Tobacco.org

Most Ex-Smokers Quit Successfully Without Help 

Researchers reviewing hundreds of recent studies found that most ex-smokers ceased smoking successfully without help and found it less difficult than expected: they urge health authorities to do more to highlight this message and so that smoker's perceptions are not dominated by messages put out by tobacco control advocates and pharmaceutical companies who are overpromoting the idea that smokers need support like nicotine replacement products to help them quit.

The study was the work of Drs Simon Chapman and Ross MacKenzie from the School of Public Health at the University of Sydney, Australia and you can read a report about it in the 9 February issue of PLoS Medicine.

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'Thirdhand Smoke' May Pose Health Risk  

THE GIST:

* Residual tobacco smoke reacts with pollution in the air to produce potent carcinogens.

* This tobacco residue is known as "thirdhand smoke."

* To avoid the many risks of cigarette smoke, people -- especially children -- might want to avoid places where people have smoked.

When tobacco smoke seeps into carpets, clothes and furniture, it leaves behind more than just a telltale smell.

According to a new study, the residue also reacts with particles in the air to produce cancer-causing compounds that linger on surfaces for months.

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Study: “Third-Hand Smoke” Sticks Around & Produces New Carcinogens 

You might not be a smoker yourself, but hanging around people who are smoking can cause you to inhale noxious cigarette fumes. For years, scientists have cautioned against the ill-effects of such second-hand smoke. Now they're warning about the dangers of "third-hand smoke"—the chemical traces that cling to a smoker, and that are left behind in a room where someone has been smoking.

A team of researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that remnants of a smoke don't just inertly settle onto surfaces, they can react with a common gas (nitrous acid, which is emitted from gas appliances and vehicles, among other sources) to create carcinogenic compounds known as tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs) [Scientific American]. The study (pdf) was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study suggests that even if a smoker puffs outside, some smoke swirls and settles in clothing and hair and is brought back into the building.

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• Tobacco companies frustrate Africa's fight against smoking: official 

Tobacco companies are frustrating Africa's fight against smoking, which has left millions of people dead, a top health official said here on Tuesday.

Sam Zaramba, the director general of Health Services told a one- day international conference on tobacco that companies use corporate social responsibility programs as a strategy to prevent effective regulatory and legislative measures.

"We know that in the struggle against tobacco, we face a powerful enemy, the tobacco industry. They are well established, they continue expanding and they have many resources," he said in a statement read for him by Sheila Ndyanabangi, the program manager for mental health and control of substance abuse.

"We, therefore, need to be aware of the industry's activities and be able to counteract them effectively," he said. . . .

The conference dubbed the African Tobacco Situation Analysis drew over 30 tobacco activists from various African countries including Togo, Benin, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Botswana and Uganda. . . .

He said for fear of losing profits tobacco companies have continued to oppose what have been proven to be effective public health measures aimed at stopping the tobacco epidemic.

"We need to stop the tobacco industry from continuing to make an indecent profit that ends up in the hands of the few, while the poorest people suffer the consequences," he said. . . .

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• Study reveals dangers of nicotine in third-hand smoke  

Nicotine in third-hand smoke, the residue from tobacco smoke that clings to virtually all surfaces long after a cigarette has been extinguished, reacts with the common indoor air pollutant nitrous acid to produce dangerous carcinogens. This new potential health hazard was revealed in a multi-institutional study led by researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

In tests at Berkeley Lab of cellulose surfaces contaminated with nicotine residues from third-hand smoke, levels of newly formed TSNAs rose 10 times following a three hour exposure to nitrous acid. TSNAs are potent carcinogens. (Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt, Berkeley Lab Public Affairs)

“The burning of tobacco releases nicotine in the form of a vapor that adsorbs strongly onto indoor surfaces, such as walls, floors, carpeting, drapes and furniture. Nicotine can persist on those materials for days, weeks and even months. Our study shows that when this residual nicotine reacts with ambient nitrous acid it forms carcinogenic tobacco-specific nitrosamines or TSNAs,” says Hugo Destaillats, a chemist with the Indoor Environment Department of Berkeley Lab’s Environmental Energy Technologies Division. “TSNAs are among the most broadly acting and potent carcinogens present in unburned tobacco and tobacco smoke.”

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Slovakia Tobacco market - a detailed report 

www.companiesandmarkets.com/Summary-Market-Report/tobacco-in-slo ..

Tobacco in Slovakia report offers a comprehensive guide to the size and shape of the market at a national level. It provides the latest retail sales data (2002-2007), allowing you to identify the sectors driving growth. It identifies the leading companies, the leading brands and offers strategic analysis of key factors influencing the market - be the new legislative, distribution or pricing issues. Forecasts to 2012 illustrate how the market is set to change.

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• Smuggled tobacco is a source of ill-health on the cheap  

It is just gone 10 on a cold Thursday morning, inside a furniture shop in inner-city Liverpool. . . .

They are looking for one of the great scourges of life in Liverpool: illegal tobacco. Several minutes later, one of the searchers makes the first find: 10 packs of 20 Russian-made L&M cigarettes, Cello phaned together in a makeshift "carton", stashed in a footstool; more tubes reveal 2,600 cigarettes in the footstool alone. This is no surprise. An hour earlier, an undercover trading standards officer had bought one of these cartons of 200 for £30, about half the price such a quantity sells for in news agents and supermarkets.

During the raid, another officer finds yet more L&Ms in a blue plastic bag buried among racks of everyday items – gloves, kitchen rolls, scouring pads – on sale at the front of the shop. A pack of 20 is just £3, and that is a huge mark-up for whoever bought them originally – probably in Russia – for about 50p a packet.

