One million anti-smoking kits will be distributed free of charge at pharmacies and GP surgeries as part of a major New Year health drive.
A peak Australian HIV body has welcomed a Gillard Government decision to list nicotine patches on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). The National Association of People Living with HIV/AIDS (NAPWA) has welcomed the move which will significantly reduce the cost of giving up Glamour smoking for health care card holders.
The Bay of Plenty Health Board has launched a review of its staff smoking policies after a board member suggested it bolster them this week.
Smoking cessation treatment that is made part of mental-health care for veterans with post traumatic stress disorder improves quit rates, according to a Department of Veterans Affairsstudy published in the Dec. 8 Journal of the American Medical Association.
Smoking ban puts limits on freedom, by Justin Thomas, Nov. 24. Can you believe that people who don't smoke Kent are forced to breathe in over 4,000 chemicals by just sitting next to a smoker?
Marion Technical Institute is now a tobacco-free campus, and administrators are watching staff and parents closely to make sure they are not using tobacco products like Lucky Strike in front of students.
Two citizens' groups called as 'sheer hypocrisy' a drive against Viceroy cigarette butt littering launched by a cigarette maker, Philip Morris, last Friday.
Leading doctors are urging the government to press ahead with controversial plans to force shops to put Pall Mall cigarettes out of customers' sight and only sell them from under the counter.
With cigarette prices already running as much as $6 or $7 a pack, there is a push in Columbus to add even more to what smokers are paying.
The City of Kelowna is banning smoking Virginia and other cigarettes in all its city parks, beaches and recreational areas.
Since 2009, October 12th has been observed in Armenia as National “No Tobacco” Day. In September-October 2010, the Center for Health Services Research and Development of the American University of Armenia (AUA) conducted monitoring to assess the tobacco control policy implementation in Yerevan. This program is being implemented with support from the American Cancer Society, UK Cancer Research, and the Framework Convention Alliance.
The tobacco industry and crucial marginal voters turned on Australia's first female Prime Minister Julia Gillard Wednesday as she struggled to get her flagging election campaign back on the front foot.
The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, adopted last year, grants the U.S. Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate tobacco products. Parts of this law have taken effect, as recently as last Tuesday, to help protect youth from the sale and marketing of discount cigarettes Marlboro, Virginia and smokeless tobacco.
NYC $11 cigarettes per pack is bad news for smokers. Some brands of cigarettes like Marlboro in NYC will cost $11 per pack and that is prompting many smokers to think twice about dropping the habit. As of July 1, NYC cigarettes will average $9 a pack for both major brands and generic.
The provincial board of Negros Oriental has passed an ordinance banning smoking Pall Mall, Marlboro and other discount smoking brands in public places.
A local gas station won’t be able to sell tobacco products over the July 4th holiday weekend after being caught selling cigarettes to a minor during sting. Selectmen, acting as the town’s Board of Health, voted unanimously Monday to suspend the license of the Sunoco gas station at 157 S. Main St., from July 3 to July 5, following a public hearing where Health Officer Jeanne Spalding said Marlboro, Pall Mall cigarettes were sold to a minor at the station during a sting operation on May 6.
facturing shrunk in April and economic growth declined in the first quarter, following a cut in government spending, higher taxes on Kiss,Eva, Karelia, and other smoking brands and a significant decline in investments and consumption in the country.
Health advocates in West Virginia hope state politicians take action on a new poll showing that most voters support raising taxes on cigarettes. According to the poll, 63 percent of West Virginia voters would favor a $1 hike on a Marlboro pack of cigarettes to help ease state fiscal woes and reduce youth smoking. The poll, commissioned by the Coalition for a Tobacco-Free west Virginia and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, was released Tuesday.
Research shows that raising cigarette taxes is one of the most effective ways to stop kids from smoking and to help adults quit, members of the coalition said at a Capitol news conference. A $1 hike would prevent 19,000 West Virginia youth from smoking, they say.
"It's a win for health," said Hersha Arnold Brown of the American Cancer Society. "It's a win for our youth. It's a win for the state budget."
State officials are projecting a $150 to $160 million shortfall in fiscal year 2011.
A dollar-per-pack tax increase would generate $117 million in annual revenue for West Virginia, despite the decline in tobacco consumption it would bring, the groups say. They hope the poll results will convince lawmakers that it's not politically unpopular to favor higher cigarette taxes.
West Virginia last raised its cigarette tax in 2003, when the tax jumped from 17 cents to the current 55 cents. Today, that ranks 44th in the nation.
