http://www.tobacco.org/newsfeed/category/tobacco_control.rss Latest top tobacco news headlines en-us http://www.nj.com/warrenreporter/index.ssf/2009/11/great_american_smokeout_in_was.html http://tobacco.org/news/292285.html Pictured is an image from last year's Great American Smokeout in downtown Washington. This year's event will be held Nov. 19. WASHINGTON -- November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month and the "Great American Smokeout." What a terrific time to draw attention to an ever-increasing issue that faces many New Jersey (and Warren County) residents, says Community Prevention Resources of Warren County, Inc.'s Leeanne Del Prado, Community Partnerships Coordinator for a Tobacco Free NJ. . . . "We, as a community, cannot ignore the statistics nor can we deny the direct correlations to tobacco usage and sickness and death," said Del Prado. "We should commemorate efforts to stop smoking and recognize that lung cancer is fatal sickness in Warren County by supporting a smoke free environment. Your efforts can make a bigger difference than you think." If you or someone you know would like to quit smoking and needs assistance, contact Leeanne Del Prado at Community Prevention Resources of Warren County, Inc. 908-835-1800. For further information about Community Prevention Resources, visit www.communitypreventionresources.org. Warren Reporter Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT http://www2.tricities.com/tri/news/local/consumer/article/ccs_dont_let_your_financial_future_go_up_in_smoke/35367/ http://tobacco.org/news/292284.html The impact of smoking on your health is well documented, but counselors at Consumer Credit Counseling Service (CCCS) of East Tennessee know that it can also wreak havoc on a person's financial health. Whether it's helping people struggling with credit card debt or trying to avoid foreclosure, counselors find that tobacco use adds a significant amount to monthly household expenditures and they advise consumers to consider reducing or quitting smoking to save money. A pack-a-day smoker spending an average of $5.15 per pack could save $1,879 per year by quitting smoking. These funds could be used to cover living expenses, reduce household debt or start a savings plan. Invested in a basic savings plan paying just 3 percent interest, you would have in excess of $21,000 after 10 years. Over 30 years, that figure climbs to more than $91,000. TriCities.com Herald Courier/WJHL-TV) Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT http://www.alvaradopost.com/articles/2009/11/06/community/doc4af458991560c561402325.txt http://tobacco.org/news/292282.html The 34th Great American Smokeout, sponsored by the American Cancer Society, is scheduled to take place Nov. 19. The purpose of the event is to set aside day to help smokers quit smoking, quit using tobacco products, for at least one day, with the hope they will decide to quit completely. The Great American Smokeout began in 1971 when a Massachusetts resident asked people to give up smoking for a day and to donate the money they would have spent on tobacco to a local high school. The best way to prevent lung cancer is to never start smoking at all. . . . Texas AgriLife Extension Service and the Texas Cancer Council encourage all smokers to take part in the Great American Smokeout on Nov. 19 in a step to eventually quit smoking. For more information, contact Rita M. Hodges, county extension agent for family and consumer sciences, 701 S. Interstate 35E, Suite 3, Waxahachie; call 972-825-5175; or e-mail rmhodges@ag.tamu.edu. Alvarado Post rmhodges@ag.tamu.edu (Rita Hodges Extension service ) Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT http://jacksonville.com/opinion/letters_from_readers/2009-11-07/story/smoking_cessation_programs_can_work http://tobacco.org/news/292281.html I'm writing in response to the editorial, "Secondhand smoke: New study, same message." The Florida Academy of Family Physicians represents 4,000 family physicians, residents in training and medical students. Family physicians are the first line of defense in helping their patients quit smoking. We've known for years that smoking is harmful, not only to the smokers' health, but it also negatively affects the health of the public. Family members, coworkers, friends or anyone else who comes in contact with the tobacco smoke can be adversely affected. Florida implemented a statewide smoking ban on indoor workplaces seven years ago. It is an important step to protect the public's health, but it's not enough. We also need to do more to help smokers quit. According to the Florida Adult Tobacco Survey, almost half of Florida smokers report they've tried to quit smoking in the past year, and nearly 60 percent say they plan to quit within the next six months. However, without smoking cessation counseling and treatment, only 5 percent will succeed at overcoming their addiction. . . . Smokers should know that there is help available and that they don't have to quit on their own. The implications of not helping smokers quit not only affects smokers, but nonsmokers, too. Florida