Tobacco.org

More job pressure to quit smoking, shape up?  

Get in shape or pay a price.

That is a message more Americans could hear if the health-care legislation passed by the Senate finance and health committees becomes law. By more than doubling the maximum penalties that companies can apply to employees who flunk medical evaluations, the final bill could put workers under intense financial pressure to lose weight, stop smoking or lower their cholesterol.

The initiative, largely eclipsed in the health-care debate, builds on a trend that is in play among some corporations and that more workers will see in the benefits packages they bring home during open-enrollment periods. Some employers offer lower premiums to workers who complete personal health assessments; others offer limited benefit packages to smokers.

The current legislative effort would take the trend a step further. It is backed by major employer groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers. It is opposed by labor unions and organizations devoted to battling serious illnesses, such as the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society and the American Diabetes Association. . . .

North Carolina has angered some state employees by introducing a wellness program that would limit the most generous benefits package to those who meet body mass targets and do not smoke. The state would allow workers to satisfy the requirement by enrolling in weight-management or quit-smoking programs.

Jump to full article »

Smoking ban in city park playgrounds to be discussed  

People will have an opportunity to see what the smoke signals say at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Council chambers at City Hall, 15 N. Third Ave.

The Walla Walla Parks, Recreation and Urban Forestry advisory board has scheduled the meeting to gather public input on a proposal to ban smoking within 25 feet of children's playgrounds in city parks.

Tobacco prevention coordinator Katie Redar of the Walla Walla County Public Health Department has been working on the idea since last spring when she collected almost 400 cigarette butts from the wood chips at Pioneer Park's playground area.

Comments on the proposal -- and thoughts about banning smoking within 25 feet of sports fields and possibly banning smoking in all parts of city parks -- are sought.

Jump to full article »

Teen smoking-cessation trial first to achieve significant quit rates 

For the first time, researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have demonstrated that it is possible to successfully recruit and retain a large number of adolescent smokers from the general population into a smoking intervention study and, through personalized, proactive telephone counseling, significantly impact rates of six-month continuous quitting. These findings, by Arthur V. Peterson Jr., Ph.D., Kathleen A. Kealey and colleagues, are reported in a pair of papers in the Oct. 12 "Advance Access" online edition of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

"When this study started, despite decades of research and dozens of intervention trials, there was no proven way to reach teens from the general population and recruit them into smoking cessation programs, and there was no proven way to help these teens quit," said Peterson, a member of the Hutchinson Center's Public Health Sciences Division and lead author of the paper that reported the results of the Hutchinson Study of High School Smoking, the largest randomized trial of teen smoking cessation ever conducted.

The trial, funded by the National Institutes of Health, involved 2,151 teenage smokers from 50 high schools in Washington.

Jump to full article »

Some protest new smoking rules at college 

Some students are speaking out over new smoking restrictions at the Centralia College campus that limit lighting up to a few designated areas on the perimeter of the facility.

New "Non Smoking Area" signs are stenciled on the sidewalks and banners that read "Non Smoking Corridor" line walkways across campus.

Steve Ward, the college's vice president of finance and administration, said the plan was set forth years ago and was implemented at the beginning of this school year.

"The majority of our student body wanted to walk across campus just once without smoke in their face," Ward said last week. But some aren't so happy.

Jump to full article »

EDITORIAL: Helping Adolescent Smokers Quit: Can Telephone Quitlines Lead the Way?  

This study is remarkable for multiple reasons, not least because it is the first to show substantial quit rates in adolescent smokers at 6 months after quitting. Indeed, for those scientists not familiar with behavioral research, this study and the accompanying article on study design and implementation provide an outstanding example of how theory driven and methodologically sound behavioral research can be.

This complex and elegant design brings together a rich variety of "ingredients" that blend together into a scientific study that is very likely to set the standard for many years and will be a benchmark to which other similar studies will be compared. . . .

What are the implications of this study? Despite a few limitations, this research team has conducted an outstanding study and has discovered a treatment for daily adolescent smoking that is the new standard. Typically, those in the role of making decisions on which treatments to implement would wait for a replication before implementing a treatment protocol like the one used by Peterson et al. However, we believe that the outcomes of this study, plus the lack of good alternatives, warrant a more aggressive implementation plan.

More specifically, because smoking cessation quitlines in the United States receive core funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and there is the potential for substantial increases in that funding via economic stimulus funds, we have two strong recommendations. First, all state quitlines should be encouraged in the strongest possible way to implement the intervention investigated by Peterson et al. (3) to the extent feasible (recognizing that their intervention was quite complex), with the goal of increasing on a national scale the number of adolescents who quit smoking. Second, funding should be provided to both replicate the existing design and also investigate modifications of the protocol that would tease out the relative impact of specific components of the protocol.

