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ASH Daily News for 01 December 2006

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ASH Daily News
 
1 December 2006
 
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HEADLINES
 
Smoking ban in England to come into force on 1 July 2007
 
Young daters more likely to become smokers
 
Scotland: Shops cut out fireworks and tobacco sales to youngsters
 
MSPs try to stop their pension funds investing in tobacco
 
 
FULL TEXT
 
Smoking ban in England to come into force on 1 July 2007  
 
The ban on smoking across England will come into force on 1 July, the Government has announced.
 
It will be outlawed in 124,000 pubs and clubs across the country in one of the most far-reaching cultural changes in decades.
 
Anyone caught breaking the ban will face a £50 fine. And there will be a £2,500 fine for premises which fail to stop them.
 
The ban will finally bring to an end the "pint and fag" culture of pubs and the smoke-filled rooms of 18,000 private members' clubs, including working men's clubs, branches of the British Legion and gentlemen's clubs.
 
Public places affected include stations, museums, government offices and shops, but not streets or private places such as houses and hotel rooms.
 
MPs voted overwhelming in favour of the ban in February, throwing out the compromise of a partial ban.
 
Ben Youdan, the chief executive of the No Smoking Day charity, said 1 July would be a "momentous day" for health in England.
 
"It's absolutely critical now that we make sure smoke-free England is a success for workplaces, pubs, clubs and bars by helping them prepare to support their staff and customers," he said.
 
The campaign groups Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) and Asthma UK have predicted that 689,000 smokers in England would give up during the first year of a total ban. Deborah Arnott, director of Ash said: "The Government should be congratulated for passing this landmark legislation that will have a lasting impact on the health of the nation.
 
"This is truly a time for celebration. This law has popular support, is good for health and will be good for business too. The only losers are the tobacco companies."
 
The Liberal Democrats spokesman Steve Webb said: "Our prime concern is the welfare of people who have to work in smoky environments, this ban will make a big contribution to improving public health."
 
One in four of the population smokes regularly, rising to 39 per cent of all adults in "hot spots" such as Hull.
 
Simon Clarke. director of smokers' lobby group Forest urged local authorities to make it easy for pubs to provide areas for smokers.
 
He said: "We're not against smoke-free environments for those who want them but we urge local authorities to make it as easy as possible for pubs to develop outdoor areas where smokers and non-smokers can sit and socialise. "
 
He claimed many people did not realise how "draconian" the ban would be.
 
"From July next year it will not only be illegal to smoke in every pub, club and bar in the country, it will even be impossible to set up a private club run by smokers for smokers. That's an amazing state of affairs."
 
The House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee described the ban on lighting up in pubs, clubs and at work as an attack on "personal liberty". The committee, chaired by the Conservative peer Lord Wakeham, said: " Evidence [suggests] the health risks associated with passive smoking are relatively minor."
 
The ban brings England into line with bans in Northern Ireland and Scotland. People in Wales will not be allowed to light up at work or in pubs or clubs from 2 April next year. The Scottish ban was well received by most breweries and the public over the summer, with smokers happy to puff away in beer gardens. But observers fear the winter weather could bring a change in attitude.
 
Pub trade in Scotland has dipped by 2 per cent since the ban. Enterprise Inns has sold its entire estate of Scottish pubs since the introduction.
 
The Independent, 1/12/06
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2029287.ece
Also reported in The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/smoking/Story/0,,1961436,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=11
The Times   http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,174-2481407,00.html
Daily Mail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=419766&in_page_id=1770
 
 
Young daters more likely to become smokers
 
Children who start dating before theirteens are at least twice as likely as other youngsters to become smokers, researchers have found.
 
The link was particularly strong in preteen girls who are increasingly taking up the habit.
 
"Kids who start dating early, about 11 or 12, are two to three time more likely to take up smoking by the time they reach 16," said Robert West, a professor of health psychology at University College London.
 
"They are between six and nine times more likely to begin smoking in their teenage years," he added in an interview.
 
West and his team believe the findings could fill in some of the missing pieces about what motivates preteens to experiment with cigarettes and how to discourage them.
 
The results of the study published in the journal Addiction are troubling because most adult smokers started when they were adolescents and efforts to prompt them to quit, or to prevent children from starting, have had limited success.
 
Girls who started dating early were nine times more likely than their contemporaries to begin smoking by 13 years old. They also had three times the risk of being a smoker by the time they left school.
 
The risk was lower for boys.   This is particularly interesting because recent figures show that while the number of 14 to 15 year old boys admitting to smoking has nearly halved to a quarter, the number of girls of the same age who say they smoke has risen to nearly half," Jenny Fidler said, a co-author of the study, said referring to results from a British household survey.
 
Even when the researchers considered other factors that influence smoking such as whether parents and peers were hooked on the habit, ethnicity and deprivation, early dating was still an influence.
 
They suspect smoking and dating young could result from children wanting to act like adults. A desire to be popular and impress their peers could also be a factor.
 
"The most likely explanation is that both of these (dating and smoking) reflect a tendency to think of themselves as, and to want to be, grownup," said West.
 
"If that is the case if offers us some clues as to what we might do to prevent kids from taking up smoking at this age," he added.
 
The findings of the five-year study are based on a survey of more than 2,000 British children.
 
Reuters, 1/12/06
www.reuters.co.uk
 
 
Scotland: Shops cut out fireworks and tobacco sales to youngsters
 
A crackdown on illegal sales to under-age youngsters in West Lothian has been hailed by council chiefs as a success.
 
The test purchasing project found that just one trader in the region agreed to sell tobacco or fireworks to someone under age. It is illegal to sell tobacco to anyone under 16, or fireworks to anyone under 18.
 
The test-purchase figures are an improvement on last year, when a similar scheme found three shops selling cigarettes and fireworks to children under 16.
 
The project, which began in July, involved under-age volunteers under the direction of trading standards staff trying to buy tobacco at five shops in the region - which all refused the sale.
 
Volunteers also tried to purchase fireworks at seven local stores in October and November. Six of them refused the sale, but one did sell fireworks to a 16-year-old youngster and a report has been sent to the procurator fiscal.
 
Councillor Jim Swan, of the community safety committee, said: "Most retailers in West Lothian are taking the issue of illegal under-age sales seriously and are heeding the advice provided by our trading standards team."
 
The Scotsman, 30/11/06
http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1777482006
 
 
MSPs try to stop their pension funds investing in tobacco
 
The Scottish Parliament was drawn into a fresh row over pension holdings in tobacco companies yesterday when a group of Members of the Scottish Parliament demanded Holyrood invest only in ethical firms.
 
The cross-party group on tobacco control wrote to George Reid, the Presiding Officer, asking him to make sure MSPs' pension funds did not include holdings in tobacco companies.
 
The group, led by the Green MSP Eleanor Scott, called for the whole parliament to be given a vote on the issue - confident it would choose to end all unethical investments.
 
This is the latest stage in a long-running controversy over the pension funds of MSPs. There was an outcry earlier this year when it emerged that MSPs' funds were spread through a range of investments, including tobacco companies.
 
At that stage, the Scottish Parliamentary Pension Fund had about £250,000 invested in tobacco firms, most of it in Imperial Tobacco.
 
The Scottish Parliament Corporate Body looked into the issue but decided, on the advice of the parliament's investment brokers, to do nothing.
 
The cost and upheaval of trying to change the pension funds was seen as too big an obstacle.
 
Now, though, Ms Scott has taken up the issue once again.
 
A spokesman for Mr Reid said the Presiding Officer would consider the letter and respond in due course.
 
The Scotsman, 30/11/06
http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=1774102006
 
 
 



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