Times-Union letters@jacksonville.com (TAD P. FISHER, executive vice president, Florida Academy of Family Physicians ) Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT http://www.pressconnects.com/article/20091107/VIEWPOINTS03/911070309/1120/Protect-anti-smoking-funds http://tobacco.org/news/292280.html The New York State Comprehensive Tobacco Control Program is a highly successful, world-class tobacco prevention effort that saves lives and prevents kids from smoking. As a result, youth smoking rates in the state were the lowest on record at 14.7 percent. The Tobacco Control budget has been cut by 20 percent within the past year. Research and experience demonstrates that reducing funding to state tobacco-control programs can quickly slow or reverse gains. According to research, the 20 percent budget cut will result in a 1.3 percent increase in youth smoking rates, which means an estimated 16,000 more New York youth will grow up to become addicted adult smokers. Maintaining funding for tobacco control is a wise and effective instrument in the health of New York. Let's work to keep our next generation smoke-free. Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT http://www.kpbs.org/news/2009/nov/06/free-service-helps-smokers-quit-reaches-milestone/ http://tobacco.org/news/292279.html SAN DIEGO -- A free phone service designed to help Californians quit smoking has received its 500,000 call. The UCSD-based help line has been in operation since 1992. The California Smokers' Helpline offers self-help materials, and referrals to smoking cessation programs throughout the state. KPBS TV/FM Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm189436.htm http://tobacco.org/news/292275.html The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is enforcing the flavored cigarette ban provision of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (Tobacco Control Act) by issuing several warning letters to companies continuing to sell illegal flavored cigarettes to consumers in the United States through their Web sites. The warning letters directed the companies to cease the marketing and sale of these products immediately or to take other appropriate action to bring the products into compliance with the law. Failure to do so may result in additional regulatory actions such as seizure or injunction. In addition, FDA requested a written response from each of the companies within 15 days outlining the corrective actions taken. Enforcement of the flavored cigarette ban is FDA’s effort to remove cigarettes that contain certain candy or fruit flavors from the marketplace. Removal of these products from the market will assist in the prevention of children and adolescents from starting to smoke and in the reduction in death and disease caused by smoking. “FDA takes the enforcement of this flavored cigarette ban seriously,” said Lawrence R. Deyton, M.S.P.H, M.D., director of FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products. These actions should send a clear message to those who continue to break the law that FDA will take necessary actions to protect our children from initiating tobacco use.” . . . Report possible violations of the flavored cigarette ban: www.fda.gov/flavoredtobacco Food and Drug Administration kathleen.quinn@fda.hhs.gov Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jKdYE3UEXb9ZfiXoS43vCQyzBUgAD9BQ6BJG1 http://tobacco.org/news/292260.html The Food and Drug Administration said Friday that it has warned several companies to stop selling banned flavored cigarettes to U.S. consumers online. The agency sent letters this week to more than a dozen Web-based companies saying they are violating a new ban and asking the companies to describe in writing what action they have taken to comply. The FDA banned candy-, fruit- and clove-flavored cigarettes in September. Federal health authorities and regulators say those products appeal especially to young people and are thought to attract new smokers. "FDA takes the enforcement of this flavored cigarette ban seriously," Dr. Lawrence R. Deyton, director of FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, said in a statement. "These actions should send a clear message to those who continue to break the law that FDA will take necessary actions to protect our children from initiating tobacco use." AP Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT http://www.aafp.org/online/en/home/publications/news/news-now/health-of-the-public/20091105fda-tobacc-cmnts.html http://tobacco.org/news/292258.html The AAFP has weighed in with numerous suggestions to a July request from the FDA for public input on how the agency should implement its newfound authority to regulate tobacco. The FDA gained the authority to regulate the manufacture, marketing and distribution of tobacco products to protect public health and reduce tobacco use in minors when President Obama signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act in June. In its comments, the AAFP lauded the agency's recent ban on cigarettes with fruit, candy or clove flavoring and suggested the agency go a step further by forcing manufacturers