BEIJING, – Only a quarter of Chinese people believe that smoking tobacco increases the risk of cancer. And anti-smoking campaigns are failing to influence them, according to a government survey.

Three quarters of people in China are regularly exposed to second-hand smoke, often in the workplace, in a country that puffs its way through around a third of the world’s cigarettes.

The survey, conducted by the country’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, showed that barely one in four adults believes smoking increases the risks of lung cancer, strokes and heart attacks.

In a country where 301 million people smoke, only 16 percent are looking to quit in the coming year, perhaps due to a lack of understanding about the dangers.

Over half of Chinese men smoke, compared to just 2.4 percent of women, according to the China section of the “Global Adult Tobacco Survey.”

A million people die each year from smoking-related illnesses, yet China’s Ministry of Health banned smoking in hospitals only this May.

“Chronic conditions now constitute the lion’s share of the burden of disease in China, and tobacco use is the single largest preventable cause of death and disease,” said the World Health Organization’s China representative, Michael O’Leary.

Both anti-smoking campaigns and cigarettes ads had little impact on most people, the survey found. Only one in five remembered seeing marketing, and less than half noticed health warnings on television or radio.

Less smoking could reduce smoking-related health costs, but would also hurt government revenues, as the tobacco industry still provides a steady flow of government income.

Last year a county government in central China ordered government workers to smoke a combined minimum of 23,000 packs of cigarettes a year to boost tax income, with punishments for those who failed to light up enough. The order was revoked after it created an uproar in the media.

Electronic cigarettes are banned from use anywhere indoors on Central Michigan University’s campus this fall.

Shaun Holtgreive, associate director of Residence Life, said e-cigarettes “will be treated as regular cigarettes.”

After studying e-cigarettes, which use a reservoir of nicotine laced water and a vaporizer to administer the substance, he said the university decided to ban their use within campus buildings because research has shown they give off noxious chemicals in the vapor expelled when smoked.

Because they are being treated the same as tobacco cigarettes, they too cannot be smoked within 25 feet of all campus buildings.

“Until the issue of e-cigarettes is resolved by the FDA,” Holtgreive said, “we will not be allowing them in the residence halls.”

He said these regulations are to keep a safe environment for students and those around them.

According to the Michigan Department of Community Health website, electronic cigarettes are “battery-powered devices that provide inhaled doses of nicotine by way of a vaporized solution.”

Throughout the state there are no formal laws regulating the use of e-cigarettes in public places, but the MDCH strongly recommends business owners should limit their use because they are “not a proven safe alternative” to real cigarettes.

Importation of e-cigarettes into the U.S. is currently banned as a result of an ongoing FDA investigation, according to the MDCH website.

Iron Mountain senior Andrew Casanova agrees with the new regulations put in place.

The Calkins Hall resident assistant said the Office of Residence Life made the right decision because not only are they still harmful to those around them, but also to the smoker himself.

“I feel that they were created to be a safe alternative,” Casanova said. “But they are not safe, the only safe alternative is to not smoke at all.”

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The U.S. Postal Service said Thursday that it plans to resume shipping care packages with cigarettes and other tobacco to soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A law aimed at preventing smuggling had unintentionally banned families from sending tobacco to military members serving overseas. Spokesman Greg Frey said the postal service is planning to issue new instructions that could allow shipments to resume possibly as soon as Aug. 27.

The Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act of 2009 quietly took effect June 29 and was created to prevent minors from ordering cigarettes through the mail. It allowed for small shipments of tobacco but required a way to verify the recipient was old enough – meaning the only way to ship the packages through the postal service was by Express Mail, which requires a signature.

However, Express Mail doesn’t deliver to most overseas military addresses.

“It’s a very delicate balancing act to remain in compliance with the law and serve the needs of our customers and in this particular case those brave men and women overseas,” Frey said.

The new instructions would allow tobacco shipments to military addresses through Priority Mail, which does ship to deployed troops, with delivery confirmation instead.

U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl, the bill’s sponsor, said in a statement that he was notified Thursday of the new instructions.

“I’m pleased that the Postal Service responded so quickly to the concerns of our military families and found a way to honor the original intent of the bill: to keep cigarettes out of the hands of children and prevent tobacco smugglers from profiting on the black market,” he said.

Kohl recently sent a letter to the Postmaster General asking him to change the regulations, because the bill also expressly permits the shipping of tobacco from adult to adult, including to military addresses.

Following the law’s enactment, family members of soldiers were turned away when they tried to send care packages containing tobacco products to combat troops. The law only affects the U.S. Postal Service because UPS and FedEx do not allow consumer-to-consumer shipping of tobacco.

Rep. Anthony Weiner was the primary house member on the act and said the law was intended to stop the black market sales of cigarettes, not stop soldiers from getting smokes.

“We have made it clear that our troops overseas may still get care packages with cigarettes,” he said.

FUJAIRAH – Shisha cafes in Fujairah will be asked to move permanently to the outskirts of the city before the World Cup finals kick off on Friday, in a move aimed at reducing noice nuisance.

The municipality says now is the perfect time for shisha cafes to make the move – although owners who do not will not face penalties for the time being.

The ban on shisha cafes in residential areas was part of the Federal National Tobacco Law issued this year, which also specified a two-year grace period.

“We will try to organise them to relocate to the beginning of Fujairah city where it will not bother any non-smokers,” said Mohamed al Afkham, the head of the municipality.

“The World Cup is coming and a lot of shisha cafes will be open in the day and late at night.”

Some in the city remained unaware today of the official encouragement to move.

Fujairah Media is erecting a tent beside Fujairah Tower – which is located in the heart of the city – that will serve shisha and show World Cup matches.

“It will open from four o’clock in the afternoon until four o’clock in the morning,” said Sufian al Aqrabawi, the company’s chief engineer.

“Noise won’t be any problem. Everybody likes to to watch a football match or a movie with shisha,” he said.

“There are so many cafes here.”

A daily smoker of double apple-flavoured tobacco, Mr al Aqrabawi said he would continue his habit even if it was banned from the city centre.

“In the end I will take it in my home,” he said.

Others welcomed the move. Major Ahmed Ibrahim, the managing director of the Fujairah International Marine Club, said it was “perfect”.

“It is a noise problem, number one. Number two, it is insecure for the family to have 50 or 60 bachelors sitting there,” he said.

“Women passing by don’t feel comfortable, and besides, it’s unhealthy to have the shisha. Smokers should have an area only for smoking.”

Noise from the cafes near his home is a constant problem during sporting events, he said. “They make a demonstration, they drive in the car, they make too much noise, they shout and scream at shisha,” he said of customers.

Fujairah’s Arabian Drive-In Cinema, where shisha will delivered to customers’ vehicles, will not be affected by the city ban because it is located out of doors.

In January, the Ajman Municipality stopped issuing new licences for shisha cafes in residential areas. Cafes were given two years to relocate, as per the law.
Shisha cafes in Ras al Khaimah expect business to double each night during the World Cup.

