ASH Daily News for 29/10/2001
HEADLINES
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ASH Daily News – Saturday 27 – Monday 29 October 2001
HEADLINES
£7m cut from smoking cessation programme
Smoking at work
Los Angeles considers banning smoking in parks
US campaign to rid children’s homes of tobacco smoke
Customs haul nets 11m cigarettes
FULL TEXT
£7m cut from smoking cessation programme
The News of the World reports that health campaigners are “furious” that over £7 million has been cut from the government’s programme to help people stop smoking. The £14 million spent in each of the last three years is less than 10 per cent of that spent by tobacco companies promoting cigarettes. A similar report appears in General Practitioner. Glasgow GP and member of the smoking cessation in primary care group (SCAPE) Dr Kate Pickering, said ‘it was a reflection of this government’. “It wants to make things look good, but it is not really delivering the goods,” she said.
Source: News of the World, 28/10/01, GP 26/10/01
Smoking at work
The Guardian’s ‘Office Hours’ supplement includes a non too serious article about smoking at work. The main focus of the piece is the bonding between smokers. Noting that the bond between smokers often starts at school behind the bike sheds, Doreen McIntyre, chief executive of No Smoking Day comments that stopping smoking is also something you can do with other people too. For this reason, No smoking Day has linked up with the website yourschoolreunion.co.uk. “Smokers will be able to find the people they first started smoking with and then quit with them. If they’re still alive of course.”
Source: The Guardian, 29/10/01
Los Angeles considers banning smoking in parks
A proposal to ban smoking in public parks is being considered by Los Angeles city council. Not surprisingly, smokers’ groups have complained that the measure is one step too far, arguing that “it’s a concentrated effort to keep demonising one-forth of the population.” However, community leaders insist that the bill will have significant benefits. “We just want to create an environment that’s healthy for the majority of citizens, especially in places where so many children play.” The move is not unprecedented. In recent years dozens of American towns and a few cities have imposed some limits on out-door smoking.
Source: The Guardian, 29/10/01
US campaign to rid children’s homes of tobacco smoke
The Lancet reports on the campaign by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and a coalition of community and medical organisations which urges smokers to smoke outside if they live with small children. Organisers of the “Smoke-Free Home Pledge Initiative” hope that the campaign will not only protect millions of children from the harmful effects of second-hand smoke but may help the adults who take the pledge to stop smoking altogether.
Source: The Lancet, 27/1001 (vol 358, p1436)
Customs haul nets 11m cigarettes
Eleven million smuggled cigarettes have been seized by Customs in one of the biggest operation of its kind. Officers said swoops on two lorries on the A1 in North Yorkshire were a breakthrough in the battle against criminal gangs.
Source: Sunday Mirror, News of the World, 28/10/01
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