At last, we have a new and promising foundation for youth tobacco cessation intervention that can serve both as a catalyst for future research as well as a community resource to address the immediate need of young daily smokers who wish to quit.

Jump to full article »

Group-Randomized Trial of a Proactive, Personalized Telephone Counseling Intervention for Adolescent Smoking Cessation  

Results: The intervention increased the percentage who achieved 6-month prolonged smoking abstinence among all smokers (21.8% in the experimental condition vs 17.7% in the control condition, difference = 4.0%, 95% confidence interval [CI] = -0.2 to 8.1, P = .06) and in particular among daily smokers (10.1% vs 5.9%, difference = 4.1%, 95% CI = 0.8 to 7.1, P = .02). There was also generally strong evidence of intervention impact for 3-month, 1-month, and 7-day abstinence and duration since last cigarette (P = .09, .015, .01, and .03, respectively). The intervention effect was strongest among male daily smokers and among female less-than-daily smokers.

Conclusions: Proactive identification and recruitment of adolescents via public high schools can produce a high level of intervention reach; a personalized motivational interviewing plus cognitive behavioral skills training counseling intervention delivered by counselor-initiated telephone calls is effective in increasing teen smoking cessation; and both daily and less-than-daily teen smokers participate in and benefit from telephone-based smoking cessation intervention. . . .

Contribution

The intervention increased 6-month abstinence from smoking from 18% to 22%, and more than 88% of students who were followed-up were still participating 1 year after random assignment.

Implications

Smoking cessation intervention using personalized telephone counseling using proactive identification of participants can increase abstinence from smoking among adolescents.

Limitations

Jump to full article »

Proactive, personalized telephone counseling can help teen smokers to quit 

Personalized, proactive telephone counseling centered on motivational interviewing and cognitive behavioral skills training has been found to favorably impact quit rates among teen smokers, according to a pair of studies published online October 12 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Arthur V. Peterson, Ph.D., and colleagues at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, and colleagues designed the Hutchinson Study of High School Smoking trial to evaluate to what extent telephone counseling could help teenagers quit smoking. The researchers proactively identified more than 2,000 smokers via classroom surveys of juniors in 50 high schools in Washington state. In 25 of the high schools, after parental approval teen smokers received personalized smoking cessation counseling that combined motivational interviewing and cognitive behavioral skills training. These included using the smoker's own words and values to increase importance of quitting, anticipating and coping with stress and other triggers to smoke, and making plans for stopping. The study also included more than 700 nonsmokers to ensure that contacting students for participation in the trial would not reveal a participant's smoking status.

More than a year after the intervention began, nearly 89% of the students completed a follow-up survey in which 22% of intervened smokers reported 6-month prolonged abstinence from smoking, compared to 18% among students in the no-intervention control arm. There was also strong evidence that the intervention had made a difference for 3-month, 1-month, and 7-day abstinence and for the length of time since last cigarette.

Jump to full article »

• Statewide Teen Smoking-Cessation Trial is the First to Achieve Significant Increase in Prolonged Quit Rates  

For the first time, researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have demonstrated that it is possible to successfully recruit and retain a large number of adolescent smokers from the general population into a smoking intervention study and, through personalized, proactive telephone counseling, significantly impact rates of six-month continuous quitting. These findings, by Arthur V. Peterson Jr., Ph.D., Kathleen A. Kealey and colleagues, are reported in a pair of papers in the Oct. 12 "Advance Access" online edition of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

"When this study started, despite decades of research and dozens of intervention trials, there was no proven way to reach teens from the general population and recruit them into smoking cessation programs, and there was no proven way to help these teens quit," said Peterson, a member of the Hutchinson Center's Public Health Sciences Division and lead author of the paper that reported the results of the Hutchinson Study of High School Smoking, the largest randomized trial of teen smoking cessation ever conducted.

The trial, funded by the National Institutes of Health, involved 2,151 teenage smokers from 50 high schools in Washington.

Jump to full article »

• Study: Teen smoking curbed by phone counseling 

A Seattle-based study has found an improved way to trim teen smoking.

That improvement is small, but significant.

A type of phone counseling posted a 4 percentage point higher success rate than a control group to get teens to quit smoking, a Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Institute study concluded.

The results were published Monday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Acknowledging that a 4 percent improvement is small, Arthur Peterson Jr., one of the researchers, said this is the first time that such an experiment to get teens to quit smoking has shown a solid increase in positive results.

The bottom line is that the new approach being tested showed a 21.8 percent success rate in getting high school seniors to quit smoking for six months, compared with a control group's success rate of 17.7 percent.

"This shows there is still a lot to do. ... There is clearly a need to take the next step to see how the smoking intervention can be improved," Peterson said.