“For Brazil and Egypt [matches] we always get more customers, but in the World Cup every seat will be taken, every table will be full,” said Yassir Mahdi, 33, a worker at the Manhattan Cafe, which has more than 270 seats. Profits during the World Cup could leap from Dh750 a night to more than Dh4,000, he said.

Shisha cafes in Ras al Khaimah will remain open at night as long as there are customers to serve, say their owners.

Musaab al Mahi, 23, from Sudan, said there was no better place to watch football. “We go to shisha for football because we like to sit with our friends,” he said. “It’s better than sitting alone in my house.”

MIAMI – Despite the ongoing battle between the Food and Drug Administration and electronic cigarette makers, one manufacturer welcomes the challenge as a chance to present its product as a healthier alternative to traditional tobacco.

Green Smoke said it has created an electronic cigarette designed to simulate the smoking experience without carcinogenics. Instead, it emits an odorless vapor of mostly steam, with ingredients like nicotine, water, propylene glycol (an additive used in cake mixes) and others. The nicotine also is available in different strengths.

The company also added that the price for the electronic cigarettes are more cost-efficient than regular tobacco products, with cigarette starter kits ranging from $109 to $270. The starter kits include nicotine cartridges, rechargeable cigarette batteries, home charger and more.

The first month of a statewide smoking ban in restaurants and bars has been pretty much a nonevent, local business operators said yesterday.

Most longtime customers who smoke have either adapted to the restrictions, which went into effect Jan. 2, or chosen to brave the cold weather before or after a meal, the operators say.

On the other hand, the operators say they haven’t seen a sizable uptick in business from nonsmokers either, although that could be weather-related as well.

“We may be turning the tables around more quickly since the ban went into place,” said Steven Hondos, the owner of the Jimmy the Greek restaurant off University Parkway. The restaurant was successful for years in striking a balance between smokers and nonsmokers.

“The people who smoke, who love our food, are still coming in. They understand this was not our decision, so I haven’t sensed any kind of backlash against us.

“We’re noticing more people coming in who didn’t before because of the smoke,” Hondos said. “But it hasn’t been that many so far.”

There hasn’t been a rash of complaints about noncompliance with the ban regarding individuals, restaurants and bars.

Anyone caught smoking in a restaurant or bar could get a $50 fine. Restaurants or bars that repeatedly fail to enforce the smoking ban could get a $250 fine.

As of Jan. 24, there have been 147 formal complaints filed regarding Triad bars and restaurants with the N.C. Tobacco Prevention and Control Branch.

Guilford County has the bulk of those complaints at 94, followed by Forsyth County with 17. There have been no complaints filed in Alleghany, Davie, Watauga and Yadkin counties.

There have been some instances of confusion with patrons using an electronic cigarette, or e-cigarette. The cigarette, which isn’t affected by the statewide smoking ban, is battery-operated and contains cartridges of nicotine. A heater converts the chemical into a vapor.

Customers still can smoke in an outdoor seating area or patio, and some restaurant and bar owners said that they are taking steps to make those areas more comfortable.

Local health departments are responsible for enforcing the law, investigating complaints and issuing the fines.

Dr. Tim Monroe, the Forsyth County health director, said his department has a policy of investigating all complaints. Inspectors will check for compliance with the no-smoking law during their quarterly inspections of restaurants. Monroe does not foresee an aggressive campaign to send inspectors out with the sole intention of catching smoking violations.

Gayle Anderson, the president and chief executive of the Winston-Salem Chamber of Commerce, said she has not received a complaint about a bar or restaurant being out of compliance with the ban.

“With the economy down, the bad weather the past few weeks, etc. it would be hard to compare business with January 2009,” Anderson said.

Anderson said she expects bars and restaurants will gain business over time based on the experience of those groups that already took the nonsmoking plunge.

“Over the past several years, a number of restaurants here have consulted with us before going non-smoking,” Anderson said.

“When we’ve checked back with them several months after they made that decision, they’ve told us it really had not affected their business after the first couple of weeks.”

John Cahoon, the co-owner of Finnegan’s Wake in the Downtown Arts District, said that the smoking ban has made his establishment “a little busier” in the short term.

“The ban hasn’t hurt us even though 20 percent to 25 percent of our business has traditionally been with smokers,” Cahoon said.

“We believe we’re getting new customers because, previously, the separation between smoking and nonsmoking wasn’t enough for some people.”
By Richard Craver
February 2, 2010

LONDON, ENGLAND – A ban on the display of tobacco in stores across Scotland is expected to pass this week, a move that is part of a wide-ranging campaign aimed at reducing smoking, the BBC and The Scotsman report.

The ban, part of the Tobacco and Primary Medical Services Bill, would also prohibit cigarette vending machines while introducing a registration plan for retailers.

The Tobacco Retailers Alliance opposes the legislation, warning that a vending machine ban will lead to job losses. The National Association of Cigarette Machine Operators has proposed digitally operated machines that require an ID check prior to use rather than an outright ban.

If passed, the move to ban cigarette displays will affect supermarkets starting in 2011 and small stores in 2013.

In Canada, the marketing of tobacco products is “dark” at retail, forcing convenience stores to essentially hide product behind curtains or in drawers out of sight to customers. For more on tobacco issues, see the November 2008 NACS Magazine feature, “Tobacco Road.”

WINNIPEG – Researchers are testing to see whether smokers or children exposed to second-hand smoke are at an increased risk of becoming severely ill from H1N1.

Dr. Sat Sharma, director of respiratory labs at St. Boniface General Hospital, said yesterday that smoking is one potential H1N1 risk factor that has not been studied, and may give researchers another clue as to why the virus causes severe illness in some and relatively mild sickness in others.

Dr. Sharma is part of a team of Manitoba researchers who recently received a federal grant to study how H1N1 attacks the body differently than does seasonal influenza. While scientists know that certain risk factors — among them pregnancy and aboriginal ancestry — put people at a higher risk of severe illness from H1N1, they still do not know why.

Dr. Sharma said researchers will analyze cells from the blood and lungs of Manitobans hospitalized with severe H1N1, along with samples from people who experienced a mild bout of flu in the first or second flu wave.

The tests could allow scientist to determine what protects some people against severe H1N1 and predisposes others to it.

“Smoking appears to be one factor not identified previously,” Dr. Sharma said. “We’ll be looking at that in a lot more detail.”

The study began Oct. 1 and is part of a cross-country research project to learn more about how H1N1 attacks the lungs. Winnipeg scientists are collaborating with researchers in Toronto, Vancouver and Halifax to investigate how the virus works, along with what role genetics and environment play in how it infects the body.

Dr. Sharma and a group of Winnipeg researchers are leading the national effort, in part because of the large number of severe H1N1 cases that surfaced across the province this spring. The clusters of severe H1N1 cases among Manitoba First Nations caught the attention of the World Health Organization. At its peak, 38 Manitobans were on ventilators in intensive care, and seven people died.

