HEADLINES

• Ireland: Breathing emergencies decline after smoking ban
• Imperial Tobacco shares fall on price war reports
• Smokers have slimmer odds of surviving colon cancer
• New York City: Outdoor smoking ban goes into effect
• New York City: Reynolds launches campaign to push smokeless product

• Ireland: Breathing emergencies decline after smoking ban

  The latest evidence of the health benefits of tobacco control found a national smoking ban in Ireland has led to reduced hospital emergency admissions for respiratory ailments.

  Seven years ago, Ireland introduced a nationwide ban on smoking at work. Previous studies looked at the impact on other medical issues and found, for example, fewer hospitalizations for heart attacks and other coronary emergencies. But Imran Sulaiman of the Galway University Hospitals found a gap in the existing research.

  Sulaiman and his colleagues dug into nationwide records of emergency hospital admissions in 2002 and 2003 - before the smoking ban went into effect - and compared those numbers with admissions in 2005 and 2006.

  The researchers found that emergency, lung-related hospitalizations went down significantly, "particularly in patients with asthma, and particularly in patients with pneumonia, mainly in the younger age group, and mainly in men," typically in their 20s.

  Source: Investors Business Daily, 21 May 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/mMkPfC

• Imperial Tobacco shares fall on price war reports

  Shares in Imperial Tobacco have fallen on Britain's FTSE 100 index, off 1.6 percent, as newspapers reported that the group's Altadis unit is set to cut the price of brands in Spain, one of its biggest markets.
  
  According to reports, Altadis, which makes Fortuna cigarettes, plans to reduce the price of its blonde tobacco brands by 15 euro cents to compete with a price cut by rival Phillip Morris International (PMI).
  
  Martin Deboo, analyst at Investec Securities, said, "Spain's 10 percent of their tobacco profit, so it's a material market for Imperial. It's proving to be a sentimental overhang on the stock because of the worries about the state of the market down there."

  Source: Reuters, 20 May 2011
  Link: http://reut.rs/m1ZP5M

• Smokers have slimmer odds of surviving colon cancer

  A new study suggests that smokers are not only more likely to develop colon cancer than non-smokers, they might also be at higher risk of dying from the disease.
  
  The results, reported in the journal Cancer, show that smokers were 30 percent more likely to die of colon cancer during the study and 50 percent more likely to die of any cause than their smokefree peers.
  
  Former smokers also had worse survival odds than non-smokers, but had a better outlook than current smokers.
  
  "If you needed another reason not to smoke, or to quit smoking, this is as good a reason as any," said lead researcher Amanda Phipps, of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
  
  The findings, according to Phipps, once again underscore the importance of kicking the smoking habit, and preferably never picking it up. Whether quitting after a diagnosis helps extend colon cancer patients' lives is unclear.

  Source: Reuters News, 19 May 2011
  Link: http://reut.rs/jtrvl6

• New York City: Outdoor smoking ban goes into effect

  The city's outdoor smoking ban officially goes into effect today (Monday 23 May 2011), and violators who are caught smoking at parks, plazas and beaches could get fined $50.

  City health leaders say it will protect New Yorkers from secondhand smoke in what they call family-friendly places.

  Mohamed Hussein said he and his 7-1/2-month pregnant wife support the smoking ban.

  "We just don't like smoking in public," he said. "I have a baby right now. I don't like my wife standing near a smoking person."

  The city plans television and print ads to get the word out about the ban but for the most part is relying on the public to enforce the law.

  Source: NBC New York, 22 May 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/jYhIBp

• New York City: Reynolds launches campaign to push smokeless product

  R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. is launching a major advertising campaign for Camel Snus as antismoking laws at NYC parks and beaches are enforced,

  Two ads will run in the New York Daily News, New York Post, Newsday and some New York weeklies, as well as nationally in USA Today and Wall Street Journal. The New York Times does not take tobacco ads, Reynolds spokesman David Howard said.

  One ad features the image of a flame holder with the tagline "NYC Smokers: Enjoy freedom without the flame." The other ad is in the shape of the Empire State Building with the tagline "NYC Smokers: Rise above the ban."

  Vince Willmore, a spokesman for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids said, "These ads continue Reynolds' irresponsible marketing of snus as a way for smokers to get their nicotine fix in the growing number of smokefree places."

  "The goal is to discourage smokers from taking the one step that would truly protect their health, which is to quit entirely. Once again, Reynolds is putting its bottom line ahead of public health. It's also deeply offensive [that] Reynolds is using iconic New York City images to market a harmful and addictive products, especially in a city that is a global leader in fighting tobacco use," Willmore said.

  Reynolds has not run cigarette ads in newspapers and consumer magazine in 3½ years. But it has been aggressive with its Camel Snus advertising, including in magazines such as Entertainment Weekly, People, Sports Illustrated, Time and US Weekly, as well as free and alternative publications.

  Source: Winston-Salem Journal, 22 May 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/khaKdK