Jump to full article »

Phone Counseling Aids in Smoking Cessation 

Proactive telephone counseling and individually tailored motivational interviews help teen smokers kick the habit, new research indicates.

Two studies, published in the Oct. 12 online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, indicate smoking-cessation programs that involve motivational techniques and personalized behavioral skills training by phone can make it easier for teens to give up the habit early.

Arthur V. Peterson, PhD, and colleagues at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle designed a smoking- cessation program to evaluate the effectiveness of individualized telephone counseling.

They identified more than 2,000 smokers through classroom surveys of juniors in 50 high schools in Washington state. In half of those schools, teen smokers received smoking-cessation counseling that combined motivational interviewing and cognitive behavioral skills training.

The techniques used the smoker’s own words and values to increase the importance of quitting, anticipating and coping with stress and other smoking triggers, and making plans to stop, the researchers say. . . .

Kathleen Kealey, also of the Hutchinson Center’s Cancer Prevention Program, contends in a second article that the design of the study was conducive to success. Students were telephoned by trained counselors who delivered personalized smoking-cessation tips and motivational interviewing.

Jump to full article »

Cigarette burns hay trailer near Wenatchee  

The Washington State Patrol says an oncoming driver threw a lit cigarette out the window that landed on a passing hay trailer on Highway 28 near the Rock Island Dam east of Wenatchee.

That started a fire in five tons of hay Wednesday closed the highway for an hour-and-a-half.

Jump to full article »

• Governor blasted over anti-smoking program cuts 

A leading researcher of secondhand smoke sharply criticized the governor and the Legislature on Wednesday for cutting tobacco-control programs nearly in half, saying the cost to the health-care system will quickly overcome any short-term savings.

"Gov. Gregoire is no longer the anti-tobacco governor," Stanton Glantz, professor of cardiology at the University of California, San Francisco, told a group of public health professionals meeting at the Yakima Convention Center.

"The fact that she let the program be gutted means she's just riding on the old coattails."

Gov. Chris Gregoire made her name as state attorney general in 1998 by leading the states in negotiating a master settlement with tobacco companies that poured billions into state coffers nationwide.

That settlement still brings in about $120 million a year to Washington state, with most going to pay for state-subsidized health care.

But the 2009 Legislature cut 43 percent from the state's $28.5 million-a-year tobacco-control program

Jump to full article »

Gregoire criticized for anti-smoking cuts 

A leading researcher of secondhand smoke says Gov. Chris Gregoire is no longer the anti-tobacco governor.

Stanton Glantz is a professor of cardiology at the University of California, San Francisco, who spoke Wednesday to a group of public health professionals meeting at the Yakima Convention Center.

He criticized the governor and the Washington Legislature for cutting tobacco-control programs.

"The fact that she let the program be gutted means she's just riding on the old coattails," Glantz said. . . .

Gregoire spokesman Glenn Kuper told The Yakima Herald-Republic that she instilled a culture of tobacco prevention in the state but many programs had to be cut because of the budget shortfall.

"We have tougher indoor smoking laws, adult smoking rates are down more than 30 percent, and youth smoking overall has dropped by about half," Kuper said.

The big tobacco settlement still brings in about $120 million a year to Washington state, with most going to pay for state-subsidized health care.

Jump to full article »

Tobacconist calls FDA ban off target  

In Yelm, police said they haven't seen a problem with flavored cigarettes.

Yelm police and school resource officer Bill DeVore said he's seen a decrease in the number of children smoking this year.

"I haven't seen anyone with flavored cigarettes," he said.

When DeVore confiscates cigarettes, he said they tend to be standard, non-flavored brands.

Though he hasn't encountered flavored brands with teens, he does approve of the new regulations. . . .

Local tobacco merchant Mark Ryan isn't happy about the regulations.

Ryan said the FDA isn't going to accomplish its goal of reducing the number of young smokers. . . .

Though irked by the new regulation, and possible upcoming regulations, Ryan is the first to admit the products he sells are dangerous.

"I'm an anti-tobacco, tobacco person," he said.

Tobacco, as used in traditional Native American ceremonies is a beautiful thing, Ryan said. What cigarette and tobacco companies have done and added to the product makes it the harmful, addictive substance it is today.

Ryan knows first hand. He's been addicted for about 30 years, and even a heart attack last week hasn't stopped him from lighting up; he's only cut back a little.

Jump to full article »

Smoking areas shrink on campus  

Finding a place to smoke a cigarette on the Centralia College campus just got a little more difficult.

Beginning with fall quarter, the college opened a smoke-free corridor stretching the east-west length of the campus, and moving north and south to the entrances to all facilities on college property.

The smoke-free corridor initiative, currently pushed by the student government, is aimed at eventually making the college campus entirely smoke free. The smoking ban applies to all faculty, staff, students and visitors to the campus.

Jump to full article »