Dr. Beni Sahai, senior scientist and virologist at Cadham Provincial Laboratory in Winnipeg, said it is crucial to learn more about the virus because H1N1 is quickly becoming the dominant flu strain. Old strains of influenza die off as new ones emerge, Dr. Sahai said, and H1N1 will soon replace the previous seasonal influenza strain.

While seasonal influenza is typically confined to the upper respiratory tract, H1N1 progresses to the lower respiratory tract in the lungs and causes serious problems, Dr. Sahai said.

By Jen Skerritt, November 27, 2009

RICHMOND – Starting tomorrow, Virginia will join dozens of other states that ban smoking in restaurants, a huge shift for a state whose tobacco habit dates to the Jamestown settlement about 400 years ago.

Strict curbs on lighting up where food and drink are sold were enacted this year by lawmakers in Richmond and in Raleigh, N.C., major tobacco capitals where cigarette makers Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds have been accustomed to getting their way.

Restaurants in Virginia will be allowed to have a smoking area only if they segregate smokers into rooms with ventilation systems separate from those that heat and cool nonsmoking patrons.

North Carolina’s law takes effect Jan. 2 and will allow smoking on outdoor patios and in private membership clubs, as does Virginia’s law. Unlike Virginia, North Carolina law will not allow any smoking in restaurants.

Virginia restaurant industry lobbyist Tom Lisk expects only about 10 percent of the state’s restaurants to retain smoking areas. “A number of them, because of that requirement in the law to create or construct a separate room, don’t have the wherewithal to do it, so they’re just banning smoking altogether,’’ said Lisk, who last winter opposed the bill.

Some, such as Randall Plaxa, a Williamsburg nightspot owner, decided to go smoke-free well ahead of the deadline. Others, such as the Third Street Diner and the Beatles-themed Penny Lane Pub in downtown Richmond, will move patrons who smoke into upstairs quarters that already comply with the law.

The Department of Health is launching a press campaign in a bid to encourage more male smokers to give up smoking.

Set to run across major national newspapers and TalkSport’s weekly magazine in November, the ads are football-themed, with a message that “going smoke free allows you to get more out of your game”.

The straplines take the form of familiar football chants, such as: ‘We’re not smoking, we’re not smoking, we’re not smoking any more.’

There will also be a direct mail pack and locker stickers for 5-a-side venues.

A website will have a range of tools to encourage people to quit smoking, with visitors able to ‘sign’ for Smokefree United and enter a Smokefree United League, which ranks the number of quitters from each football team.

The press campaign was devised by Kitcatt Nohr Alexander Shaw. The target demographic is male smokers in England who work in routine and manual jobs, are interested in football and have children living at home.

“Male smokers provide a unique challenge as traditional health messages often don’t motivate them to quite,” says a DoH spokesperson. “This campaign demonstrates the positive, tangible benefits that quitting smoking offers football fans – be it more money in their pocket or the fitness to have a kick about with their friends and family.”

The campaign follows the TV ads launched by the DoH this month that feature real children talking about their concern for their parent’s health, and encouraging them to give up smoking.

Smoking bans have made the air healthier in bars and restaurants, but may have made the air just outside the establishments more hazardous, University of Georgia researchers have found.
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Nonsmoking diners and imbibers sitting in outdoor patios or sidewalk seating areas connected to the bars or restaurants are picking up doses of secondhand smoke, the scientists found.

In fact, nonsmokers who volunteered to sit in the outdoor seating areas had levels of a tobacco byproduct in their bodies up to 162 percent higher than when they first sat down, said Luke Naeher, a professor in UGA’s environmental health science department.

Collaborating with researchers in the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Northeast Health District, Naeher and other UGA researchers measured levels of a substance called cotinine.

Naeher’s research team assigned 20 nonsmoking volunteers to spend six evening hours in one of three outdoor areas for the study – outside a downtown Athens bar, outside a restaurant near downtown or outside UGA’s main library.

“We’re looking at real-world settings,” Naeher said.

After six hours, the volunteers gave a saliva sample, which the researchers tested for cotinine, a nicotine byproduct often used as an indicator of tobacco exposure.

Volunteers who hung out where smokers gather outside a restaurant saw their cotinine levels more than double. Nonsmokers outside a bar had their cotinine increase by even more, up to 162 percent.

The study is published in this month’s issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene.

Few restaurant or bar patrons are exposed to six hours of secondhand smoke at a stretch – but workers could be, Naeher said.

Cotinine unexpectedly even went up in the library group, by an average of 16 percent – possibly because one of them passed by a smoker as the volunteer walked downtown to give researchers a saliva sample, Naeher said.

Previous studies have shown that restaurant and bar smoking bans reduce the incidence of heart attacks and respiratory illness among people inside the establishments.

But researchers don’t know the health impacts of outdoor secondhand smoke.

“The question is, is it an environment that warrants concern or further study?” Naeher said. “The answer is, we don’t know yet.”

The researchers aren’t quite ready to declare outdoor cafes a new health hazard for those that may inhale secondhand smoke there – including children, restaurant and bar workers, and pregnant women and their unborn children.

But secondhand smoke contains numerous carcinogens, and scientists believe there is no safe level of exposure, Naeher said.

“We feel like it’s something we need to be taking a look at,” said Lou Kudon, one of the authors of the study. Kudon is program manager for the Athens-based Northeast Health District, which includes Clarke and nine other area counties.

Next, the researchers will measure levels of a chemical called NNAL, a known carcinogen, in nonsmokers who spend time in outdoor places where people smoke.

Anti-smoking proponents say they will push once again for legislation to close loopholes in state law that permit smoking in some bars and restaurants.

The intent is to protect workers from the health effects of secondhand smoke, representatives of the American Heart Association and the state Health Department said.

On Thursday proponents said they would seek legislation similar to a bill that died in the Oklahoma House this year.

The bill would remove exemptions to anti-smoking legislation approved in 2003. The exemptions allow smoking in stand-alone bars and in separately-ventilated smoking rooms in restaurants.

Marilyn Davidson of the American Heart Association said secondhand smoke leads to disease that kills 38,000 people a year and increases the risk of coronary heart disease by 25 percent to 30 percent.

A recent report by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies said studies have shown a decrease in the rate of heart attacks after a smoking ban was implemented.

Smoking is the leading preventable cause of death and disease, said Dr. Alan Blum, a family medicine professor at the University of Alabama and director of the Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society.

Blum said restaurant groups that oppose bans are influenced by tobacco companies that want to protect their profits.

“Basically, it’s about health over money,” Blum said.

But some Oklahoma restaurant and nightclub owners have opposed an outright ban on smoking, claiming it would have a negative impact on their business. Some have invested thousands of dollars building separate smoking rooms.

“We are obviously sympathetic to them,” Davidson said. “Our main concern is the workers that have to work in these smoking rooms.”

Jim Hopper, president of the Oklahoma Restaurant Association, did not return telephone calls seeking comment on the proposed smoking ban.

BY SUSAN SIMPSON
October 30, 2009 Newsok

Peel’s top public health officials are lobbying to ban smoking from apartments and condos in an effort to limit second-hand smoke inhalation.

