Cigarettes Tax, Sri Lankan Government

While the government of President Mahinda Rajapakse continues to squeeze the wages and living conditions of Sri Lankan workers and the poor, the banks and major corporations and their CEOs are reaping large profits and salary remunerations. On May 4, the government, in line with austerity measures dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), increased the price of imported powdered milk, cooking gas and cement by about 25, 16 and 10 percent, respectively. The rises followed last month’s 10 percent lift in the price of flour, which is the main staple of Sri Lanka’s poor, especially plantation workers. Taxes on alcohol, cigarettes and all imported vehicles were also raised on March 31.

Smokers Should Eat More Fishes

If you’re a smoker, a new study suggests adding more fish to your diet. While the best way to protect yourself from the harmful effects of smoking is to quit, researchers from Greece have found that omega-3 fatty acids can help repair arteries damaged by the unhealthy habit. Presented at the World Congress of Cardiology in Dubai Friday, scientists showed that short-term treatment with omega-3 fatty acids was able to improve arterial stiffness and moderate acute impairment of vascular elastic properties in smokers -- both markers of cardiovascular risk.

Cigarettes Packaging Should be Plain

“Fancy,” “posh” and “pretty” – these are all words used by children in Cancer Research UK’s new video to describe a selection of current cigarette packets. Looking at one of the packs, a little boy says: “I think it would be quite fun to play with. It makes you almost happy looking at it.” For most of us the idea that children are attracted to these deadly products is simply shocking. Cancer Research UK statistics show that more than 4,000 people died of lung cancer in Scotland in 2010. This risk of developing this devastating disease increases significantly in smokers and is just one of the cancers that can be the consequence of an addiction that is promoted to women as being glamorous and to men as offering maturity and popularity. There is much we can do to prevent a new generation of children from starting to smoke in the first place.

Smoking Habit and Psoriasis

Smoking is an independent risk factor for psoriasis, with particularly strong associations for heavy smokers and those who have smoked for many years, according to research published in the March 1 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology. To determine whether there was an association between psoriasis and smoking, Wenqing Li, Ph.D., of Harvard Medical School in Boston, and colleagues looked at data for 2,410 adults with incident psoriasis who were identified among 185,836 participants from three study cohorts. The researchers found that past and current smokers had an increased relative risk (RR) of incident psoriasis compared with never smokers (1.39 and 1.94, respectively). For current smokers, there was an increasing risk for more cigarettes smoked per day (RRs for one to 14, 15 to 24, and 25 or more cigarettes/day: 1.81, 2.04, and 2.29, respectively).

Indoor Smoking Ban, Russia News

Russia is due to ban smoking in all enclosed spaces in an effort to stamp out the habit that kills up to 500,000 people every year, the health ministry said. "All disagreements between ministries over the ban have been resolved," a ministry spokesperson said. The bill is still subject to approval by the parliament. The World Health Organization (WHO) welcomed the bill, describing it as a "breakthrough" for Russia.