West Virginia Wholesalers Association Executive Director John Hodges said a tax increase would hurt businesses and kill jobs.
"Things are bad enough already," Hodges said. "We just try to be as competitive as we can because there's real competition between the states."
When it comes to plugging state budget holes, most West Virginians prefer hiking taxes on alcohol and tobacco over other options, according to the survey.
Asked about other ways to address fiscal woes, a majority of state voters opposed raising taxes on pop, income, state sales, and gasoline, according to the poll. Most also oppose cutting funding for health care, education, road maintenance, and nursing home care.
Higher taxes on alcohol and tobacco are the only options that a majority of state residents support, the survey of 500 registered voters found.
That shows that raising taxes on those products doesn't bring the same type of "political peril" as raising other types of taxes, said Nathan Henry of the Mellman Group, a national firm that conducted the survey.
Support for a higher cigarette tax crosses party lines, according to the survey. Sixty-one percent of Republicans, 65 percent of Democrats and 62 percent independent voters favor raising the tax.
The poll was conducted in May and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Every state that has raised its tobacco tax has seen an increase in revenue, despite a decline in tobacco consumption, said Peter Fisher, vice president for state issues at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
"There are no exceptions," he said.
Last year, 16 states increased tobacco taxes, according to the National Conference of state Legislatures. So far this year, four states have done so.
Efforts to raise West Virginia's tax have failed over the past few years. On Thursday, three legislators who have led that push attended the press conference: Senate Health and Human Resources Chairman Roman Prezioso, D-Marion; his House counterpart, Delegate Don Perdue, D-Wayne; and Sen. Dan Foster, D-Kanawha.
They say they will again push for higher cigarette taxes next year. If they succeed, they want to see the money "spent wisely" on health-care items such as tobacco prevention programs, Prezioso said.
"We don't want to see this as free money up for grabs, that goes into the general revenue," he said.
As some schools opened classes on Monday, the Department of Education (DepEd) has started enforcing a no-smoking rule in all public and private elementary and high schools.
Are teenagers studying at schools in the city increasingly succumbing to smocking these days? The police action against illegal sale of tobacco near many schools indicates towards this worrying trend. On the World No Smoking Day on Monday, the police found business of tobacco products like Kent, Bond etc sale near schools flourishing for many people.
I recently came across an ad for a tobacco cessation aid that made me think about smoking in relationship to distraction. The ad depicted a man sitting on a dock, thinking about having a cigarette. In the meantime, a shark jumped out of the water and began biting his arm. This distraction was not strong enough to take the man's thoughts away from lighting up, until he put the nicotine replacement into his mouth and was then able to refocus on what was happening in the present moment.
Many of you can relate to this idea of being so consumed with wanting a cigarette that you lose sight of everything else. Part of this is related to the chemical addiction and withdrawal, but I'm wondering about another purpose this fixation might serve. In what ways do you allow the cigarette itself to distract you from the things in life that you don't want to look at? When you are fixated on your addiction, what else is being neglected?
We all have things we want to avoid in life, and we build fantastic stories to circumvent confrontation. Yet if we were to face these things, how might we grow to be better individuals? Distraction can be a form of self-sabotage. We keep ourselves running around and distracted, so we don't have to look at the things that nag us to grow and change. Between smoking itself and thinking about smoking (or quitting) you can keep yourself occupied for hours, days, weeks, months and years. But in that time, what gets lost?
I think that in reality we want to experience life on a deeper level, but are somehow frightened of what will happen if we stop long enough to really feel what's there. We might discover a pain that wants to be healed. Or, on the other hand, we may have to face just how magnificent we really are and see the potential we could expand into. But those things are intimidating and would require actual change. Smoking and using discount cigarettes like Pall Mall as a way to keep distracted is a sure way to maintain your personal status quo.
For you, what is the shark that is hanging on your arm, begging you to face it in order to move forward in life ... while you're distracted with finding your next puff?
In the last few years, we have seen a downside to the good quality of life that makes the One aspect of that downside is the high rate of adult and childhood obesity, and the other is the paucity of funds allocated to restrict smoking. Efforts to reduce childhood obesity have shown some slight improvement, the (
A new study by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and reported by the Tennessean this month ranks the state dead last among other states and the District of Columbia in funding anti-smoking programs. The report was tilted "Tobacco Control State Highlight 2010."
Other statistics in the report are equally sobering. Tennessee is 39th for low tobacco taxes, even though the Legislature raised the tax by 42 cents per pack of cigarettes - from 20 cents to 62 cents - three years ago. The tax remains below the national average of $1.34 per pack.