If their push is successful, apartment dwellers would not be able to smoke in their own homes.

The region’s council is going to examine a report co-authored by Commissioner of Health Services Janette Smith, and Dr. David Mowat, Peel’s medical officer of health.

Their report says that Peel Public Health has received complaints from apartment tenants about smoke seeping into their homes.

“Tobacco smoke can seep from various openings in a multi-unit dwelling, including electrical outlets, plumbing, ductwork, ceiling light fixtures, cracks in wall, floors or doors and through common areas, such as hallways,” wrote Smith and Mowat in the report. “Some units may share ventilation or heating systems, which can further spread the smoke throughout a building.”

Their findings prompted an investigation into whether the city has the authority to ban smoking inside apartments.

Under the Municipal Act of 2001, Peel can invoke a bylaw preventing tenants from smoking, but Smith and Mowat suggest the best route would be to persuade Queen’s Park to enact a province-wide ban.

The province’s current ban on smoking applies only to enclosed public spaces, as well as elevators and hallways in apartment buildings. But it does not stop people from smoking in their homes.

“I don’t actually think that we need to be asking the province because I think it’s already happening,” said Pippa Beck, a policy analyst for the Non-Smokers’ Rights Association. “We have market forces on our side, landlords are recognizing the financial benefits, which are not insignificant, and there is more and more demand for smoke-free living.”

Beck noted several municipalities in Ontario, including Kitchener-Waterloo and Hamilton, are taking steps to ban smoking in residences.

This month, councillors in Kitchener-Waterloo decided, starting in April, new tenants in apartments owned by Waterloo Region would not be allowed to smoke at home.

The region had been receiving an average of five calls a month from tenants complaining about second-hand smoke seeping into their dwellings from other units and open windows. Those calls represented about 20 per cent of all tobacco-related complaints received by the region, according to a regional report.

In Peel, individual landlords of apartments are also choosing to make their buildings smoke-free.

In July 2006, a smoke-free 53-unit housing complex opened on Cummer Ave. in North York. In 2008, the owner said one tenant had left because of the policy.

Peel’s council votes Thursday on whether to approach the province about the recommendations.

October 19, 2009
Madeleine White Healthzone

PREMIERSHIP side Dynamos are set to lose close to US$1 million from their official sponsors — Savanna Tobacco — if they play in an Oya Challenge, which is bankrolled by a rival tobacco company Blend Value on October 4. DeMbare, who are are sponsored by Savanna Tobacco through their Pacific Storm brand have been hand picked to play against CAPS United in the Oya Challenge.

The new kid on the block is using the derby to promote their brand — Oya.

Savanna Tobacco have threatened to pull the rug on Dynamos if they go aheadand play as the contract forbids them from associating with rival tobacco companies.

DeMbare are set to lose US$370 000 which is expected to go towards the purchase of a luxurious team bus. In addition to this, the Glamour Boys will lose their branded kit and the payment of salaries for the players.

Savanna Tobacco dropped the bombshell on DeMbare, in a letter to Zifa chief executive officer Henrietta Rushwaya on Friday.

Part of the letter reads: “Savanna Tobacco has been sponsoring local football for the past three years and we are at various stages of investing over USD 750 000 into local football. We are sure you are aware of our sponsorship of the following premier league teams this season — Dynamos FC, Highlanders FC, Black Rhinos FC, Eagles FC. This shows our total commitment to football sponsorship for the benefit of our country’s citizens.

“Savanna Tobacco expects a certain minimum level of professionalism from the custodians of football in Zimbabwe. Our sponsorship agreement with Dynamos Football Club precludes their participation in the proposed Oya! Challenge Match.

“As a result, by way of this letter, we would like to inform you that should the report in the press be correct, Savanna Tobacco will have no option but to immediately withdraw all football sponsorship in Zimbabwe.”

Savanna said they were not entirely against the idea after having initially expressing its willingness to play a role after being approached by Zifa.

“We have nothing against the grudge match as communicated by Savanna to the Zifa CEO on the 19th of September and we are fully behind the government efforts to support the Warriors’ cause. However what we do find deplorable is the unprofessional expectation for a sponsored team to participate in an event that would jeopardise its agreement.”

Onias Gweru, the Savanna marketing manager said the participation of Dynamos in the Oya Challenge contravenes their agreement.

Dynamos secretary Stan Kasukuwere last night said the executive would meet in an emergency meeting this morning to digest the letter from the sponsors.

“There has been correspondence between our sponsors Savanna, Zifa and Dynamos. We have called for an emergency meeting tomorrow (today). We are also going to look into the contract with Savanna.

Remember Murerekwa (Tawanda) was part of the executive, who entered into the contract,” Kasukuwere said.

Murerekwa is a former DeMbare secretary.
BY FANUEL VIRIRI & ENOCK MUCHINJO

Ohio is poised to reduce its spending on anti-tobacco programs from $40 million a year early this decade to nothing by the beginning of the next decade, anti-tobacco activists said yesterday while calling for cigarette taxes to be applied to other tobacco products.

Last year, state leaders dissolved a $264 million fund stocked with money from a multistate settlement with tobacco companies reached a decade earlier. At the same time, Gov. Ted Strickland’s administration set aside a fraction of the money — $6 million this year — for the Ohio Department of Health to continue running some of the anti-smoking programs the foundation administered.

The programs include a toll-free quit line, grants to local groups and an annual survey regarding tobacco use.

Most of the foundation’s money was redesignated for social services, although a Franklin County judge last month blocked the diversion. The state is appealing the ruling.

A coalition of anti-smoking activists called Investing in Tobacco-Free Youth held a news conference at the Statehouse yesterday to decry the loss of funding.

They said the state should tax chewing tobacco and newer tobacco products such as mints and dissolvable sticks that are loaded with nicotine at the same rate as cigarettes. That would yield about $50 million a year for anti-smoking programs, they said.

“Tobacco is getting easier to buy,” said Shelly Kiser of the American Lung Association, a member of the coalition. “(Children) are not getting the information they need to make informed decisions about their health. That’s a disaster for Ohio kids.”

The Ohio Department of Health has no money set aside in next year’s budget for tobacco prevention, spokesman Kristopher Weiss said. But he said the agency does expect to receive a $1.36 million federal grant for some programs and will look elsewhere in its budget for money to enforce the state’s smoke-free law, which took effect in 2007.

Strickland opposes raising taxes on tobacco products at this time, spokeswoman Amanda Wurst said. Nor is the governor sympathetic to the call to put more money into anti-tobacco programs.

“The governor believes that the best possible use of these limited state resources is to provide health-care options for children and adults and to fund child-welfare services at the county level,” Wurst said.

Activists want tobacco products besides cigarettes taxed to provide some funding.

MADRID — Spanish carrier Iberia and British Airways, which began merger talks last year, want to reach a pre-agreement on the deal by the end of September, the daily newspaper ABC reported Tuesday.

