HEADLINES

• Lancashire mums lead illegal tobacco crackdown
• Rochdale: Asian communities warned of tobacco risks
• Mother who has never smoked a cigarette has terminal lung disease because of her parents' 60-a-day habit
• US Navy bans tobacco use on its submarine fleet
• Smoking bans and economics hit famed Cuban cigars

• Lancashire mums lead illegal tobacco crackdown

  Mums in central Lancashire who are worried about the impact illegal tobacco is having on their communities have inspired a new crack down which hopes to ‘Get Some Answers’ about how it ends up in the hands of children and young people.

  More than 8,000 teenagers aged 14 to 17 in the North West admitted to regularly buying fake cigarettes last year, according to a survey by Trading Standards in the North West.* A recent You Gov survey** highlighted that 74 per cent of people support a crack down on tobacco smuggling. Around 75 per cent of people – many of them mums – who took part in a 2009 NEMS survey were more likely to report someone for selling tobacco if they thought their own children may be at risk from being targeted.

  Responding to this and public concern, the ‘Get Some Answers’ Campaign is being launched today by Smokefree North West and enforcement teams from Trading Standards in central Lancashire.

  Mary Kiddy, consultant nurse for health protection with NHS Central Lancashire, said: “Illegal tobacco is easily available and cheap, making it a key reason why children and young people are able to start smoking. This campaign will now give parents the opportunity to change things and tackle this problem.”

  The campaign, which is being launched today [June 21], will specifically target mums and other concerned residents with clean graffiti adverts, street teams, large billboards and posters to encourage people to report illegal tobacco activity that is happening in their area.

  ‘Get Some Answers’ will ask residents to call crime stoppers or trading standards confidentially with any information they have. Andrea Crossfield, director of Smokefree North West said: “Smoking is an addiction of childhood with most smokers – 80 per cent – starting as teenagers. Tackling illicit tobacco is crucial if we’re going to prevent future generations form taking up smoking.”

  Lancashire's chief trading standards officer Jim Potts said: sert name] said: “We know there are many concerned residents who may not have known how serious this issue is or what action to take. Our research shows that across the North West one in five adult smokers admits to buying illegal cigarettes or tobacco.

  “Many people may be tempted to buy tobacco from an acquaintance at work or in the pub who takes regular trips abroad – no questions asked and without realising the damage it is doing in their communities.”

  “We are encouraging people in central Lancashire residents to stop and think about where their cheap tobacco originally comes from, even if they think they’re buying from a trusted source.”

  Source: The Citizen - 21 June 2010
  Link: http://bit.ly/dwVIB3

• Rochdale: Asian communities warned of tobacco risks

  Local health experts are warning the Asian community that an after-dinner treat offered to family and friends could have deadly consequences.

  Chewing tobacco is a hidden killer say experts, because people do not know it can cause cancer.

  Dr Amjad Hussain from the NHS Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale Oral Health Promotion Department said: “Chewing tobacco has many disguises, such as paan masala, gutkha and bidis, and is often offered to guests at family events and on social occasions.

  “Its bright, professional packaging hides its deadly potential. People may not even realise it’s tobacco, it’s addictive and, like cigarette tobacco, contains many cancer-causing carcinogens. As it is chewed, people keep it in the mouth for a long time increasing the risk of mouth cancer.

  “Mouth cancer is also one of the more difficult cancers to treat effectively. So people need to know the risks and be visiting their dentists regularly so any signs can be spotted early.”

  To highlight the risks, and reduce the harm chewing tobacco can do, council and NHS health experts recently joined forces to host an event at Rochdale’s Bangladesh Association Community Project.

  At the event, Centre Manager Mr Habibul Ahad said: “I have chewed paan masala for a good many years. After dinner, I’ll often sit on the settee with a jar of paan masala beside me. It’s something I do while I relax and talk - a social pastime.

  “I was shocked at how harmful chewing tobacco can be. My mother-in-law has offered me a new pack recently but I’m not going to open it. Now I hope to check my temptation and stop using it altogether.”

  To be sold legally there must be clear warning notices on packaging and in stores. Like cigarettes, it must not be sold to under 18s.

  Rochdale Borough Council Consumer Protection Manager, Andy Glover said: “We are keen to work with local traders to help make sure that they know what chewing tobacco is, the harm it can cause and the warnings that they must give to their customers about it. We also want to tackle the illegal trade in chewing tobacco as we are very worried that it is being offered to children.” 

  Source: Rochdale Online - 21 June 2010
  Link: http://bit.ly/aLAQOO

• Mother who has never smoked a cigarette has terminal lung disease because of her parents' 60-a-day habit

  A mother is suffering from a terminal smoking disease - even though she has never had a cigarette in her life.

