ASH Daily News for 01 October 2008

Anger over cigarette box images

Disturbing pictures of rotting lungs, a corpse in a morgue and a baby in intensive care are to appear on cigarette packets from today. Blackened teeth and throat cancer are among the other gruesome visual warnings that illustrate the health risks of smoking.

The images replace the previous written warnings introduced in January 2003, although the messages "Smoking kills" and "Smoking seriously harms you and others around you" will continue to appear on the front of packets.

Action on Smoking and Health (Ash) director Deborah Arnott said: "The stark images in the picture warnings on tobacco products are a call to action to smokers to quit, and the evidence is that they work. The evidence also shows that picture warnings work better on plain packs, so we are urging the Government to also implement legislation to require the removal of pack branding to maximise the impact of the these images."

However, the smokers' lobby group Forest criticised the new warnings as "unnecessarily intrusive" and "gratuitously offensive". Forest director Simon Clark said: "We support measures that educate people about the health risks of smoking, but these pictures are designed not just to educate but to shock and coerce people to give up a legal product. They are unnecessarily intrusive, gratuitously offensive, and yet another example of smokers being singled out for special attention."

New figures show that written warnings had motivated more than 90,000 smokers to call the NHS Smoking Helpline, the Department of Health has said. It expects the photos to be more effective than text alone.

Smoking is still the biggest killer in England where it causes the premature death of more than 87,000 people each year.

Source: Sky News 1st October 2008
Link: http://tinyurl.com/45t766

The anti-smoking campaign to nationalise our bodies

A comment piece published today in The Times by Nick Hume:

It's not just the banks. Today marks the next stage in the campaign to nationalise our bodies. Not content with those big written warnings on packets - Smoking Kills/Causes Impotence/Destabilises the Financial System, etc - the authorities are replacing them from today with stark pictures of what smoking can do: a tar-blackened lung, a cancerous throat, rotten teeth, open-heart surgery and even a corpse.

Notwithstanding the other image of a “flaccid” cigarette, these pictures are really horror porn for prigs, who can get excited about how dirty smokers are. What effect they will have on Britain's beleaguered smokers remains to be seen. Being shown shocking pictures of black lungs at school 40 years ago did not stop many of us taking up the filthy-but-delicious habit in our teens. As an ex-heavyweight champion smoker (Player's No 6 division) who gave up long ago, I know that smoking is bad for you. And so, by now, does everybody else. Yet the lifestyle police cannot accept that any thinking individual could simply choose to ignore their lectures and carry on smoking. “Let's show them pictures - they must be too thick to read!”

There are bigger issues here than discoloured teeth. In his essay On Liberty, J.S.Mill took a stand not only for freedom of thought and speech, but also for “liberty of tastes and pursuits...of doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow [ie, if you smoke don't sue tobacco companies] without impediment from our fellow creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them, even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong”.

As their campaign around rotten organs makes clear, the anti-smokers' real aim is to get you to cleanse yourself by changing what they think is your foolish, perverse and wrong behaviour, regardless of any harm it may or may not do to others. They have banned smoking in public places; they are pushing to ban it in private homes. Ultimately they want to ban it in your body and soul.

Mill championed individuality over uniformity as “one of the leading essentials of well-being”. Today's uniformity is captured by the identical personal quotes about the new campaign put out by national and local health officials. The priests of the new conformism are singing from the same hymn sheet, and their public health information campaigns sound like exercises in abuse of the public. They apparently believe that personal freedom has turned us into disgustingly obese, drunken ignoramuses, riddled with self-inflicted sexually transmitted and smoking-related diseases. I ask you, is that a healthy attitude?

Source: The Times 1st October 2008
Link: http://tinyurl.com/3qv3o2

NZ: Recommendation to ban tobacco retail displays

ASH NZ welcomes the recommendation to ban tobacco retail displays published today by the health select committee. The committee recommended “Government introduce legislation to require tobacco and cigarette displays in retail outlets to be out of sight”.

Earlier this year the Government sought submissions on whether to tighten restrictions on retail tobacco displays, including the option of banning them altogether.

“We are delighted that the committee is clearly putting the health of our children before the profits of the tobacco cartels. The evidence that these displays are tempting our kids into a life of addiction is overwhelming. This is yet another big step towards ridding New Zealand of tobacco displays for good” said Ben Youdan, ASH Director.