Two meetings are scheduled to be held this month between representatives of the two airlines to try to iron out an agreement, the newspaper reported citing sources close to the negotiations.

Iberia refused to comment on the report.

The Spanish airline and BA announced in July 2008 they intended to merge in a planned all-share transaction that would create one of the biggest airlines in the world.

But since then the global economic downturn has hit both airlines, complicating the talks which have also been hampered by Iberia concerns over BA’s huge employee pension plan deficit.

Iberia changed its chief executive in July as Antonio Vazquez, a former Iberia board member who has significant experience brokering cross-border tie ups, replaced Fernando Conte, who resigned for personal reasons.

As the chief executive of Spanish tobacco company Altadis, Vazquez negotiated the sale of the company to Imperial Tobacco Group for 12.6 billion euros (18 billion dollars) and he also helped negotiate a joint venture with the Cuban government to sell cigars internationally.

Child tobacco pickers in Malawi, Africa’s biggest producer of the burley variety of the crop, are being exposed to nicotine poisoning equivalent to 50 cigarettes a day, a children’s rights organization said.

At least 78,000 children, some as young as five, work on tobacco estates in the southern African country, Plan International, a Woking, England-based agency said in a report on its Web site today. They work for up to 12 hours a day and are paid as little as 1 penny (2 cents) an hour, it said.

“As well as long hours and little pay, children revealed that they suffer physical and sexual abuse from their supervisors, regularly have their pay withheld and are unknowingly blighted by the effects of Green Tobacco Sickness,” the agency said. Symptoms of Green Tobacco Sickness include nausea, vomiting, headaches, abdominal cramps, diarrhea and breathing difficulties, it said.

The results of the study were drawn from a participatory survey in which 44 children aged between 12 and 18 from three districts in Malawi took part in a series of workshops, the agency said. All of the children had worked full-time on tobacco farms during the 2007-08 season, it said.

Felix Mkumba, chief executive officer of the Tobacco Association of Malawi, said he couldn’t comment on the report as he hadn’t seen it. Henderson Chimoyo, general manager of the country’s Tobacco Control Commission, said in a telephone interview from the capital, Lilongwe, that his organization doesn’t have a policy on child labor.

Malawi relies on sales of the leaf for 60 percent of its export earnings.


Copyright © August 24, 2009 Bloomberg

LOS ANGELES — A jury on Monday recommended that cigarette maker Philip Morris USA should pay $13.8 million in punitive damages to the daughter of a longtime smoker who died of lung cancer.

The panel voted 9-3 in favor of Bullock’s daughter Jodie Bullock, who is now the plaintiff in the case. Betty Bullock died of lung cancer in February 2003.

She had sued Philip Morris in April 2001, accusing the company of fraud and product liability. A jury in 2002 recommended Philip Morris pay a record $28 billion in punitive damages to Bullock, but a judge later reduced the award to $28 million.

In 2008, the 2nd U.S. District Court of Appeal reversed the jury’s decision and remanded the case for a new trial over the punitive damages. Philip Morris said the $28 million remained excessive.

However, the original jury recommended the tobacco company pay Bullock $750,000 in damages and $100,000 for pain and suffering, a verdict that still stands.

In a statement, Richmond, Va.-based Altria Group Inc., which owns Philip Morris, said any amount given to Bullock’s daughter is unwarranted.

“After hearing weeks of improper arguments and evidence that violated state and federal law on punitive damages, the jury still managed to reject plaintiff’s patently unreasonable request,” said Murray Garnick, Altria Client Services senior vice president, speaking on behalf of Philip Morris. “Even so, we believe that any punitive damages award is unwarranted based on the facts in this case and that this award is unconstitutionally excessive.”

Defense attorney Frank P. Kelly said outside of court that Philip Morris hasn’t decided yet whether to appeal the decision.

Plaintiff’s attorney Michael Piuze said the jury’s verdict amounted to a “slap on the wrist for Philip Morris.”

“I liked it better when it was $28 billion,” said Piuze, who represented Betty Bullock after she filed the lawsuit. “She wanted me to beat the crap out of Philip Morris, and we did it once.”

Betty Bullock, 64, of Newport Beach, started smoking Marlboros when she was 17 and later turned to Benson & Hedges, both Philip Morris products.

Attorneys for Philip Morris argued Betty Bullock could have stopped smoking at anytime, and the harmful effects of cigarettes were known to smokers.

Jurors said the figure they reached was a compromise, with some arguing that Philip Morris shouldn’t pay anything, while others believed the cigarette maker should pay billions of dollars in damages.

Matt Reed, 37, of Burbank was one of the three dissenting jurors, who believed Philip Morris should pay a higher amount than the verdict.

“Some of us looked at it as an opportunity to deter this behavior,” Reed said. “I don’t find $13.8 million to be much of a deterrent.”

Other jurors felt Betty Bullock should have been more responsible, but using a formula decided on an amount for the years she suffered from lung cancer.

“I saw it as a personal choice,” said Poulet Minasian, 25, of Los Angeles. “There was a big gap in the amount (during deliberations), but the $13.8 million made sense.”

When I first considered the legality of marijuana many years ago, I was against its legalization because of marijuana’s stigma (for the record, I have never tried marijuana or wished to try it, and I most likely never will). However, after considering much economic, ethical, and scientific research concerning marijuana, I decided that society would benefit from the legalization of marijuana.

According to a March 2007 article in The Lancet, a peer-reviewed medical journal, alcohol and tobacco are more physically harmful and addictive than marijuana. After considering this research, why is marijuana outlawed when two legal controlled substances – tobacco and alcohol – are more harmful and addictive? Drunk driving-related deaths and lung cancer are much more devastating than any stigma or effect of marijuana, yet many Americans turn a blind eye to this.

Yale Law School professor Steven Duke believes that the recent drug murders in Mexico (and along the border) are very similar to the Prohibition-era murders that occurred in the United States. Both Mexican gangs and American gangsters were motivated by the profits obtained by trafficking illegal controlled substances, marijuana and alcohol respectively. Duke contends that if marijuana was legal, the drug violence would most likely not exist. Outlawing marijuana is extremely expensive and one of Duke’s arguments for the legalization of marijuana is that legalization “would raise about $10 billion in taxes per year and would save another $10 billion we now spend on law enforcement and imprisoning marijuana users and distributors.”

Time magazine detailed the amount of money that is spent (or wasted) on the policing, court costs, and incarceration of marijuana users and traffickers. Almost $23 billion is spent per year on imprisoning criminals convicted of nonviolent drug crimes. Furthermore, according to the FBI about 225,000 arrests are made each year for possession of marijuana, the fourth most common cause in the U.S. Most of the money for the enforcement of marijuana laws is spent by the states, not the federal government, and this money could be better spent on public services if marijuana was legalized in every state.

Prison is a place that is primarily meant for violent and sexually-motivated criminals, not harmless marijuana users. If marijuana was legalized, police and court resources would be better directed to more serious and dangerous crimes.

There is no credible research existing in the United States showing that marijuana is a “gateway drug,” meaning using it will lead to the use of more harmful drugs like cocaine or heroin. The only source to effectively argue that marijuana use leads to the use of other drugs (particularly amphetamines) is from Australia, not America.

The moralists who argue that marijuana is “bad” are just as irrational if not worse than those who argued against alcohol during Prohibition. Marijuana is already among schoolchildren and outlawing it won’t make it go away; good parenting and common sense will.

You don’t agree with the lifestyles of those who smoke weed? Neither do I. Can you not stand hippies, stoners, or beatniks? I can’t either, but that doesn’t mean they should be arrested, jailed, fined, and persecuted for their actions when they harm no one else. A free society such as ours should allow free citizens the freedom to partake in any activity that doesn’t harm others.

As Yale Law School professor Steven Duke states, the government should “apply the lessons we learned from alcohol prohibition and finish dismantling the destructive prohibition experiment. We should begin by decriminalizing marijuana now.” I couldn’t agree more.


Copyright © 2009 Examiner

A recent study showed that cigarette smoking has a positive effect on sensor motor gating in patients with schizophrenia, improving the repulse inhibition (PPI) deficit of the startle response to levels comparable to those seen in healthy individuals.
Schizophrenics are three to four times more likely to smoke cigarettes than the general population, added researchers.
“These findings have significant implications for understanding vulnerability to tobacco dependence in schizophrenia, which may lead to the development of more effective treatments for PPI deficits and tobacco dependence in this population,” write Tony George and co-authors in the journal Schizophrenia Research.
The researchers studied PPI of the fright reply as a function of smoking status and schizophrenia diagnosis in smokers with schizophrenia, non-smokers with schizophrenia, control smokers, and control non-smokers.
At the end of the investigation researchers found that the smokers with schizophrenia had comparable levels of PPI to control smokers and non-smokers. Significantly higher levels of PPI were seen in smokers with schizophrenia than schizophrenia nonsmokers.
Researchers concluded that acute smoking to produce smoking satiation is associated with apparent normalization of PPI deficits in patients with schizophrenia.
However, a previous study demonstrated that acute smoking deprivation was associated with a reduction in PPI in schizophrenia patients, and that acute smoking improved PPI.
But according to both studies cigarette smoking has a positive effect on PPI deficits in patients with schizophrenia, and that there is selectivity to this effect since PPI was not altered in smoking versus non-smoking control patients.
The German researchers concluded: “There is firm evidence that nicotine could be used by patients with schizophrenia as a ‘self-medication’ to improve deficits in attention, cognition, and information processing and to reduce side effects of antipsychotic medication”.

However research has shown that the relationship between smoking and schizophrenia is complex – it appears that there are both positive and negative effects of nicotine on a person who has schizophrenia and on the development of schizophrenia.

The research is not entirely conclusive on this topic, but generally the research supports the idea that seem to be some psychological benefits that people with schizophrenia sometimes gain by smoking, and that is why the smoking rate is much higher than in normal populations.

Women appear to have a tougher time quitting smoking than men, according to researchers at Women’s Health Research at Yale.
While the percentage of men who have given up cigarettes in US between 1965 and 2006 was 54.5 percent, the rate of decline among women was less steep, at 47.5 percent.
Consequently, the gap in the percentages of male and female smokers has narrowed. In 1965, slightly more than half of all men smoked, while about a third of women did. Today, 23.3 percent of men smoke, compared with 18.6 percent of women.
We talked to Carolyn Mazure, a professor of psychiatry and director of the research program, about why women are not kicking the habit at the same rate as men.
So what does the research show?
Well, the first thing I want to say is that smoking remains a serious public health issue. Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death and illness in the US. Those deaths and morbid occurrences are from cancers, respiratory illness, cardiovascular disease.

And why is it harder for women to quit smoking?
It appears as though when men quit smoking, the most prominent symptoms of withdrawal are biological symptoms of craving.
However, we find women are more likely to use cigarettes to manage moods, to deal with stress and to control weight. In other words, women are smoking for different reasons, and if you’re not helping with those particular reasons for smoking in your cessation treatment, you wouldn’t necessarily expect your treatment to work.
A good example is the nicotine patch, which often is considered the first line of treatment for smoking. The research data on the nicotine patch suggest that women do less well quitting smoking when using the patch than men do, probably because it targets symptoms of craving rather than the symptoms that are more prominent for women.
So this begins to make an argument for gender-specific approaches to smoking cessation. … With the medication Zyban (the generic is bupropion), it appears that women do as well in quitting when using this treatment as men do. … Zyban can help with mood symptoms. It was originally developed as an antidepressant drug, Wellbutrin. That’s an important part of the story in that we do think there is a relationship between depressed mood and smoking.

Are women moodier than men or less good at managing stress?
I wouldn’t say that at all, but we clearly know that the rates of depression are higher in women than in men, not only in this country but in the world.
We find stress a pathway to depression in both men and women, although stress appears to be a more potent predictor of depression in women than men. Knowing that, we can understand how women would be attempting to use a variety of strategies to handle stress, including smoking. Nicotine can help someone reduce anxiety and modulate mood. It does have transient positive effects. But those positive effects are not worth the long-term health risk by any measure.

Cigarette smoking does affect weight, right?
Yes, it can. When people quit smoking, it’s not uncommon to gain a few pounds. Often this is a deterrent, particularly among women. You have to deal with the fact that you may gain some weight and prepare for that and really factor that into whatever cessation program you undertake. … The main concept is to include some form of exercise and support. And the exercise should be something that is manageable and really fits into your day.

Does the menstrual cycle have any effect on attempts to quit smoking?
We tell women to think about the time within their menstrual cycle that is most difficult personally and advise them not to quit during that time because you are likely to have a harder time resisting cigarettes during that time. In addition, before you quit, prepare for that time in your cycle. What are you going to do when you feel badly? Call a (quit smoking hot line), take a walk, you have to have a plan.

Do you think there should be special cessation programmes for women?
I think in general we need to integrate the care for women into the mainstream of health care, but importantly, we have to be gender-sensitive in terms of what works for women and what works for men.

COLUMBUS, Ohio, July 17 – The Ohio budget includes $258 million for human services from the settlement with tobacco companies that has been frozen by a court challenge.

Anti-smoking advocates say the Tobacco Use Prevention and Control Foundation funds can be used only for smoking-reduction programs, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer reported Thursday.

The state originally asked Common Pleas Judge David Fais in Franklin County to allow the $258 million to be used for economic stimulus but later switched it to programs for programs for abused children and other needy groups.

Fais said in February in a preliminary decision the anti-tobacco groups have a “substantial likelihood of success.”

“If these dollars weren’t available, it would be a disaster for abused and neglected children we serve, the frail elderly we serve, and the people who are needing the optional Medicaid services,” said Gayle Channing Tenenbaum, legislative director for the Public Children Services Association of Ohio.

Critics say Gov. Ted Strickland’s budget contains other questionable revenue assumptions. The budget assumes a proposal for slot machines at race tracks will generate $933 million.

The state has also overestimated its revenues in the past two years, the newspaper said.
Copyright © 2009 Upi

The Cyprus parliament voted by a large majority on Thursday to make the Mediterranean holiday island the latest EU country to ban smoking in bars, restaurants, nightclubs and workplaces.

The bill, which tightens up existing legislation that has gone largely unenforced, was carried by 27 votes to three in the 56-seat parliament with one abstention.

The sweeping changes come into effect from January 1, 2010 so as to give establishments, and smokers, time to adjust, although amendments can be made to the law before it becomes active.

Smoking will be allowed only in outside open areas such as courtyards or street cafes, while employers will be required to provide a closed smoking area for employees dying for a puff.

Those who break the new law face a maximum 2,000 euro fine.

Bar and club owners say they will challenge the legislation in the courts as they expect business to suffer from the blanket ban.

The legislation tightens up a 2002 ban on smoking in public places which was not strictly enforced.

The new law also does away with having designated smoking and non-smoking areas in the same establishment.

Opinion polls indicate that a majority of Cypriots welcome the smoke free regime which falls in line with the European Union’s bid to ban smoking in enclosed public places across the 27-member bloc by 2012.

Cyprus has a lower rate of smoking than the European Union average. Some 29 percent of the population describe themselves as regular smokers, compared with an EU average of 31 percent. But Cyprus has one of the highest proportions of non-smokers subjected to passive smoke in public places.

The U.S. Department of Defense should phase in a tobacco ban in the military, beginning at military academies, an Institute of Medicine report said.

The report was requested by the Defense Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs. The government departments asked the Institute of Medicine to identify policies and practices that could lower rates of smoking and help soldiers and veterans quit.

Tobacco use reduces soldiers’ physical fitness and endurance and is linked to higher rates of absenteeism and lost productivity, the report said.

In 2005, 32 percent of active-duty personnel and 22 percent of veterans were smokers. Rates among active-duty personnel have recently increased — possibly because of growing tobacco use by deployed troops — the report said.

“We found that the adverse effects of tobacco use on military readiness, the health of both smokers and non-smokers and the financial cost of the medical care of smoking-related illness in military and veteran populations are a sound basis for moving systematically toward a tobacco-free military,” Stuart Bondurant, of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and chairman of the committee that wrote the report, said in a statement.

All DOD and VA healthcare providers should be able to provide brief counseling and nicotine-replacement therapy to patients, the report said. The VA and DOD should develop toll-free “quitlines” to provide military personnel and veterans with counseling on quitting tobacco, the report said.

Copyright © 2009 Timesoftheinternet

Kansas City can continue to ban smoking from its bars and restaurants under a ruling issued today by the Missouri Court of Appeals.

The court affirmed Kansas City’s comprehensive smoking ban. An appeal had been filed by JC’s Sports Bar in Clay County.

Jonathan Sternberg, the attorney representing the bar, had argued that Kansas City is not allowed to regulate smoking in bars, billiard parlors and restaurants that seat fewer than 50 people because state law permits smoking in such places. He said Kansas City’s strict smoking restrictions are in conflict with state law and violate the Missouri Constitution.

But the city argued that state law does not “permit” smoking in bars, small restaurants and billiard halls; it simply leaves those places unregulated, and cities can still impose smoking restrictions there. The court of appeals agreed, saying that Kansas City’s authority to enact the ban was not denied by other laws.

Sternberg said he was discussing the possibility of an appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court with his clients but they have not yet made a decision. He said the Supreme Court takes about 10 percent of the appeal requests it receives.

It’s Back to the Future day on the editorial page, with the Times board taking up tobacco taxes, gay rights and a controversy involving Sarah Palin. Which makes me wonder — just as you can reduce every Hollywood film to a handful of plot outlines, does every editorial similarly spring from a crib sheet of topics? But I digress.

In light of the California budget crisis, the board says it’s willing to support a whopping $2.10 increase in the tax on cigarettes in order to sustain the state’s safety net. That’s something of a reversal for the Times board, which usually argues against using targeted taxes to support specific programs, especially when those programs have a broad public purpose. But these aren’t usual times. The board also criticizes President Obama for failing to follow through on campaign promises to push for more equal treatment of gays. And it laments how Palin, her supporters and David Letterman have milked the controversy over his tawdry joke last week about one of Palin’s daughters:

Over on the Op-Ed page, columnist Tim Rutten praises California’s Roman Catholic bishops for urging Sacramento not to close the state’s yawning budget gap by eviscerating programs for the poor, children and the disabled. Iranian dissident and exile Ramin Jahanbegloo notes the schisms within Iran that fuel the current protests. And Abigail Thernstrom, vice chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, recaps the action so far on a major Supreme Court test of the Voting Rights Act.

Finally, in Letters to the Editor, readers weigh in on recent articles and opinion pieces about Guantanamo Bay, animal rights, Chicago’s climate of corruption and O.J. Simpson.
Copyright © 2009 Latimes

Knowing how to quit smoking can do more than just save your life. Below are five statistics that you cannot ignore if you are not able to quit smoking:

1. You will be 12 times more likely to die from lung cancer.

2. Your chances of dying from some form of lung disease is multiplied by 10.

3. You will also be 10 times more likely to die from cancer of the larynx.

4. You have a 6 times greater chance of dying from heart disease.

5. You will be twice as likely to die from a stroke.

If that information does not provide you with enough motivation to quit smoking, and you need a little more than just your health, I can give you some pretty staggering financial implications that are brought on by smoking.

If you were to only smoke one pack of cigarettes a day, at an average price of $5.00 per pack, you would be spending $1825.00 per year on your smoking habit. If you are someone that smokes two packs a day, simply double that amount, and you are looking at spending $3650.00 per year to kill yourself. In the long term, over a period of twenty years, you will have spent $73,000.00 on tobacco. Read that again, and think about that for a minute. Allow it to sink in. Think of all of the things you could spend that extra money on if you could only learn how to quit smoking. It is kind of mind-boggling really.

If you want to quit smoking, for whatever reason, there are really only two ways to do it. You could quit cold-turkey, which means you just stop suddenly, or you could try to gradually break your addiction to both the habit and the nicotine. Neither way is more effective for everyone. It is all dependent upon your own personal ability to break the addiction.

No matter how you go about it, one thing is frighteningly clear, and that is you have to quit smoking. You have to quit so that you can live longer and so that you do not go broke.

While Saturday at the Longbranch is the same as it ever was, the club’s country side is smoke-free every other night of the week. On those nights, smoking is confined to the “Red Room” smoking lounge (plus a smoking deck outside). The Longbranch’s smaller “Top 40″ side allows smoking on the nights it is open, Thursday through Saturday.

On a recent weekday night, most of the people at the Longbranch for a two-step dance class expressed support for the policy. Nonsmoker Nancy Van Dyke, who has been coming to the Longbranch’s dance classes for several years, calls the new smoke-free environment “good clean fun.”

