HEADLINES

• Working class smoke more
• Officers seize 250,000 cigarettes at Newcastle airport
• Water pipes don't dilute nargilah danger
• Finland: City bans smoking at bus-stops
• India: Poetic crusade against evils of tobacco
• Secondhand smoke laws may reduce childhood ear infections

• Working class smoke more

  According to the Office for National Statistics' General Lifestyle Survey almost twice as many working class people smoke – 29% compared to 15% of those higher up the social ladder.

  The 2009 survey found that for the third year running 21% of adults smoke and 63% want to give up, down from 72% in 2000.

  Amanda Sandford, of anti-smoking group ASH, said: “The smoking rate shows how hard it is to quit.”

  See also:

  - Ban fails to stop smokers - Financial Times

  Source: Daily Mirror - 28 January 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/hACDUf

• Officers seize 250,000 cigarettes at Newcastle airport

  UK Border Agency officers at Newcastle Airport have intercepted more than a quarter of a million cigarettes that were being smuggled into the region.

  The cigarettes were found on four separate flights from the Canary Islands in the past seven days.

  Almost 70kg (154lbs) of hand rolling tobacco was also intercepted.

  The haul, which was found stashed in the hand and hold luggage of a dozen passengers, will now be destroyed.

  Source: BBC News - 27 January 2011
  Link: http://bbc.in/gBIfUN

• Water pipes don't dilute nargilah danger

  Every day, millions of people in the Middle East and growing numbers in the West smoke water pipes - most believing it is far safer than smoking cigarettes. But new Israeli research indicates that it is even more harmful.

  Lea Bentur, head of the Paediatric Pulmonary Unit at the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa, recruited 45 people and gave each a nargilah with a single dose of flavoured tobacco, which they smoked for up to 30 minutes. Afterwards, she tested their carboxyhaemoglobin, meaning the level of the poison carbon monoxide bound to their haemoglobin - and found it to be within a "high toxic range".

  Source: The Jewish Chronicle - 27 January 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/eRDlQH

• Finland: City bans smoking at bus-stops

  The City Council of Oulu has passed the bylaw on smoking after initiatives from the public.

  With the new law, Oulu is the first city in the Barents Region with non-smoking bus-stops.

  Also, smoking has been banned among all City of Oulu employees at any time during working hours.

  Source: Barents Observer - 27 January 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/hz7K2R

• India: Poetic crusade against evils of tobacco

  Anjan Parida has two passions: paan [chewing mixture] and poetry. The former he uses to earn a livelihood and the latter to discourage those addicted to tobacco-related products like gutka [chewing tobacco] and cigarettes.

  His creative soul helps him pour forth his message on papers warning buyers against the ill-effects of tobacco, which he pins up in his shop. 

  The 51-year-old has been running a booth for the past 17 years. His advocacy against gutka products is as old as his shop. Though it's mandatory to put up a notice saying tobacco products are injurious to health, Parida has gone a few steps ahead. He displays dozens of poems highlighting the ill-effects of tobacco. 

  Source: Times of India - 27 January 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/eW58Pt

• Secondhand smoke laws may reduce childhood ear infections

  Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers and colleagues from Research Institute for a Tobacco Free Society have found that a reduction in secondhand smoking in American homes was associated with fewer cases of otitis media, the scientific name for middle ear infection. The study appeared as an online first article on the website of the journal Tobacco Control.

  To determine the number of smoke-free households, the researchers used data from the National Cancer Institute's Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey. They found voluntary no-smoking rules in households nearly doubled from 45% in 1993 to 86% in 2006.

  The researchers found the average annual number of outpatient visits for otitis media in children aged 6 years and younger dropped 5%, and hospital discharges fell by 10% per year from 1993 to 2006. (The researchers note that other factors may have contributed to the decline, including a pneumonia vaccine that was introduced in 2000.)

  Source: BrightSurf - 27 January 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/hYAM5F