  Lynda Mitchell, 52, is dying from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, but has always despised tobacco.

  The mother of one blames the illness on her parents who each puffed 60 cigarettes a day.

  The former factory worker yesterday issued a stark warning to parents about the hazards of smoking around their children.

  Lynda, of Withywood, Bristol, said: 'I will die from second hand smoke and I have never smoked in my life.

  'My mum used to get up in the morning and light a cigarette. She smoked about 60 a day.

  'I'd get up in the morning and the first thing that would hit me when I walked down the stairs was the vile smell of smoke. I would cough and cough until I was nearly sick.

  'Nobody realised the devastating effects of smoking 50 years ago, they just thought it was fashionable.

  'As I got older the information started to filter down about how smoking is bad for you and I was desperate for her to stop as a teenager.

  'When mum realised what I had she stopped smoking indoors, but that was the 90s really. The damage was already done. I was finished.'

  Lynda suffered a severe bout of pneumonia at the ageof one and went on to develop serious asthma.

  She was even sent to boarding school at the age of nine for five years in a bid to expose her to more fresh air.

  Lynda always 'knew' her mother June Evans, now 72, was aggravating the problems by smoking, but says no one knew the dangers of second-hand smoking.

  She added: 'I'm proof that second hand smoking can kill. Your lungs aren't fully formed until you're 25. People are killing their children with second hand smoke.

  'They know absolutely and categorically - the evidence is out there - that they're killing their children.
  'One cigarette in your car, even with the window down, is like forcing a child to spend an evening in a nightclub full of smokers.'

  Lynda was officially diagnosed with COPD in 2003, but doctors believe she had been suffering from the condition since the 1980s.

  The disease is a chronic combination of bronchitis and emphysema caused by noxious particles or gas that trigger an inflammatory response in the lungs.

  As the air passages become narrower and eventually become fixed lung capacity is diminished making the simple act of breathing impossible.

  The disease has left Lynda with only 22 per cent function in her lungs and she relies on oxygen 24 hours a day to breathe.

  Lynda also takes an astonishing course of 20 to 25 medications everyday, including painkillers and steroids, to protect the little bit of lung capacity she has left.

  She cannot dress, wash, or even make a cup of tea by herself as she gets too exhausted, and relies on husband Sean, 52, and daughter Amy, 24, to help her live.

  The disease is terminal. Doctors cannot give her a precise prognosis, but she will eventually die from the disease.

  Lynda is now backing a campaign by the British Lung Foundation to ban smoking in cars where passengers are under 18.

  She added: 'If I hadn't been surrounded by smoke I think I would have been a lot better. I wouldn't be sat here talking to you about dying.

  'My mum loves me, and I love my mum and she wouldn't intentionally hurt me. But there's no excuse now really.

  'I am not trying to make parents give up smoking all together, I just want people to be aware of the affect it can have on other peoples lives.

  'I am dying a very horrid, very slow death, please don't let the same happen to your children.'
  Lynda's stepfather Ray Evans, who joined the family when she was two, passed away in 1990 from lung cancer at the age of 60.

  Her mother June, now 72, is currently suffering from emphysema and was diagnosed with aggressive skin cancer two years ago.

  Lynda cannot walk unaided and relies on a wheelchair or mobility scooter to leave the house.
  June said: 'If I'd realised the damage smoking would do to my children then I would never have done it around them.

  'Once I realised what it was doing to Lynda I never smoked around her again. People know now that they shouldn't smoke around their children, especially in cars.

  She added: 'If I hadn't have given up smoking six and a half years ago I would be dead by now.'   

  Source: Daily Mail - 22 June 2010
  Link: http://bit.ly/9zrEqj

• US Navy bans tobacco use on its submarine fleet

  The smoking lamp is going out all across the Navy’s submarine fleet, where the mission to “run silent, run deep” now will be carried out by sailors ordered to run undersea operations without cigarettes, cigars or pipes.

  This is the latest front in the long war against tobacco declared by the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Their programs to help military personnel kick the smoking habit are intended to protect the health of the current force — and to save the government hundreds of millions of dollars a year in health care costs for those who have served, and smoked, in uniform.

  The Navy is cognizant that military service is stressful, especially in long and lonely deployments under the sea. Everybody is aware that smoking is a legal, if harmful, stress reliever.

  So the Navy banned smoking aboard submarines not with the stated purpose of curing the smokers, but of protecting nonsmoking submarine crew members from the threat of heart and lung disease from secondhand smoke.

  “Recent testing has proven that, despite our atmosphere purification technology, there are unacceptable levels of secondhand smoke in the atmosphere of a submerged submarine,” said Vice Adm. John J. Donnelly, commander of submarine forces. “The only way to eliminate risk to our nonsmoking sailors is to stop smoking aboard our submarines.”