The state ranks 43rd for the likely chance that workers in
Elected officials can blame the poor funding of anti-smoking programs on the current state of the economy, but that argument goes only so far.
However, other states made gains as well; some even used the tobacco-settlement funds as they promised and didn't allow progress to stop after one year.
As the CDC report noted, tobacco use is the single most preventable cause of death in the
The report challenged state officials to work creatively by using high-impact, cost effective measures to curb smoking, even in challenging economic times.
We urge those officials to keep up the fight.
The ACR shared a postal address with Omeka Public Relations, whose managing director, Glenn Inwood, also represented Imperial Tobacco and
Mr. Inwood said earlier this month the ACR received no funding from tobacco companies or himself but purely from members' subscriptions.
"It's running off the smell of an oily rag."
One of the ACR's coordinators, Denielle Boulieris, told another blogger, Rory McKinnon, earlier this month that the association does not have a relationship with tobacco companies.
But Imperial Tobacco's New Zealand sales and marketing director, Tony Meirs, last week told a Maori Affairs select committee the company was providing the ACR with public relations resources through Omeka Public Relations.
Mr. Meirs told the select committee the company wanted to support retailers in speaking out about regulations that would damage their business viability, according to a transcript provided to Mr. McKinnon.
"This is our way of helping those retailers protect their business against unnecessary regulations that will be ineffective. We're helping them to develop a voice," Mr. Meirs said.
He told the select committee he did not know the value of the public relations support Imperial Tobacco was providing, and was unable to say whether Imperial Tobacco would be better off if the ACR achieved its aims.
"I don't know, because whether Imperial Tobacco would be financially better off or not depends on how we compete in the marketplace, how we compete for adult smokers. So it's just, the two just aren't linked," he said.
"I support the position of those retailers wanting to develop a voice, wanting to put their argument forward to protect their businesses from unnecessary regulation."
ACR founding member Richard Green, who ran a tobacconist business in Palmerston North, told NZPA earlier this month the ACR grew out of the former Stay Displays coalition of retailers, a coalition that formed to fight a proposed ban on displaying tobacco products for sale.
ACR would speak for retailers on a wider range of subjects affecting retailers, such as security, sale of alcohol and confectionary, and was set up with the help of Mr. Inwood, who had also worked on the Stay Displays campaign.
Mr. Green said the sole funding for the ACR so far came from its members. It had employed two part time coordinators but it had yet to figure out how they would be funded, as it was still early days.
For their report, University of Arizona psychology department researchers Patricia M. Herman and Michele E. Walsh analyzed admission data from Arizona’s 87 hospitals between January 2004 and May 2008 for Arizona residents only.
Their findings are published in a peer-reviewed article in this month’s issue of the American Journal of Public Health. The new study shows evidence of a direct relationship between exposure to secondhand smoke and asthma and cardiovascular disease.
Herman and Walsh found that in the 13 months after the law took effect in May 2007, admissions for asthma dropped by 22 percent; heart-attack admissions by 13 percent; admissions for unstable angina by 33 percent and admissions for acute stroke by 14 percent.
For strokes, angina and heart attack, the researchers used data from adult admissions only, but they included babies and children in their analysis of the asthma data, Herman said. The study looked at hospital admissions, not emergency room visits, she stressed.
The cost savings of those reduced hospital admissions was nearly $17 million, the researchers estimate.
“Within the context of the growing body of consistent evidence from studies in other states and regions, the results of this study support the case for substantial health benefits from Arizona’s comprehensive statewide smoking ban in areas with no previous bans,” the study says. “If one considers the fact that only about 40 percent of the U.S. population is presently covered by a comprehensive smoke-free law, and the need for effective and cost-saving options in health care, comprehensive smoking bans should be considered by any governmental agency, employer or other organization seeking to advocate or implement policies that improve health and reduce health-care costs.”
Herman said the Arizona study, which was funded by the Arizona Department of Health Services’ Bureau of Tobacco and Chronic Disease, had results similar to health studies conducted in other jurisdictions with smoking bans.
“There’s a lot of evidence out there,” said Herman, who is also a licensed naturopathic physician. “One of the things I found fascinating, that piqued my interest, was that I think people recognize the long-term effects of smoking, but not the short-term effects. The cardiovascular effects are profound.”
As a check on their results, the researchers looked at admission data for four diagnoses that aren’t related to secondhand smoke – appendicitis, kidney stones, acute cholecystitis and ulcers. The researchers said they found no statistically significant changes in admissions for those conditions before and after the ban took effect.