to remove menthol as a flavoring agent. The Academy also recommended that the FDA * ban single sales of little cigars to reduce initiation of smoking among adolescents; * broaden restrictions on misleading information on cigarette packaging; American Family Physician ann@aafp.org (News Staff 11/5/2009 ) Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ingrid-newkirk/using-dollar-bills-to-lig_b_8764.html http://tobacco.org/news/292254.html With the national debt in the trillions, the U.S. government is still letting money go up in smoke. For decades now, we’ve known that those men in the white coats who were employed by tobacco companies to appear on TV and tell us that smoking soothed a scratchy throat were not telling us the whole truth. In the 1970s, epidemiology conclusively linked smoking in pregnant women to fetal harm. Since then, every medical organization, the U.S. Surgeon General, and even tobacco companies themselves have advised us to stay away from the smokes, and most strongly warned that women should not smoke during pregnancy. The federal government, meanwhile, is still funding studies in which stressed monkeys are locked inside metal cages, impregnated, and injected with nicotine; have their babies taken away from them after birth; have lung function tests performed on them; and are then killed. And should you think this is the government foolishly trying to prove for the umpteenth time what we already know - in this case about tobacco and nicotine - it is not. It is to see if women can keep on smoking and have babies too! . . . The money is considerable. Spindel’s recent NIH grants include $1.3 million to test fetal nicotine exposure in rhesus monkeys, $1.8 million to study the mechanisms that nicotine uses to harm the fetuses of mutant mice, and his share of the $11 million annual support grant for the primate center. Meanwhile, only three states—Maine, Delaware, and Mississippi—fund tobacco prevention programs at the minimum levels recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Thirty-seven states and the District of Columbia fund such programs at less than half the CDC minimum or provide no state funding at all. The expense is not only borne by us taxpayers and the animals who pay with their lives in such disgusting tests, but by the women and children who are ill served by foolish funding priorities. Huffington Post Mon, 12 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT http://www.cdc.gov/mmWR/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5843a1.htm http://tobacco.org/news/292253.html The prevalence of tobacco use among adults in the United States has been reduced by half since the 1960s (1,2). Despite this progress, low-income populations, such as Medicaid enrollees, continue to smoke at substantially higher rates than the general population (33% versus 20%) (1). The Public Health Service's Clinical Practice Guideline (2) and the Partnership for Prevention's Call for ACTTION (3) recommend comprehensive insurance coverage of tobacco-dependence treatments without barriers such as copayments, limitations in duration of treatment, prior authorization, and stepped-care therapy. Healthy People 2010 aims to expand coverage of evidence-based treatments for nicotine dependency to all 51 Medicaid programs (objective 27-8b) (4). To monitor progress toward that objective, in 2007, the Center for Health and Public Policy Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, surveyed all 51 Medicaid programs. This report summarizes the results of that survey, which found that 43 (84%) programs offered coverage for some form of tobacco-dependence treatment to Medicaid enrollees in traditional fee-for-service (FFS) Medicaid, with four Medicaid programs adding coverage since 2006 and 20 programs adding coverage in the past decade. Only two states (New Mexico and New Jersey) reported access to tobacco-dependence treatments without any limitations or restrictions. Of the 25 states covering pharmacotherapy for Medicaid enrollees in both FFS and managed-care organizations (MCOs), only 13 covered the same tobacco-dependence treatments for enrollees in both populations. Research demonstrates that providing access to comprehensive tobacco-dependence treatments increases quit rates. Providing Medicaid coverage for these treatments would ensure that all enrollees can access and benefit from these treatments. Centers for Disease Control mmwrq@cdc.gov Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT http://www.cardiologytoday.com/view.aspx?rid=50334 http://tobacco.org/news/292252.html Medicaid coverage for various smoking cessation treatments is limited in most states, according to a report published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly. Although smoking rates in the United States have been reduced by half since the 1960s, smoking rates among low-income adults are higher than in the general population (33% vs. 20%). According to the report, 43 of 51 (84%) state Medicaid programs offer some form of tobacco-dependence treatment in a traditional fee-for-service manner. Twenty Medicaid programs have added coverage