“It’s great to come here now and not be choking afterward,” concurs her friend, Terra Fox.

Even the smokers seem down with the program. Says Bob Loeh, a longtime Longbranch regular, “I’ve been smoking three packs a day for 30 years, and if I can go without while I’m in here, anybody can.”

But that’s a Tuesday-night crowd. Saturday is an entirely different beast, even from Friday.

“Fridays are more couples, people coming to dance,” McCollum says. “Saturdays are rowdier crowds — a lot of bachelorette parties, people who just turned 21, things like that. So … we’re just trying to make an atmosphere where everybody’s happy. We’ve been in business 25 years, and it’s hard to change something like that overnight.”

Like the Longbranch, most other bar venues take a middle-ground approach of trying to limit smoking without banning it. You can’t smoke in the front room by the stage at The Cave in Chapel Hill, but you can in the back room. At Raleigh’s Lincoln Theatre, you can’t smoke downstairs, but you can at the back of the newly installed upstairs balcony. And Kings in Raleigh recently instituted a new policy of no smoking before midnight.

As for what smoking regulations do to cash flow, that’s hard to say. Cradle owner Frank Heath says he thinks he’s had “a little bit of an uptick” from going nonsmoking. But Mouse Mock, who owns The Cave, says he has lost business from limiting smoking.

“My first few months, all my regulars ditched me and went elsewhere because they couldn’t sit at the bar and smoke,” Mock says. “I absolutely felt it. A lot have come back, but I still don’t get the same early-evening crowd I used to.”

What is being described as the world’s first class action lawsuit on behalf of people who developed lung cancer from smoking menthol cigarettes has been initiated by Israel’s leading anti-tobacco attorney, Amos Hausner, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

He is representing the family of a Rehovot mother of four who died of a tumor at age 47 after many years of smoking Dubek’s Montana brand of cigarettes. He is also acting on behalf of an estimated 3,000 other menthol-cigarette smokers who developed cancer here during the past seven years. The statute of limitations on a manufacturer’s responsibility for damage caused by its products runs out after seven years.

The Jerusalem lawyer is asking the Central District Court to recognize the case as a class action suit against Dubek – Israel’s largest tobacco manufacturer – for NIS 3 billion. It will probably be several months before the court gives its response.

Research conducted by tobacco companies a decade or more ago to identify additives that increase tobacco addiction showed that menthol did the trick, and the companies made a special effort to market cigarettes with this additive.

Menthol not only gives smokers a “more pleasant” feeling in their mouths and throats, but also keeps tobacco smoke – with its many toxins – inside the lungs longer, making it even more dangerous.

The facts of increased toxicity have been confirmed by Prof. Ben-Ami Sela, director of the pathological chemistry institute at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer. Foreign research has shown that African Americans become even more addicted to menthol cigarettes than whites do.

The deceased woman, who began smoking cigarettes at 17 and whose own daughter copied her behavior by starting to light up at 13, died four years ago. She started with non-menthol cigarettes and then switched to Montana – smoking up to two packs a day without realizing that menthol caused them to be more addictive and made it very difficult to quit.

According to the lawsuit, Israeli law forbids adding any foreign ingredient to cigarettes. The fact that menthol is added without the product’s label informing customers that it makes them more addictive is an additional violation, the lawsuit contends.

The suit further argued that Dubek was guilty of “misleading consumers” by not warning that menthol additives make their products more addictive. Consumer protection laws require a manufacturer not to mislead the public, not only by action but also by omission.

The woman wanted to quit smoking Montanas but found herself unable to stop even when she was pregnant and breastfeeding. She had long thought that menthol cigarettes were “less dangerous” than ordinary ones because they did not taste so bad. Menthol additives, in fact, induce young people to start smoking, experts say.

She tried smoking-cessation courses and holding a plastic “cigarette” in her mouth. When people who managed to kick the habit advised her to stop smoking, she cried and said she was unable to. She was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2004, underwent two operations to remove tumors and then her whole right lung, as well as radiation treatments. She was confined to a wheelchair and suffered great pain before she died on January 1, 2005.

In 2007, the Florida Supreme Court approved a class action suit on behalf of smokers who were damaged by their habit. A jury trial found the tobacco companies responsible for causing several diseases, including lung cancer, and found that the companies’ actions justified punitive damages.

Under the Florida court decision, each smoker may file an individual lawsuit on the basis of these jury findings. At present, there are about 10,000 such individual lawsuits resulting from that case, and in two of them, the plaintiffs have already won compensation in the millions of dollars. The Florida case inspired Hausner to launch the first menthol-cigarette lawsuit in the world.

© Copyright: Jpost

Hundreds of thousands of deaths every year in the US could be prevented by tackling just a few risk factors, according to a new study out today in the journal PLoS Medicine.

Dr. Majid Ezzati of Harvard University and colleagues estimated the toll of poor diet, high blood pressure, cigarette smoking, sedentary lifestyle and other factors by determining how 2005 mortality data would change if each were eliminated.

For example, they found, if no one in the US smoked, there would have been 467,000 fewer deaths from smoking-related causes, and if everyone had their blood pressure controlled at optimal levels, 395,000 fewer people would have died.

“Targeting a handful of risk factors has a large potential to reduce mortality in the US, substantially more than the currently estimated 18,000 deaths averted annually by providing universal health insurance,” Ezzati and his team say. However, they add, even though there are proven ways to help people quit smoking and reduce their blood pressure, “blood pressure and tobacco smoking declines in the US have stagnated or even reversed.”

The researchers gauged the number of preventable deaths by looking at 12 different modifiable risk factors, including overweight and obesity, high salt diets, high blood glucose, high LDL cholesterol, physical inactivity, and low fruit and vegetable intake.

A total of 2.4 million people died in the US in 2005. Smoking and uncontrolled hypertension each accounted for nearly one in five deaths. Cigarettes were the leading killer for men, accounting for 21% of deaths in men. For women, high blood pressure was the leading cause of death, representing 19% of female mortality.

Overweight and obesity accounted for 216,000 deaths and inactivity contributed to 191,000. Among the dietary risk factors, the most lethal were high salt intake (102,000 deaths), low intake of omega-3 fatty acids (84,000 deaths) and high trans fatty acid consumption (82,000).

Alcohol use was a double edged sword; if everyone in the US drank moderately, the researchers say, 26,000 fewer people would die from heart disease or diabetes, but 90,000 more would die from alcohol-related diseases like cirrhosis and pancreatitis or alcohol-related accidents and violence.

Strategies targeting individuals and entire populations could be helpful in reducing the mortality risk factors identified in the study, the researchers say. “Combinations of food industry regulation, pricing and better information can also be effective in reducing exposure to dietary salt and trans fatty acids, especially in packaged foods and prepared meals,” they add.

In a press release accompanying the study, Ezzati stated: “The findings should be a reminder that although we have been effective in partially reducing smoking and high blood pressure, we have not completed the task and have a great deal more to do on these major preventable risk factors.”

SOURCE: PLoS Medicine, online April 28, 2009.