HEADLINES

• Tobacco companies' share prices fall
• Stoke City fans offered tour of football stadium if they quit smoking for 4 weeks
• Smoking will kill 1,200 this year in Coventry and Warwickshire
• USA: New guidelines for tobacco products
• China: Smoking industry harming economic health

• Tobacco companies' share prices fall

  Shares in tobacco companies fell after Citigroup reduced its rating on British American Tobacco and Imperial Tobacco from "buy" to "hold". BAT fell 1.4 percent to £24.48 and Imperial fell 1.8 percent to £19.82.
  
  A Citigroup broker said: "Pricing and volume trends have weakened and we expect more bad regulatory news this year. In developed markets smoking could virtually disappear in 20-50 years."

  Source: The Financial Times, 07 January 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/gboXov

• Stoke City fans offered tour of football stadium if they quit smoking for 4 weeks

  Stoke City football fans who stop smoking for four weeks are being rewarded with a tour of the Britannia Stadium.
  
  Supporters who give up smoking for 12 weeks can claim a free match ticket for a Stoke game, or meet a player on the pitch on a matchday.
  
  The incentives are being offered by a private firm Solutions 4 Health which has been recruited by the NHS to try and improve Stoke-on-Trent's stop-smoking rates.

  Source: thisisstaffordshire, 07 January 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/hNUf8M

• Smoking will kill 1,200 this year in Coventry and Warwickshire

  It's estimated that 1,200 smokers who never managed to quit will be killed by their addiction in Coventry and Warwickshire.

  In April last year Coventry became one of the first cities in the UK to launch a tariff system, allowing charities and firms to earn money for every smoker they convinced to quit.

  The city has also launched a Smokefree Alliance and an action plan to curb tobacco use, as well as cracking down on illegal cigarettes.

  NHS Coventry said huge progress had been made over the last decade but smoking rates remained too high and the city’s health was suffering as a result.

  The Coventry Telegraph is teaming up with public health bosses to urge smokers across Coventry and Warwickshire to make a New Year’s resolution to quit.

  Coun Jim O’Boyle, Coventry cabinet member for community services and public health, said: “Quitting smoking is the single most important thing you can do to improve your health.”

  Source: Coventry Telegraph, 05 January 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/igTCVr

• USA: New guidelines for tobacco products

  The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has unveiled guidelines on how tobacco companies can gain agency approval for certain types of new products.
  
  The agency said cigarettes, roll-your-own tobacco and smokeless tobacco must be reviewed by the agency to show they are 'substantially equivalent' to products commercially available on Feb. 15, 2007.
  
  The FDA was given the authority to regulate tobacco products as part of a 2009 law. The agency is not allowed to ban tobacco products.  However, it can impose a requirement that new products are not more dangerous than existing ones.
   

  Source: The Wall Street Journal, 06 January 2011
  Link: http://on.wsj.com/eAf7Qq

• China: Smoking industry harming economic health

  An International panel of experts warns that lost productivity from smoking related health problems will hamper China's economic growth as the cost incurred by smoking far exceeds the contribution from the tobacco industry in terms of profits and jobs.

  The warnings, issued in a report prepared by a group of prominent public health experts and economists, came amid growing calls for the government to give stronger support to tobacco-control measures.

  Currently, the tobacco industry employs roughly 10 million people and generates more than 7.5 percent of total government revenues, official statistics showed.

  Zhi Xiuyi, director of the Lung Cancer Treatment Centre of Capital Medical University said, "That undermines China's fundamental goal for sustainable social and economic development as well as people's basic right to health.”

  "Considering the long-term benefits, the Chinese government should work harder to prevent more deaths from smoking. It's a major health and economic issue for the nation," said Jeffrey Koplan, vice-president for global health at the Georgia-based Emory University in the US.

  Source: Eastday, 07 January 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/hh67Ry