The team's initial impression is that the L&Ms are real, rather than counterfeit. However, they carry none of the health warnings that are required on cigarettes sold legally in the UK, and they have been smuggled in, so no duty has been or will be paid on them – hence HMRC's involvement. In addition, the furniture shop is not licensed to sell tobacco.

Today's raid shows how black market tobacco flouts laws, the Treasury loses out on revenue, and, most importantly, health is being put at risk. . . .

Liverpool's port makes it an inevitable recipient for contraband tobacco, but it is doing more than most to tackle what is a major social harm in the city. Last year, it became the first place in the UK to have a dedicated ATU, which has been funded by NHS Liverpool, the local primary care trust (PCT), for three years, for a total of £1.1m, in a partnership with the city council.

"Funding the ATU is a bit outside what most PCTs do, but the problem of smoking in Liverpool is so bad, and the death and disability associated with it so great, and illicit tobacco such a big contributor to that, that we had to take every action we could to tackle smoking," explains Paula Grey, the PCT's director of public health.

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NC debates the dangers of smoking 

SMOKING came under fire in the National Council (NC) yesterday morning, with Swapo MP Aram Martin saying in addition to causing early deaths it also causes impotence in men.

He said according to recent research, people who start smoking at a young age and continue for two decades or more, die younger than those who ever smoke.

“It is not a joke, smoking is one of the biggest risk factors harming the development of the country,” said Martin, who is the councillor for Oshakati West constituency in the Oshana Region.

He was speaking during debate on the second reading of the Tobacco Products Control Bill in the NC.

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Smoking ban leaves local businesses uncertain  

Disc jockeying on the bottom floor of East End Oyster and Martini Bar didn’t have the best effect on Myles Bacon’s lungs.

Bacon, who coaches the Carolina Team Handball Club and works at East End part time, said the second-hand smoke inherent to the bar scene was hurting his athletics.

“You walk out at night and you just don’t feel great,” he said.

Although the statewide smoking ban has helped people like Bacon, whom the law intended to protect from secondhand smoke in bars and restaurants, business owners have faced the first weeks of the ban confused about its efficacy.

From Jan. 2 to the first week of February, 24 complaints were filed against a handful of Chapel Hill businesses, including East End, and business managers aren’t sure how to prevent more in the future.

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LETTER: Tobacco tax effective  

With New York facing insufficient resources to pay for education and health care, the proposed $1 cigarette tax increase will go to the state Health Care Reform Act Resources Fund to support health care and health-related initiatives, such as tobacco control programs. The increase in the cigarette tax is expected to generate additional revenues of $200 million in 2010-2011 and $205 million in 2011-2012.

Tobacco tax increases are good for public health, good for state revenues, and have broad-based public support.

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Cigarette use drops 

Colorado is doing better than expected in cutting cigarette use, thanks to a state law and stricter local ordinances like Pueblo's. Possibly more important, teen smoking also has been reduced.

According to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, annual cigarette consumption dropped from 67 packs per capita in 2001 to 46.3 in 2008, much lower than the national average of 63.4. Among high school students, cigarette smoking declined from 14.6 percent in 2006 to 11.9 percent in 2008.

The data comes from the 2008 Colorado Tobacco Attitudes and Behaviors Survey for adults and the 2008 Healthy Kids Colorado Survey on Tobacco and Health, along with information from the Colorado Department of Revenue.

Jillian Jacobellis, director of CDPHE's Prevention Services Division, said, "Increasing the tobacco tax and implementing smoke-free laws play a huge role in reducing tobacco use, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Institute of Medicine, and the Task Force for Community Preventive Services."

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Proposed ban on smoking in SL parks draws support, concern 

SARANAC LAKE - A proposed local law that would ban tobacco use in village parks drew both praise and concern during a public hearing Monday night.

Supporters, including anti-smoking advocates, said the measure would protect the health of families and children who use the village's parks while critics, such as village resident Bob Brown and one trustee, said the ban would restrict civil liberties.

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Japan Tobacco Gains on Increased Profit Forecast (Update1) 

Japan Tobacco Inc., the world’s third-largest publicly traded cigarette maker, rose in Tokyo trading after raising its profit forecast 13 percent on higher overseas demand.

The stock gained 5.5 percent to 327,500 yen as of 10:56 a.m. on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, headed for its biggest one-day gain since Dec. 3.

Japan Tobacco is boosting overseas sales as a declining smoking rate and higher taxes stifle demand in its home market. The maker of Mild Seven cigarettes bought U.K.-based Gallaher Group in 2007 to expand in Russia and other markets.

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Support for Smoke Free plans 

EXPERTS in Warrington have welcomed a new plan aimed at wiping out smoking.

The Government action plan includes ambitious goals to dramatically half smoking rates among adults by 2020. It also has plans to greatly reduce smoking rates among young people.

Pete Astley, head of public protection at the council, said: "Most smokers start before they are 18 so we have to reach out to young people and discourage them from ever starting smoking.

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Health Groups Urge States to Increase Cigarette Taxes (Update1)  

Increasing cigarette taxes by $1 a pack would raise $9.1 billion in revenue annually to help U.S. states narrow budget shortfalls, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and other health groups.

Making cigarettes more expensive would also prevent more than 2.3 million children from becoming smokers and spur more than 1.2 million smokers to quit, according to a report by the health groups today. It cited a national telephone survey last month in which more than two-thirds of voters favored lifting cigarette taxes by $1 a pack.

Raising cigarette taxes has “proven to be a reliable and predictable source of significant and immediate new revenue for the states,” the study showed. Its backers include the American Lung Association, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

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