Tobacco.org

SIMS: Ally and foe, tobacco was a complicated companion 

Thousands of years after its discovery, the obituary of tobacco is being is being prepared in the country of its birth. Congress has passed, and President Obama has signed, a law under which tobacco will be treated as a drug rather than an agricultural product.

When Christopher Columbus arrived in America, Indians smoked a sacred substance they called tabaco to celebrate the coming of peace. Now, this same substance is blamed annually for 400,000 American deaths and $100 billion in health care costs.

This is fateful news for North Carolina, which is by far the greatest U.S. producer of tobacco. It is also a poignant personal matter, for in my own life tobacco played the roles of savior and sustainer before turning into destroyer. . . .

we were desperately poor. Then my father switched to tobacco. . . .

How will North Carolinians replace the more than half-billion dollars that came from growing tobacco? I see no magic cure such as replacing one crop with another. And how will history judge America for subsidizing tobacco at home while demanding that other countries stop producing opium and marijuana that may be less harmful?

The questions are blowing in the wind, but only time can bring the answers.

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Babies, Smoking and Genes 

A pregnant mother's lifestyle choices can lead to serious disease notonly in her infant's early childhood but in that child's middle age. That will ultimately have an effect on the national economy.

When a pregnant woman visits her obstetrician for the first time, she is likely to hear that smoking is a hazard to the child that she is carrying. Toxic chemicals that the mother inhales while smoking enter her bloodstream and cross the placenta to the baby.

Women who smoke during the first three months of pregnancy make it 60 percent more likely that their baby will be born with a heart defect. In the case of certain types of defects, it is 80 percent.

Some women who smoke will deliver a child too early or one who has not reached normal size.

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• Smoker decides to grow his own tobacco 

A general contractor who lives in Peninsula, Carey has been a cigarette and cigar smoker most of his adult life.

But when April 1 came and he read that taxes on tobacco products increased, he took action.

Carey went on the Internet and found places where he could purchase tobacco seeds.

Within about a week, he had received 40 types of seeds and his life as a tobacco farmer was planted.

''This project is something of an experiment to identify varieties of tobacco suitable for growing in our climate,'' Carey said.

7,000 plants in ground

The tiny seeds, so small they can hardly be seen, grew into plants by mid-June. And when the ground had warmed up, a group of friends helped him put the plants into the ground -- 7,000 in all.

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Smokers could lose 15 years of life: NZ expert 

WELLINGTON:The New Zealand Medical Association (NZMA) warned on Saturday that smoking could cut your life short by 15 years.

NZMA Acting Chairman Paul Ockelford said an international study on mortality from smoking estimates that worldwide, long-term smokers who die from a smoking-related illness, die an average of 15 years early.

"What is often forgotten is the impact these deaths have on the people left behind. If you continue to smoke, your grandchildren might never get to know you, and you'll miss seeing them grow up," he said.

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Tobacco Labelling Regulations 

Welcome to the Tobacco Labelling Resource

Tobacco packaging serves as a critical link to consumers, both for the tobacco industry and for governments seeking to convey the health risks of smoking. The brand imagery of the package is the foundation upon which all other marketing is built and plays an even greater role in jurisdictions where traditional forms of advertising, promotion, and sponsorship are restricted.

New international guidelines for tobacco packaging and labelling are being established under Article 11 of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC)—the first international treaty devoted to public health. Article 11 covers three critical areas: 1) package health warnings, 2) restrictions on misleading information (including plain packaging), and 3) labelling of cigarette constituents and emissions. This website includes evidence and resources in each of these areas, including answers to common questions such as:

What kinds of health warning pictures are used around the world?

Are graphic pictures effective health warnings?

What is plain packaging?

Does removing words such as “light” and “mild” make any difference?

What about other words like “smooth”?

Is it a good idea to print tar and nicotine numbers on packages?

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Key Findings  

The ITC Policy Evaluation Project has produced many documents, including journal articles and final reports, on the results of the ITC surveys.