  The Navy did not order its submariners to quit cold turkey. For the 5,000 sailors who admitted to being smokers among the submarine fleet’s 13,000 crew members — that is just shy of 40 percent — the ban goes into effect at the end of the year.

  In the meantime, a senior petty officer aboard each hunter-killer submarine and each nuclear ballistic missile boat will serve as a “smoking cessation coordinator,” helping sailors wean themselves off the habit through discipline — and a ready supply of nicotine gum, nicotine patches and other replacement therapies.

  There are no plans to impose a “smokeless Navy.” Aboard surface warships, smoking is allowed in specially designated — and open — areas. Across the Navy, those who wish to quit smoking can attend classroom programs. And in many Navy and Marine Corps locations, those wishing to quit can receive help from physicians, dentists and pharmacists during a health care visit.

  About one-third of all military personnel say they are smokers. While smoking is banned in basic training, more than a third of the current smokers across the armed services say they started after they went on active duty.

  The military and cigarettes have a long history, in both combat practice and combat lore. When America went to war in the past, tobacco went with them and cigarettes were part of military rations. But they are no longer contained in the Meals Ready to Eat field food packages, as the Defense Department does not want to officially encourage smoking.

  Now that legacy is seen only in the water-resistant matches placed in combat rations and officially defended as a survival tool. (But has anybody in Iraq had to build a campfire lately?)

  While supporting efforts to help the troops cut back on smoking, senior Pentagon officials rebuffed proposals to ban tobacco use in the combat zone, having assessed that personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan had enough pressure to deal with already.

  Even as the Pentagon tries to quash cigarette smoking, the lore remains.

  The superstition about bringing down bad luck if you are “third on a match” has roots stretching to World War I, when soldiers came to believe that you could light two cigarettes off one match without being spotted, but that lighting up the third cigarette gave enemy snipers ample time to ready, aim and fire.

  Even more archaic is the maritime term “smoking lamp.”

  According to a Navy history Web site, this phrase dates to the 16th century, when a lamp was stoked near the ship’s galley to draw tobacco users away from where gunpowder was stored.

  The term has survived as a nautical figure of speech.

  “The smoking lamp is lit” designates those times and places for smoking; but when a skipper says, “The smoking lamp is out,” it means crush out your cigarettes now.

  A ban on smoking is not the only change in life and culture charted for the submarine force.

  The Pentagon is lifting a decades-old ban on women serving aboard submarines, which will be phased in as the undersea vessels are retrofitted over coming years for coed life and work by 2012. Women went to sea aboard surface warships in 1993.

  Source: New York Times - 20 June 2010
  Link: http://nyti.ms/bO2jNh

• Smoking bans and economics hit famed Cuban cigars

  Global economic woes and the worldwide spread of smoking bans are taking their toll on Cuba's famous cigar industry, with the just-completed harvest of the country's finest tobacco down 14 percent over 2009, local media said on Monday.

  In westernmost Pinar del Rio, home of Cuba's most famous tobacco, the harvest came in at 22.4 million leaves, down from 26 million in 2009, according to Guerrillero, the province's Communist party weekly.

  The area's tobacco is used as wrapper leaf and part of the filling in Cuba's prized cigar brands, including Cohiba, Montecristo, Trinidad and Partagas.

  "There was a reduction in planting due to limitations in resources caused by the economic crisis," the weekly said.

  Cuba's premium cigars dominate the world market with 70 percent of sales.

  That jealously guarded market share excludes the United States, where Cuba's cigars are banned under the 48-year-old U.S. trade embargo against the communist-led island.

  But the industry has fallen on hard times in recent years, with production of cigars for export down from 217 million in 2006, to 123 million in 2007 and just 73 million last year as the business drew on its stored inventory, the government reported this month.

  Cash-strapped Cuba cut the amount of land devoted to growing its famous tobacco by more than 30 percent last year.

  Sales from cigar exports fell to $218 million in 2009, down from $243 million in 2008.

  In contrast, domestic demand for lower-quality cigars, which cost as little as a few cents and are made from tobacco grown elsewhere in the country, showed no sign of slowing.

  About 300 million were produced last year, compared with 278 million in 2008, the government said.

  The exclusive distributor of Cuban cigars, Habanos S.A., a joint venture between Cuba and British tobacco giant Imperial Tobacco Group Plc, was not immediately available for comment.

  Some 200,000 private farmers and family members depend on growing and curing the precious leaf under contract with the government. Tens of thousands of workers earn their living hand rolling the crop into the famous "Habanos" or "Puros" for export.

  Source: Reuters - 21 June 2010
  Link: http://bit.ly/cdD30q