HEADLINES

• Smokers: kicking the habit may improve your personality
• Bulgaria: Deal sealed to sell Bulgarian tobacco company
• New Zealand: Inmates take to carrot sticks after smoking ban
• Ireland: Warning as £3m tobacco seizure bound for Ulster
• New global killers: heart, lung disease and cancer
• Malawi: Child labour: the tobacco industry's smoking gun

• Smokers: kicking the habit may improve your personality

  Kicking the cigarette habit reveals some surprising new benefits beyond cleaner lungs. Snuffing out smoking may also improve your personality, curbing traits such as neuroticism and impulsivity, according to new research.

  Study lead author Andrew Littlefield of the University of Missouri in the US found that people who are more impulsive, more emotionally negative, and more anxious are also more likely to smoke. Researchers compared people, aged 18 to 35, who smoked with those who had quit smoking.

  Kicking the habit revealed its biggest decline in these personality traits in participants aged 18 to 25.

  "Smokers at age 18 had higher impulsivity rates than nonsmokers at age 18, and those who quit tended to display the steepest declines in impulsivity between ages 18 and 25," Littlefield said. For older smokers, he adds, smoking becomes part of a regular behaviour pattern, driven by habit, craving, and tolerance, rather than personality traits such as impulsivity.

  Meanwhile a separate study has revealed that quitting smoking, or even trying to quit, will not only improve a person’s health but might also improve mood.   This study, published in Nicotine and Tobacco Research, tracked symptoms of depression in people who were trying to quit smoking. Study subjects described themselves as "never happier" as when they were successful at quitting, for however long that was. This counters the assumption that giving up smoking, often considered a stress-coping mechanism for many people, leads to better health but often at a psychological cost.

  Source: The Independent, 14 September 2011
  Link: http://ind.pn/nTwo26

• Bulgaria: Deal sealed to sell Bulgarian tobacco company

  Bulgaria's privatisation agency has sealed a deal to sell cigarette maker Bulgartabak to a unit of Russia's VTB Bank for 100.1 million euros ($136.1 million), the agency said on Tuesday.

  Austrian-registered BT Invest, controlled by Russia's second biggest lender, won the tender to buy a 79.8 percent stake in the Balkan country's dominant tobacco company. It was the only bidder for the stake after British American Tobacco withdrew from the competition.

  The deal will be finalised after receiving approval from the Commission for Protection of Competition.

  The Balkan country's centre-right government has been keen to sell Bulgartabak, which holds a 36 percent market share, to bolster public revenues and ensure a market for Bulgarian tobacco.

  Bulgartabak's sale is a politically sensitive issue in the European Union's poorest member state because many of the country's ethnic Turks, who make up about 10 percent of the population of 7.4 million, are tobacco growers.

  The privatisation of the cigarette maker failed in previous years due to political wrangling and pressure from interest groups benefiting from cigarette smuggling and state-financed contracts.
   

  Source: London South East, 13 September 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/onGEH8

• New Zealand: Inmates take to carrot sticks after smoking ban

  Prisoners have taken up exercise, carrot sticks and dried nuts since a nationwide smoking ban at prisons began.

  In the first two months of the ban, which has cost the health system more than $1 million, only 30 prisoners from a total of about 8700 had been caught smoking, the Corrections Department said yesterday.

  In the same period, 353 items of tobacco or smoking equipment were found in prison or being smuggled in.

  Last month, for example 50 grams of tobacco were found stitched inside a pair of slippers being sent by mail to a Christchurch Women's Prison inmate.

  Prison Services spokesman Brendan Anstiss said yesterday that the smoking ban implementation had gone "very smoothly" and the vast majority of smoking prisoners had taken up nicotine replacement therapy, such as patches.

  "This was complemented by the other support mechanisms on offer, like participating in exercise activities, choosing healthy food options such as carrot sticks or dried fruit or nuts and relying on the support of fellow prisoners and our health staff and calling the Quitline."

  Dr Anstiss said many prisoners had seen the ban as an opportunity to kick the habit, with good support on offer.

  Health Ministry figures show the cost of nicotine replacement therapy was about $100,000 for the year ending June 2010, the year in which prisons began receiving a direct supply of nicotine replacement products, and about $950,000 in the year ending June 2011.

  Source: The Dominion Post, 14 September 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/oNibwE

• Ireland: Warning as £3m tobacco seizure bound for Ulster

  The seizure of almost £3m worth of smuggled cigarettes in Dublin should serve as a reminder that anyone buying them here is “funding the murder of their neighbours”, it has been claimed.