over the last decade and four Medicaid programs have added coverage since 2006. Of the 43 programs that offered tobacco-dependence therapies, 41 placed some form of limitation on the coverage in the form of copayments (32 states), limiting duration of treatment (25 states), requiring prior authorization (21 states) and requiring enrollment in behavioral modification programs as a precondition for receiving pharmacotherapy (13 states). Only New Jersey and New Mexico offered access to tobacco-dependence treatments with no limitations or restrictions on coverage. Cardiology Today Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT http://health.ucsd.edu/news/2009/11-2-smokers-hotline.htm http://tobacco.org/news/292251.html A free telephone service that helps Californians kick the smoking habit - funded by tobacco taxes approved by California voters and operated by the University of California, San Diego - reached a milestone today as the 500,000th person called for service. 1-800-NO-BUTTS, also known as the California Smokers' Helpline, has been helping callers since 1992, when it became the nation's first statewide "quit line." Today, all 50 states offer similar services as part of efforts to reduce tobacco's toll on the public health. "The fact that half a million Californians have called for help shows how badly people want to quit," said Christopher Anderson, program director for the Helpline. "When you see a person who's still smoking, despite all the information about negative health effects, you might think they don't want to quit. But, more often than not, they just don't know how to go about it or don't feel confident in their ability to quit. We help them come up with a good plan and stick to it." University of California, San Diego Medical Center spence@harbar.net Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT http://www.pacificnewscenter.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1467:29-businesses-in-violation-of-selling-tobacco-to-minors-&catid=45:guam-news&Itemid=156 http://tobacco.org/news/292245.html Guam Public Law No. 24-278 (also known as the Tobacco Control Act of 1998) mandates the conduct of random, unannounced tobacco vendor compliance inspections each year.� The Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse (DMHSA) in partnership with the Department of Revenue and Taxation (DRT) completed its island wide 2009 monitoring activity. For this current year, 347 businesses were inspected throughout the nineteen villages on the island; twenty-nine (29) were found to be in violation for selling tobacco products to minors and were cited by DRT officers.� P.L. 24-278 prohibits vendors from selling tobacco products to persons under the age of 18 and if found to be in violation, must pay a graduated penalty of anywhere from $500 up to $5,000 per violation. This vendor monitoring activity is federally mandated by the U.S. Center for Substance Abuse Prevention for all states and territories who receive substance abuse prevention and treatment block grant funds.� Guam must provide assurances that the island’s tobacco vendors do not sell tobacco products to individuals below the age of 18. “Guam has the highest tobacco use rates nationwide among youth and adults. Vendor compliance to not sell tobacco products to minors is an effective strategy for reducing tobacco use among youth and eventual health-related consequences.” said David L. G. Shimizu, Director of the Department of Mental Health & Substance Abuse. Pacific News Center Guam Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/06/BAIS1AFR2O.DTL&type=health http://tobacco.org/news/292244.html Now San Francisco entrepreneur Stuart Skorman, founder of the now defunct holistic-oriented drugstore chain Elephant Pharmacy, wants to make pharmacies the only places that sell tobacco products. Skorman, who on Thursday launched a nonprofit organization called HealthyPharmacies.org to promote his idea, believes that restricting cigarette sales to pharmacies would not only control the distribution and visibility of the product, but also give pharmacists the opportunity to counsel customers about quitting. The idea would also prevent kids from going down to the corner store to buy cigarettes from a clerk who may not check identification, he said. "Keeping tobacco away from 12-year-olds saves lives and billions of dollars from the health care system," he said. Skorman advocates testing the concept in some cities and then comparing the impact on smoking with those that have banned the sale of tobacco products in drugstores. He said he's in discussions with city officials interested in the idea, but declined to name the cities. "If limiting distribution and limiting the visibility of this dangerous product reduces smoking in communities, we believe pharmacists would be more than happy to be part of the program," he said. The problem? Most pharmacists and health experts interviewed for this story found the idea downright unhealthy. San Francisco Chronicle vcolliver@sfchronicle.com ( Victoria Colliver, Chronicle Staff Writer) Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT