Tobacco.org

• AUDIO: Smoke in the face of Czech anti-tobacco campaigners  

The Czech Republic has taken a step against the anti-smoking flow in the rest of Europe. While anti-smoking bans have spread across the continent in recent years, Czech MPs have proposed a relaxation of the current rules for smoking in pubs and restaurants. Anti-smoking groups say they have caved in to pressure from the powerful tobacco lobby.

Czech MPs on Wednesday backed a proposal that owners of food serving pubs and restaurants can decide from the middle of next year whether their establishments are smoking or not.

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• Teen smoking at new low  

DYING BREED: Sixteen-year-old Jayden Marshal may smoke but 66 per cent of his Wellington peers have never tried it.

The number of teens puffing on cigarettes has dropped to a record low, an annual survey of smoking habits shows.

But the survey's author has warned that new smokefree policies are needed as the impact of existing regulations fades and the reduction in teenage smoking rates slows.

Action on Smoking and Health's Year 10 Snapshot Survey 2008 shows a record 61 per cent of year 10 pupils (14- and 15-year-olds) nationwide have never tried smoking, compared with 32 per cent in 1999, when the survey began.

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• Binge Drinking Increases Risk Of Lung Cancer In Smokers 

The risk of lung cancer increases for those smokers who have a tendency to binge drinking. This was found by the Kuopio Ischemic Heart Disease Risk Factor Study (KIHD), conducted at the University of Kuopio in Finland.

The KIHD study has followed up a cohort of men from eastern Finland for about 17 years. Binge drinking was found be associated with an increased risk of lung cancer among those who had smoked between 1 and 30 years regardless of how many cigarrettes a day they smoked. Meanwhile, binge drinking was not associated with any increased risk of lung cancer among non-smokers.

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• High-Stakes Tobacco-Patent Lawsuit Heads To Jury Next Week  

The fortunes of aspiring tobacco company Star Scientific Inc. (STSI) could hinge on a high-stakes patent-infringement case that goes to a federal jury in Baltimore next week.

Star, a small tobacco company with a big patent claim, says it has invented a method of curing tobacco that prevents the formation of certain cancer-causing toxins.

The Virginia-based company sued R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., a unit of Reynolds American Inc. (RAI), alleging that the nation's second-biggest tobacco company encouraged its tobacco farmers to practice Star's patented curing method. . . .

After several years of pre-trial legal wrangling, a patent-infringement trial began May 18. Closing arguments are likely to wrap up Monday, and then the case will be submitted to the jury for deliberations.

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• Christopher Caldwell - Addicts have made a choice 

We have a justice system that treats drug use as a malevolent act of will (to be punished) and a medical profession that treats it as an unfortunate disease (to be cured). Who is right? In a magnificent new book, Addiction: A Disorder of Choice , Gene M. Heyman, a lecturer in psychology at Harvard Medical School, argues that it is not his fellow medical professionals.

Addiction is voluntary. The idea that addiction is a “chronic, relapsing brain disease” may be well-meaning but it is false. “Everyone,” Mr Heyman writes, “including those who are called addicts, stops using drugs when the costs of continuing become too great.” We need to make clear, though, what Mr Heyman means by “voluntary”. He does not deny that addiction is an enormous problem that can wreck a life, or several. If you drive drunk or embezzle money to pay for your coke habit when you ought to be studying, the consequences can be permanent and devastating.

But addiction is not the kind of problem that most people think it is. It is not so very far from setting interest rates, devising depreciation schedules and other economic problems of “intertemporal choice”. It involves weighing the value of a current good (intoxication) against the value of various future ones that are shrouded in uncertainty. . . .

The centrepiece of the disease theory of addiction is philosophical, not scientific. It is that nothing that produces sub-optimal outcomes as consistently as addiction does can be freely chosen. “No one chooses to be an addict,” as the saying goes. Mr Heyman shows that this is wrong – or at least that this is the wrong way of getting at the problem.

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• Not smoking a struggle for Obama 

The White House press secretary says President Barack Obama still struggles with a nicotine addiction, but the spokesman would not say whether the president still smokes cigarettes. . . .

Asked directly if Obama still smokes, Gibbs said: "I would simply tell you I think struggling with a nicotine addiction is something that happens every day."

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• Cigarette loving Greeks banned from smoking in the workplace  

The days of cigarette friendly Greece are about to go up in smoke as the government announced a ban against smoking in the workplace to take effect starting July 1. The new law will have a heavy impact on a nation where nearly 45 per cent of the adult population smokes, and where smoking in offices and cafes is seen as a traditional pastime.

Greece, one of Europe's heaviest smoking nations, had initially allowed for designated smoking rooms to be set aside in state and private businesses under the new law, but the minister of health ruled that option out on Thursday.

"As of July 1 no smoking will be allowed anywhere in the workplace," said Health Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos.

He said the government will only pass a partial ban for restaurants and bars, saying smaller establishements will become strictly non-smoking but larger businesses were allowed to designate smoking and non-smoking areas.

Under the new law, smoking will be banned in other public places such as schools, universities, state offices, hospitals and on all forms of public transport.

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• Film ad provokes HK anti-smokers 

A poster for a film about Coco Chanel that features the French fashion legend smoking a cigarette might break Hong Kong laws on tobacco advertising.

The advert for "Coco Before Chanel" shows the film's star Audrey Tautou in silk pyjamas with Chanel's trademark cigarette dangling from her fingers.

Although banned in Paris, France, it has appeared across Hong Kong.

But a campaign group, Clear the Air, alleges the poster breaks Hong Kong's increasingly strict anti-smoking laws.

Smoking airbrushed

James Middleton, chairman of the anti-tobacco committee for campaign group Clear the Air, said the poster breaks Hong Kong laws banning any mention of smoking or cigarettes in advertising.

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• New York City's Use of Consumer Fraud, Public Nuisance Statutes to Recoup Cigarette Taxes Is Rejected  

New York City cannot use the state's consumer fraud statute or a common law public nuisance claim to sue cigarette vendors to recover revenues lost when untaxed cigarettes are shipped into the city, the New York Court of Appeals determined Tuesday.

The legislative intent behind the consumer fraud law, General Business Law §349(h), and the public nuisance statute, Public Health Law §1399-11, does not provide for their employment in the city's longstanding attempts to sue cigarette vendors and distributors to recover sales tax revenues, a unanimous court ruled in City of New York v. Smokes-Spirits.com Inc., 92.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had asked for answers on two certified questions about the applicability of New York laws in association with the city's legal fight in federal court against the shipment of untaxed cigarettes into the city.

A circuit panel has upheld the city's attempts to use the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) against tobacco vendors for their failure to report sales as required by the federal Jenkins Act.

But the state Court of Appeals concluded that the consumer fraud claim fails because the city does not fall under the definition of a consumer who can avail itself of the statute.

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• Can smoking ever be made safe?  

TOBACCO companies have begun "clinical trials" to assess whether a range of prototype "safer cigarettes" really do slash levels of toxic chemicals entering the body. At the moment there is no way of regulating any health claims firms might want to make for these cigarettes or restricting whether they bring such products onto the market at all. But this week the US government will decide whether to hand the job over to the Food and Drug Administration.

Allowing the FDA to verify and restrict health claims made by cigarette companies could raise the bar on the quality of scientific evidence behind such claims, leading to greater transparency in tobacco research and cigarette marketing that could ultimately benefit smokers. "What I hope it will do is make it harder for tobacco companies to market products without some evidence that they are likely to reduce the death and disease associated with smoking," says Thomas Eissenberg, a drug dependence researcher at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.

It will be harder for tobacco companies to market products without evidence that they reduce harm

However, anti-smoking campaigners question whether such products should ever find their way to market. "I would be extremely sceptical of any attempt to produce healthy cigarettes," says Deborah Arnott of anti-smoking charity ASH-UK. "The conclusion we have reached is that it's really difficult to do anything to significantly reduce the harm caused by cigarettes." . . .

What everyone does agree on is the need for some kind of regulation. The World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control has been ratified by 164 countries

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• Major Report on U.S. Tobacco Control Policies and Use Finds Stark Contrasts in Progress Among States 

The United States is becoming a nation of haves and have-nots when it comes to tobacco control, according to a comprehensive publication on cigarette smoking prevalence and policies in the U.S. that was released today.

The new report, "Cigarette Smoking Prevalence and Policies in the 50 States: An Era of Change -- the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation ImpacTeen Tobacco Chart Book," was presented today at the National Conference on Tobacco or Health meeting in Phoenix.

It was prepared for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation by researchers in the University at Buffalo Department of Health Behavior in UB's School of Public Health and Health Professions and at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute. Researchers from eight other institutions also contributed, including the University of Illinois at Chicago, the National Cancer Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The report includes individualized data on smoking behaviors for all 50 states as well as a discussion of national trends revealed by the data.

"States can reduce death and disease by reducing smoking prevalence," said Gary G. Giovino, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Health Behavior in the UB School of Public Health and Health Professions and principal investigator on the report. "It's that simple."

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States can reduce death and disease by reducing smoking prevalence. It's that simple.
Gary G. Giovino, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Health Behavior in the UB School of Public Health and Health Professions and principal investigator on the RWJ report.

• Ashley Greene and Nikki Reed Quit… Smoking 

Ashley Greene and Nikki Reed are doing their bit to be better role models for their young fans — they’ve given up smoking.

The Twilight stars — Ashley, 22, and Nikki, 21 — have ditched the nasty habit in a bid to set a positive example to their teenage followers.

“Everyone on the cast smokes, and they are all trying to quit because they are on Twilight and know they are in the public eye,” an insider told E! News. . . .

The girls are ditching the cigs by using something called “SmokeStiks.”

“SmokeStiks look like those fake cigarettes actors use in plays,” says a tester. “There’s no smoke; it just lights up when you puff.”

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[Ashley Greene and Nikki Reed] know they are role models for little kids. If there are a ton of paparazzi photos of them smoking, that’s not a positive image.
Unnamed insider on why the tween-fave "Twilight" stars are trying (if in a weird way) to quit smoking. Maybe there really is a sea change going on. . .

• With House Vote, Tobacco Bill Goes to Obama  

The House gave final approval on Friday to legislation empowering federal officials to regulate cigarettes and other forms of tobacco for the first time, sending the bill to President Obama, who hailed it as a measure "that will protect our kids and improve our public health."

The 307-to-97 vote in the House came more than four decades after the surgeon general declared smoking a health hazard, and just one day after the Senate approved the bill by 79 to 17.

President Obama, who appeared in the Rose Garden just moments after the House vote, said the tobacco legislation was "a bill that truly defines changes in Washington" and one that "changes the way Washington works and who it works for."

The president was expected to sign the measure at once.

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• Anti-tobacco bill tests trade ties 

Add U.S. cigarettes to the growing list of products getting caught up in the increasingly testy trade relationship between Canada and the United States.

Tobacco growers in Kentucky have launched a protest against the Harper government over a new anti-smoking bill they argue will lead to a ban on the vast majority of U.S. cigarette exports to Canada.

Two U.S. congressmen have taken up the cause of 8,100 Kentucky farmers who grow "burley tobacco" - used in popular American-style cigarettes like Camel and Winston - and have warned International Trade Minister Stockwell Day that Canada's legislation violates NAFTA and other trade agreements.

The U.S. grievance was sparked by the introduction last month of Bill C-32, an amendment to the Tobacco Act which would ban the addition of certain flavours and additives to cigarettes and cigarillos that Ottawa says are marketed primarily at children and teenagers. . . .

"Bill C-32, which was originally aimed at banning candy-flavoured cigarillos marketed to youth, far overreaches this goal," Representative Ed Whitfield, a Kentucky Republican congressman, wrote in a June 5 letter to Day. . . .

Whitfield and fellow Kentucky congressman Brett Guthrie have told Day they believe the anti-tobacco bill will "violate several trade agreements including the Technical Barriers to Trade and NAFTA."

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• Legislators team up to grill tobacco exec 

National Assembly hearings on Bill 43, which would empower the province to seek billions of dollars from tobacco companies to offset the cost of treating people with smoking-related diseases, began with a tag-team effort yesterday.

Liberal Health Minister Yves Bolduc and Parti Québécois health critic Bernard Drainville, normally adversaries, took turns attacking Donald McCarty, vice-president (law) of Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd.

McCarty called Bill 43 a "cash grab," contending its goal was to transfer money from the tobacco companies to the government.

"The objective is not to finance our health system," Bolduc replied. "It is to get what we are owed."

McCarty objected that the law would be retroactive, a point also raised by the Quebec Bar, representing lawyers in the province. "I just ask that the rules be the same for everyone," McCarty said, calling Bill 43 "discriminatory."

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