  Former PSNI assistant chief constable Alan McQuillan – now an international crime consultant – gave the warning after Irish customs officers seized eight million cigarettes in Dublin which “were destined for the Northern Ireland market”.

  A report by the International Monitoring Commission (IMC) in March strongly linked cigarette smuggling to dissident republican groups CIRA and the RIRA. One month after the IMC report a dissident republican bomb claimed the life of PSNI constable Ronan Kerr in Omagh.

  The Dublin contraband was seized on Monday at the city’s port and is estimated to have a retail value of £2.7m and a loss to the Irish exchequer of £2.2m. The illegal consignment arrived in Dublin from Spain in a 40ft maritime container declared as “paper products” and contained “Regal”, “Richman” and “Hoop” brand cigarettes.

  
  A spokeswoman for the Irish customs office said this latest seizure brings the total number of cigarettes it has seized to date in 2011 to around 87 million, with a total retail value of about £28.9m.

  Former Assets Recovery Agency chief Mr McQuillan said the seizure of cigarettes in Dublin would cause “serious damage” to dissidents.

  “It seems quite clear that dissident republicans are inextricably linked to organised crime and they are probably using this money to fund paramilitary operations,” he said.

  “But really what you have here is organised crime gangs. It has to be priority for the community to get behind the police in order to stop these economic and terrorist crimes.

  “I am delighted to see this seizure in Dublin but what we really need is for people to stop buying illegal cigarettes.

  “They need to know that their money is going to kill their neighbours through dissident republican terrorism.”

  Source: News Letter, 14 September 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/qaapid

• New global killers: heart, lung disease and cancer

  Next week, the U.N. General Assembly will hold its first summit on chronic diseases — cancer, diabetes and heart and lung disease. Those account for nearly two-thirds of deaths worldwide, or about 36 million. In the United States, they kill nearly 9 out of 10 people. They have common risk factors, such as smoking and sedentary lifestyles, and many are preventable.

  But the problem is spreading to poorer nations that are less equipped to deal with these diseases. For example, until a few years ago Ethiopia had one cancer specialist, Dr. Bogale Solomon, for more than 80 million people.

  "Now three more oncologists have joined," he said, and these four doctors struggle to treat patients in a country where cancer drugs and even painkillers are in short supply.

  "Practically all cancer-related medicines are either nonexistent or beyond the reach of ordinary Ethiopians," he said. "We are struggling to make a difference here."

  Advocates may be struggling to make a difference at the U.N., too. Key officials have been unable to agree before the meeting on specific goals — reducing certain diseases or risk factors such as smoking by a specific amount and date. With the global economy in turmoil, finding money to meet any goals could be an even bigger hurdle.

  "The timing is difficult with the economy the way it is, but it should not prevent us from setting goals," said Dr. Sidney Smith, who heads the World Heart Federation, an umbrella group of more than 200 organizations focused on heart disease.

  "Many of the things we're proposing cost very little" and some, such as smoking cessation, even save money, said Smith, a cardiologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "We're not talking about trying to find a new magic bullet. We're just talking about behavior and cost-effective medicines" like aspirin and generic blood pressure drugs that lower the risk of multiple diseases, he said.

  This is only the second time the U.N. has taken up a health issue. The previous one in 2001 led to creation of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, with billions from governments and private groups such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

  Now even rich nations are cash-strapped, and it's unclear whether private groups will step in. Asked whether the U.N. meeting would alter its focus, the Gates Foundation indicated it would not.

  "Unfortunately, there is a lack of comparable investment in infectious diseases, which disproportionately affect the world's poorest," said a statement from the foundation. "Our priority will continue to be investing in cost-effective treatments that lead to maximum impact and fill in a gap where other resources are not invested."

  John Seffrin, CEO of the American Cancer Society, said the U.N. session must lead to specific goals and more money, or a chance to make a difference with these diseases may be lost for decades.

  "This is our moment in the sun," he said. "A resolution alone is insufficient."

  Source: The Washington Examiner, 14 September 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/oYqm3i

• Malawi: Child labour: the tobacco industry's smoking gun

  The Guardian reviews the ongoing problem of child labour in the production of tobacco in Malawi where child workers as young as five are being exposed to the toxic dangers of tobacco harvesting.

   

  
   

  Source: The Guardian, 14 September 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/r2Zxn0