USA: Tobacco bill a sharp change for lawmakers

In the half-century since the surgeon general issued his culture-changing report linking smoking to lung cancer, the tobacco industry has had little trouble defeating efforts to regulate cigarettes and other products. That could change this year.

The Senate is debating legislation that would give the Food and Drug Administration authority to control ingredients going into tobacco products, restrict marketing and ads aimed at young people, and ban words such as "light" or "low tar" that may mislead people about the health risks of smoking.

The legislation, said Matthew Myers, president of Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, is "by far the strongest bill to reduce tobacco use that this nation has ever seriously considered."

Myers and other supporters, such as the American Heart Association and the American Lung Association, say the stars may finally be aligned for decisive action on the tobacco issue. The House passed a similar bill by a wide margin and President Barack Obama supports it. It also commands a majority in the Senate, although tobacco-state senators say they won't give up without a filibuster fight.

Federal dependence on the tobacco industry goes back at least to the post-Civil War era, when a tobacco tax became an important revenue source. Franklin Roosevelt made tobacco a protected crop and cigarettes were included in the C-rations of World War II soldiers, introducing smoking to millions of young men.

The 1964 surgeon general's report made official what many people already suspected — that smoking is deadly — but the next year Congress, under pressure from the industry and tobacco-state legislators, succeeded in watering down new health warning labels on cigarette packs.

In 1969, Congress did ban cigarette ads on television and radio but at the same time ended free anti-smoking ads on the airways and restricted the authority of the Federal Trade Commission to require stronger warning labels.

Myers said that the first time Congress acted in opposition to the tobacco industry was in 1984, when it passed legislation to strengthen warning labels.

In the late 1980s and again in 1990, lawmakers agreed to ban smoking on commercial air flights. "It was such a radical change," said Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., of that initial effort to prohibit smoking in a public area. Since then, he said, "we've had to creep and crawl every step of the way."

But popular attitudes toward smoking have been changing. Cigarette smoking has dropped from 51 percent of men and one-third of women in 1965 to 24 percent of men and 18 percent of women in 2006.

States have also taken the lead in banning smoking from public areas. Nancy Brown, head of the American Heart Association, noted that North Carolina, the country's biggest tobacco producer, recently passed one of the nation's toughest clean indoor air acts.

One turning point came in 1994 when tobacco company CEOs, at a hearing held by anti-smoking champion Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., one after another denied that smoking was addictive.

With that, said Brown, "people realized that the tobacco industry will stop at nothing to deceive Americans."

In 1996, the FDA sought to assert jurisdiction over tobacco products, beginning a legal battle that continues to this day.

Source: The Associated Press, 04 June 2009
Link: http://tinyurl.com/p35o9a

WHO calls for enforceable policies to restrict smoking in movies

Backed by evidence that smoking in movies causes youths to want to light up, the World Health Organization is calling upon countries to enact enforceable policies that would severely restrict such depictions. 

The report recommends that all future movies with scenes of smoking should be given an adult rating, with the possible exception of movies that reflect the dangers of tobacco use or that depict smoking by a historical figure who smoked.

Studies show that smoking continues to permeate movies, including those rated as suitable for youth. The policies recommended would help ensure that movies that are marketed to youth do not include tobacco imagery.

"Voluntary agreements to limit smoking in movies have not and cannot work," the report says. It continues, "Logic and science now support enforceable policies to severely restrict smoking imagery in all film media."

WHO Assistant Director-General Dr Ala Alwan said, "The WHO recommendations are evidence-based and very much needed. Tobacco kills more than five million people per year. Each day approximately 100,000 young people take up smoking. Restricting smoking in movies will go a long way towards stemming the tobacco epidemic."

Studies show that smoking in movies misleads youths into thinking that tobacco use is normal, acceptable, socially beneficial and more common that it really is. Studies also show that such movies rarely portray the harm of tobacco, instead portraying the product as conducive of a cool and glamorous lifestyle.

From Hollywood to Bollywood and beyond, movies are a global commodity. National policies to restrict smoking in movies can produce wide-ranging global benefits.

"Smoking does not belong in youth-rated movies", said Dr Douglas Bettcher, Director of WHO's Tobacco Free Initiative. "The more smoking adolescents see on screen, the more likely they are to start smoking. These simple policies can save generations of young people from a lifetime of addiction and an early death from tobacco."

The report also recommends that movie studios should:

Certify that they received no payoffs from tobacco companies to display tobacco products or their use
Stop displaying tobacco brands onscreen
Require strong anti-tobacco advertisements before all movies that have tobacco imagery

The report stresses that enforceable policies eliminate smoking from movies must form part of any comprehensive tobacco control programme.

Source: WHO, 01 June 2009
Link: http://tinyurl.com/ohzwtk

Iran: 25% of deaths are caused by tobacco

Smoking is responsible for 25% of deaths in the country, Iranian Health Minister Kamran Baqeri-Lankarani said.

Speaking on the sidelines of a ceremony on the occasion of the World No Tobacco Day, Lankarani lamented the fact that there was 4%-5% fall in the country’s average smoking age.

About 20% of adult male and 4.5% of adult female population in the country smoke tobacco, Lankarani said.

Smokers comprise 14% of the country’s adult population, the minister said, explaining that the rate is projected to be reduced to less than 10% through a five-year plan.

Calling anti-drug campaign a national responsibility, Lankarani urged all government and non-government organizations to interact well with the Health Ministry to achieve better results.

Lankarani also accused world’s tobacco companies of using "misleading labels" such as mild or light and false images of good health and fitness.

Stressing the importance of putting health warning labels to all cigarette and tobacco packets, the minister called on all governments to adopt tobacco health warnings which appear on both the front and back of the pack and contain pictures in a bid to increase public knowledge about devastating health, social, environmental and economic consequences of tobacco consumption and exposure to tobacco smoke.

Source: Mehr News, 01 June 2009
Link: http://tinyurl.com/qdx6fg

Finland: Anti-smoking law reduces sick leave

According to a report Finland's ban on smoking in restaurants and bars has reduced sick leave taken by workers in those places in the last two years.

The anti-smoking legislation, which took effect on June 1, 2007,bans smoking in restaurants and bars, except those with separate, purpose-built smoking rooms.

As a result, bar and restaurant workers' exposure to cigarette smoke has been significantly reduced, and their susceptibility to lung cancers, heart and vascular diseases has declined, the report released by the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health said.

Before the strict anti-smoking law took effect, the risk of suffering from lung cancers by restaurant and bar workers were two to three times higher than people in other working places, the report said.

Source: Xinhuanet, 02 June 2009
Link: http://tinyurl.com/pmcjhd