Study finds a third of shops selling cigarettes to minors

APPROXIMATELY ONE-THIRD of minors are illegally able to purchase cigarettes from retailers, a new study has found.
The National Tobacco Retail Audit – 2009 Monitoring Report , published today, examined compliance by retailers with regard to legislation on the sale of cigarettes to minors.
It concluded that children have “an unacceptably high chance” of purchasing cigarettes through shops and licensed premises.
The study carried out by the Office of Tobacco Control found almost one-third of shopkeepers were disregarding laws that prohibit the sale of cigarettes to minors.
More than a third of licensed premises were willing to sell tobacco to minors according to the survey, though compliance levels among these premises increased 28 per cent from 37 per cent in 2008 to 65 per cent this year.
The research found compliance was higher among premises with token-operated cigarette vending machines where 70 per cent prevented children from buying cigarettes, compared to 37 per cent of premises with coin-operated machines.
Compliance among retailers was up 8 per cent, from 60 per cent in 2008 to 68 per cent in 2009.
Some 61 per cent of shops and licensed premises asked children for identification.
Ninety-seven per cent of minors who were asked for ID were refused the sale of cigarettes, the survey found.
Office of Tobacco Control chief executive Éamonn Rossi said although a clear improvement in compliance culture had occurred among retailers, there was still a long way to go.
“While we welcome the increase, still one-third of minors can buy cigarettes,” he said.
Launching the report, Áine Brady TD, Minister of State with responsibility for Older People and Health Promotion, said staff vigilance was essential to ensure young people don’t have access to cigarette vending machines.
In selling tobacco to a child, people may be launching them on a journey to addiction, disease and death, she said.
The Mandate trade union yesterday called on retailers to ensure identification is requested from customers.
Mandate general secretary John Douglas said, “while we recognise that compliance is improving with relation to sales to under-18-year-olds, there is still massive scope for improvement”.

Kansas Governor Will Likely Push for Tobacco Tax Increase

Kansas Governor Mark Parkinson is likely to push for increasing the state's tobacco tax in the coming legislative session, to make up for a budget shortfall.
He says Kansas could face a deficit of more than 300 million dollars in the coming fiscal year.
"Raising cigarette taxes is good public policy," Parkinson said. "It not only raises money, but it also reduces teen smoking. The studies are quite clear that in states where cigarettes are expensive, teens do not smoke as much as in states where cigarettes are cheap. And so I think it would be very good public policy to raise our tax at least to the national average." 
The cigarette tax in Kansas is currently 79 cents per pack. The national average is more than a dollar and thirty cents per pack.
Parkinson has said he'll push for new sources of revenue, to avoid more cuts to programs like Medicaid and education.

My New Years Resolution And Electronic Cigarettes

Every year millions of people all over the world make New Years Resolutions, but an awful lot of those promises are broken pretty soon. The most popular resolutions are to stop smoking or lose weight, both difficult to do in their own way.
This year I will be making an Old Years resolutions and this is: To carry on giving up smoking and never put one of those disgusting, addictive, foul smelling, cancerous things in my mouth ever again. There I've said it. Do you know how much it means to me and anybody else who manages to stop smoking to be able to say that and know that this time you really mean it?
When you watch TV programmes like the X Factor or Strictly Come Dancing the contestestants always seem to say that winning means the world to them. Well in the real world stopping smoking truly can mean the world to you when you have smoked for many years. I started when I was 14, it was easy to buy separates from corner shops and then graduate to packs of 5 Park Drive if you got some extra spending money or had a pal to share the cost with. Back then in the 60s it was cool to smoke, the height of sophistication if you were an impressionable teenager.
We just didn't know the health risks that went hand in hand with looking sophisticated to our peers. Then the health risks became known but when you are addicted your needs overcome what is good for you. It is hard to stop smoking, very hard for most of us nicotine addicts. Every now and then you try to stop but more often than not you weaken and start smoking again.
You create a pattern until eventually you manage to break that pattern and stop - that is if you don't die from smoking related illnesses first. I will be ending the old and starting the new year as a non smoker and that will be for the first time in 40 years. I won't have a smokers cough or get out of breath while I am partying. Those who I give a new years hug or kiss to will smell Opium perfume on me and not be repulsed by the disgusting ashtray smell.
I won't have to go outside in the cold with the other outcasts who share the horrible habit and I can brag about how much money I have saved. Very important to me and the main reason that I stopped back in May is a massive improvement in my circulation. Last winter I suffered from a lot of excruciating pain in my fingers from Reynards disease. At times it was frightening because there was no circulation in my fingers and it was difficult to get my fingers warm enough to get the blood flowing again.
As I work in a shop that sells chilled and frozen products I couldn't always keep my fingers warm and they and my livelihood were at risk. Now that I don't smoke those problems have lessened to such an extent that it is just an occasional minor nuisance now.
Sometimes it was too painful to use my computer keyboard but now there isn't a problem. For those of you who despair of ever giving up smoking my story is proof that eventually you can stop. With my weak willpower it took a lot of attempts using different methods to stop but eventually I found the way that works best for me and that was electronic cigarettes .
I used them to gradually get rid of my nicotine addiction and I don't smoke anything now - nor am I addicted to anything. One of the things that I did to help myself was to build a blog and keep an online diary.
Knowing that other people would be watching how I did strengthened my resolve and my diary will always be there to stop me from slipping.