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• FCTC Article 11 / Tobacco Warning Labels: Evidence and Recommendations from the ITC Project (PDF) 

ARTICLE 11 GUIDELINES

• Labels should appear on both front and back of the package Article 11 of the FCTC states that health warnings on cigarette packages should cover at least 50 percent of

• Labels should be at the TOP of the package the principal display areas (both the front and back) of the

• Labels should be as large as possible (at least 50% of the package) tobacco package, but at a minimum must cover at least 30 percent of the principal display areas. It also requires

• Labels should include full colour pictures that warnings be rotated; large, clear, visible and legible;

• Labels should rotate multiple messages and approved by the competent national authority. Strong international guidelines for Article 11 adopted in November

• Labels should include a range of warnings and messages 2008 during the Third Conference of the Parties recognize

• Labels should include information on harms of tobacco smoke the evidence that effectiveness of health warnings increases with their size and that pictorial warnings have

• Labels should provide advice about cessation a greater impact than text-only warnings. The Guidelines

• Labels should list constituents without numbers

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ITC Tobacco Warning Labels Report.pdf - ITC Project 

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Milford hookah lounge again ordered to close 

MILFORD -- The city Health Department has ordered the Olive Tree Hookah Lounge to close, following an inspection of the premises on opening night Friday by city sanitarians.

Health Director Dennis McBride, saying the practice is like a "cigarette plus," said Saturday he based the order on the health hazards the practice presents. McBride said the owners have a right to appeal to the state, but he intends to enlist every resource possible to not only close the new Milford hookah bar for good, but also to close all others in the state based on the hazard.

He claimed the hookah pipe is unsanitary because it was found during inspection that sections of the hoses used for smoking cannot be adequately cleaned, increasing the potential for the spread of germs that can transmit diseases such as tuberculosis, hepatitis and more.

Inspectors also found the sweet aroma of the place because of spices added to the smoking material misleads people into thinking they're not smoking tobacco, when in fact they are, which contains the addictive agent nicotine. He also said there were no "menus" or listing of products and their contents available to customers.

"They target young people," McBride said.

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• HUGHES: You can escape the ciggy siren's song, not its silence 

I have a confession to make. Ten years after giving up smoking I have started the wretched habit again. And it's not just the occasional puff. Rather, it's the full-on 15-a-day craving-led nicotine addiction that I swore blind to rid myself of forever a decade ago.

I kept my promise faithfully for more than 3,600 days so why did I relapse? Why have I gone back to almost kippering myself on a daily basis when just a few weeks ago I found the smell chokingly repugnant?

Quite simply, Beijing seduced me like a sexy siren.

Within one week of stepping off the plane, I tentatively, guiltily accepted the offer of a splendidly-branded Craven A from a colleague after watching him inhale with an almost beatific look of pleasure following a fine meal washed down with plenty of thirst-quenching beer. I must admit when I lit up it felt good. It was as if I had breathed new life into the ghost of my old addiction. . . .

discovering how incredibly cheap they are here. My chosen brand cost 5 yuan. Back home in the UK they are more than 10 times that. Only a serious addict would fork out so much at that price.

Then there is the near ubiquitous tolerance of smoking here. . . .

In London, I didn't smoke at home because I had young children. A smoking ban in bars and restaurants was rigidly enforced. At work you had to leave the office . . .

However, the government, despite receiving mountains of excise revenue from the habit, has been trying to discourage it.

Smoking is banned inside all public buildings in Beijing. Just this week, it was announced the government had raised consumption tax on cigarettes by between 6 and 11 percent both to curb smoking and add revenue to state coffers.

But there has not yet been a seismic shift in society's laissez-faire attitude to smokers and smoking and, until there is, it is a habit that will not be stubbed out.

Now, excuse me, sucker that I am, while I nip out to satisfy my craving.

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Equality and better treatment sought for lung cancer patients  

But Weitz never smoked cigarettes - did nothing he knows of that would infect the delicate tissue of his lungs.

Yet even for those with lung cancer who have never smoked, the condition comes with a negative stereotype. They often are asked, "Did you smoke?"

It's a perception health advocates say needs to be shattered. Why, they ask, should state or federal funding toward the detection and treatment of lung cancer be any different than, say, for illnesses associated with obesity, alcoholism or other kinds of cancer?

"We have to get to the point of saying it doesn't matter," said Kim Norris, a Los Angeles resident who founded the Lung Cancer Foundation of America.

The foundation's goal is to raise enough funds to lead to lung cancer research and treatment. The five-year survival rates for all stages of lung cancer haven't changed in decades, a result of little progress toward finding better treatments, Norris said.

Norris and others note that research for lung cancer treatment remains "under-funded, under-researched and under-reported," because government funders view it as the "the black sheep" of cancers.

"Just because smoking is legal - and the Department of Defense once handed out cigarettes during wars - doesn't mean (those who smoked) deserve (lung cancer)."

Norris formed the foundation as a result of lessons learned when her husband, Roy, was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1997. She saw firsthand the lack in treatments and supported Roy as he tried five different lung cancer research clinical trials. . . .

Last month, the NIH launched research into early detection studies among those who have never smoked, which never existed for lung cancer.

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Smokers may soon pay more for cheaper brand cigarettes in Mississippi 

Smokers who buy non-premium brand cigarettes would start paying an extra 43 cents a pack starting Wednesday in Mississippi under legislation approved in the opening hours today of a special session called to adopt a $6.01 billion state budget.

The state faces a shutdown of all but essential and constitutionally mandated services at midnight Wednesday unless legislators adopt a budget and it is signed by Gov. Haley Barbour.

The legislature adjourned June 3 without reaching agreement on a 2010 budget. That meant they could reconvene only at Barbour's call and on his terms. . . .

Mississippi received more than $1 billion in the 1990s and is due to get $100 million a year in perpetuity from big tobacco in settlement of a lawsuit filed by the state's attorney general.

Barbour has said that gives the smaller cigarette companies, who did not participate in the lawsuit, an unfair advantage, and they should have to pay a higher tax.

House members raised the 25-cent a pack tax proposal to 43 cents a pack and sent the measure to the Senate, where some members argued big tobacco was behind the proposed tax increase because it was losing market share to the smaller, cheaper tobacco companies.

"Don't you think that just kids are buying these cheap cigarettes," said Sen. Bob Dearing, D-Natchez.

"And don't you think kids aren't buying these expensive cigarettes."

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LETTER: FDA regulation of tobacco  

Will the official oppression never stop? Congress has voted to give the FDA the authority to regulate tobacco. The problem is the Supreme Court in 2000 denied the FDA that privilege. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's comments from the majority opinion: "Were the FDA to regulate cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, the (federal law) would require the agency to ban them……Congress, however, has foreclosed the removal of tobacco products from the market.

The inescapable conclusion is that there is no room for tobacco products within the (federal law's) regulatory scheme."

Did any lawmaker consider that the FDA itself did not want the job of regulating tobacco, and has stated so publicly?

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Risser: the man behind the ban 

The idea solicited guffaws from older members when it was introduced by a new member in the state Senate in 1963. . . .

Sen. Fred Risser, D-Madison, wanted to ban tobacco sales to people under age 16. The idea that year got only one vote -- his -- in a committee test. . . .

First elected to the Assembly in 1956, Risser won a special election to the state Senate in 1962. He is completing 52 years of continuous legislative service. His service is the longest of any current legislator in the country. He is the fourth generation of his family to serve in the Wisconsin Legislature.

Risser, 82, has learned during his tenure that compromise can be the best solution. Tavern owners fought for years for an exemption to the smoking ban, but local communities eventually began enacting their own bans against smoking in workplaces, restaurants and taverns.

An immediate statewide ban would have been better, but Risser said no bill is perfect.

“The compromise can start saving lives and saving money for our taxpayers,” he said.

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Chef's swipe at smoking ban 

MAKING cigarettes completely illegal would be fairer than the current anti-smoking ban, according to Antony Worrall Thompson.

The celebrity chef and Express columnist, who is patron of the smoking group Forest, has joined a campaign aimed at persuading the Government to amend the law forcing pubs and clubs to be smoke-free.

"This law is causing the closure of six pubs every day. It totally ignores free choice and it is tearing at the very heart of our society," he said. "The Government is happy raking in more than �9billion in taxes from cigarettes every year, but now there is even talk of not treating those with smoke-related conditions on the NHS.

"If this happens, it will mean that they'll treat a person who has taken illegal drugs but not one who has taken something that is legal."

Now, the Save Our Pubs and Clubs Campaign, a group of cross-party MPs and think tanks, will lobby the Government for change when the law comes up for review next year.

Mr Worrall Thompson, who smokes 20 cigarettes a day, is one of Britain's most prominent smoking campaigners.

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