding the warehouse while money flowed in.

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Misguided Optimism Among College Student Smokers: Leveraging Their Quit-Smoking Strategies for Smoking Cessation Campaigns 

College student smokers are a unique group who typically plan to quit smoking by the time they graduate, but few succeed and those who do require multiple attempts. This study examines the strategies of college student participants who successfully quit smoking. They tell a story of trial and error in achieving their goal—one that is more likely to end in another failed attempt than a successful effort unless they learn from past mistakes. Their stories not only show misplaced optimism for quitting but also ineffective smoking-cessation efforts.

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Police target gangs in Montreal drug raids  

A heavily fortified warehouse on a Mohawk reserve near Montreal was the main focus of Quebec police raids Wednesday aimed at cracking down on drug operations allegedly linked to the Hells Angels.

More than 600 police officers took part in the raids, which netted 46 arrests and also targeted the trade in contraband tobacco.

"The investigation started in 2007 following information obtained about narcotics traffickers who were operating in the downtown area," Montreal police Inspector Bernard Lamothe told a news conference.

Insp. Lamothe said the Hells Angels "established business links" with two residents of the Kahnawake reserve who were among those arrested.

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The Effectiveness of Cigarette Warning Label Threats on Nonsmoking Adolescents 

This experiment investigated three levels of threat in cigarette warning labels: no warning/text warning only/text + graphic warning. Teenagers in Canada and the US were exposed to one of these labels in a web-surfing environment. Participants surfed a website sponsored by a familiar cigarette brand or an unfamiliar cigarette brand. After surfing, three dependent measures were assessed: brand attitude, website attitude, and smoking intent. Results indicated that the graphic label was the most effective for Canadian participants, leading to negative attitudes and lower smoking intentions, but the graphic label was least effective at lowering smoking intentions for US participants.

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Tobacco Litigator's Widow Wins Partial Victory 

An appellate court has handed a partial victory to the widow of prominent Palm Beach, Fla., litigator Robert Montgomery in a dispute with her late husband's former law partner, reversing a trial court order that would have required Montgomery's estate to pay more than $100,000.

The 4th District Court of Appeal reversed a trial court order against the estate that required it to pay around $100,000 in attorney fees to former partner Christopher Larmoyeux of West Palm Beach. The appellate court found that Larmoyeux filed his claims too late and ruled they were time-barred.

But the 4th DCA affirmed an order requiring the estate to pay more than $80,000 in attorney fees to North Palm Beach attorney Eric Hewko, whom Larmoyeux brought in as co-counsel in a case originating in Montgomery's firm that Larmoyeux handled afterward. The 4th DCA also found there was no credibility to fraud claims in a suit filed by Montgomery and his counsel against Hewko. The trial court had ordered both Montgomery and the West Palm Beach law firm of Beasley Hauser Kramer Leonard & Galardi to pay fees to Hewko and Larmoyeux.

"The trial court's finding that the claims were not made in good faith was supported by competent, substantial evidence," Judge Fred Hazouri wrote. He was joined in the opinion by Judge Gary Farmer and Judge Carole Taylor.

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• FDA crackdown on e-cigarettes draws local criticism  

But Ainsworth's supply of the electronic cigarettes, which dispense a cloud of nictotine-infused vapor by means of an atomizer, is now threatened.

While some manufacturers of the device say they're not intended to help people quit smoking, the Food and Drug Administration considers them an unapproved drug-delivery device and has been preventing shipments from entering the country since earlier this year.

"We don't know what their contents are, we have no idea," Karen Riley, a spokeswoman for the agency, told The Enterprise by phone from Washington, D.C., adding that they are not permitted for sale until manufacturers submit data from clinical trials proving that they are safe.

People who sell the devices disagree.

The contents are known, and they're safe, according to Brandon Allen, owner of Port Arthur-based eSmokerShop.com. . . .

"Even though it's not FDA approved, anyone with half a brain can see that it's better than tobacco," he said. . . .

"If there's not a ban, I see it taking over," he said. "Honest to God, I see it pushing Big Tobacco out of the way."

In a lawsuit filed against the FDA by Smoke Everywhere, the Florida-based electronic cigarette distributor maintains that its products are not drug delivery devices like a nicotine patch, which the FDA can regulate, but rather tobacco alternatives.

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Even though it's not FDA approved, anyone with half a brain can see that it's better than tobacco.
Brandon Allen, eSmokerShop.com, on the e-cigarette.