“ASH has long advocated for a removal of retail displays. Tobacco is not a regular product. It kills half the people who use it, yet for too long we have allowed these addictive and deadly poisons to be sold next to the milk and chocolates”.
 

Source: Tobacco.org 29th September 2008
Link: http://tinyurl.com/3ksguo

New Investigational "Liquid Cigarette" Smoke Cessation Product Achieves 71 Percent Quit Rate

Several months ago, 52 smokers embarked on an FDA-approved, 12-week clinical study of a new smoke-cessation device called Smoke-Break. The results of the study were released today with 71 percent of the study participants smoke-free after 12 weeks. 

Smoke-Break is a "liquid nicotine cigarette" that resembles an unlit cigarette in size and shape. The clear tube contains a cherry-flavored gel along with 1.5 milligrams of nicotine, about as much as in a light cigarette. Users consume the liquid by lifting the tube to their mouths, and sipping through a mouthpiece, much like they would draw on a cigarette.

Approved by the FDA for clinical study in 2007, the study sought to determine whether Smoke-Break would help smokers stop smoking, while avoiding the side effects seen in other smoke-cessation products. The answer is yes, and that's promising news to study sponsor Dr. Carl E. Olson, Chairman of the Radiation Oncology Department at Columbia St. Mary's in Milwaukee.

"There were no serious adverse events during the study," Dr. Olson said, "and only a few minor events, such as sore throat or heartburn. The real surprise for me was the rate of smoke cessation. It is unprecedented."

Smoke-Break inventor Brett J. Roth created Smoke-Break in 2004 to kick his own two-pack-per-day habit. Roth hopes that Smoke-Break will soon be able to help smokers nationwide, now that his invention has shattered the previous record for an FDA clinical study, set by Chantix, which achieved a 44 percent quit rate after 12 weeks. Chantix, however, has recently been scrutinized for a number of potentially dangerous side effects.

"I'm happy with the results," stated Roth, "but I'm most excited for the participants, many of whom have expressed gratitude at finally being able to kick this deadly habit."

Roth and Dr. Olson were joined by Study Coordinator and nurse Deb Baumgarten, and Principal Investigator Dr. Nicholas Geimer, another cancer specialist. "I don't think we're doing our jobs as clinicians," Dr. Olson said, "unless we try to prevent cancer in the first place."

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Disease Control (CDC), more than 400,000 individuals in the U.S. die each year, prematurely, as a result of smoking. Thousands more are negatively afflicted with various respiratory and other smoke-related illnesses.

For more information about Smoke-Break, visit http://www.liquidcigarette.com. Additional information can be found at http://www.ClinicalTrials.gov, by searching "Smoke-Break."

Source: MediLexicon 30th September 2008
Link: http://tinyurl.com/3gys9x 

Smoking may depress women

Smoking is widely known to damage the body but new Australian research suggests the addictive habit could be taking a toll on the mind too. A study of more than a thousand women has found that females who smoke are more likely to develop major depression. Heavy smokers – those who smoke more than 20 cigarettes a day – have almost double the risk of developing diagnosable depression than non smokers.

It has long been known that people with depression are more likely to smoke, but this longterm study is one of the first to suggest the habit may be triggering mental illness. University of Melbourne researchers tracked healthy women for more than a decade, giving them a psychiatric assessment at the end. "It was at this point we were able to determine if depression had developed and investigate whether or not smoking pre-dated the onset of depression," said study leader Professor Julie Pasco.

Another study of 671 healthy women revealed 15 per cent of smokers went on to develop depression, compared to 6.5 per cent of non smokers. "This shows us that non smokers were at lower risk for developing major depressive disorder, suggesting that smoking may play a role in the development of the disease in women," Prof Pasco said.The findings gave grounds for greater efforts to encourage smokers to quit, she said.

Anne Jones, chief executive of Australian anti-smoking group Action on Smoking and Health, said the results were proof the effects of smoking extended beyond physical ills like cancer and heart disease. "This is a very serious finding and yet another good reason to renew efforts to get Australians to give it up. We've got a blow-out in mental illness in Australia and here we've got a cause of mental illness that is being sold in every petrol station and corner store in the country," Ms Jones said.

Australia's smoking rates are dropping but women are quitting at a slower rate than men. "Mass media campaigns have not been effective at getting the message through to women that quitting is the best thing they can do for their health," Ms Jones said.

Source: News.com.au 1st October 2008
Link: http://tinyurl.com/48wysg